But werewolves also didn’t catch human diseases any more than vampires did. Most of them, anyway. If any pathogen could overcome an alpha’s healing ability, it’d be the kind of toe fungus that thrived in a dump like this.
“I thought alpha werewolves slept in their leather jackets,” I said by way of hello. “You know, trying to be cool twenty-four seven.”
Jack stepped back and let me in, shutting the door behind me. The place didn’t look much more inviting from a couple of feet inside. Bed with a threadbare polyester bedspread in an eye-gouging combination of burgundy and yellow, nightstand scarred by decades of people chopping lines on it, lamp, a chair that probably hosted its own species of fungus pushed up against a small desk. As I expected.
“Slept with a lot of alphas, have you?” Jack strolled over to the bed and dropped down on it, lounging back against the headboard.
The look of pure revulsion I shot him made him grin and chuckle.
“I’ll take that as a no. Too bad. You’re missing out.”
“Yeah? Your mate sure as fuck doesn’t think—” I cut myself off a second too late.
And it wiped the smile right off his face. Guilt stabbed me in the side, accompanied by a tiny, shameful flash of vicious satisfaction.
I bit my lip. Fuck him. Egotistical jerk.
Still. He’d almost looked handsome smiling like that, for an overgrown muscle-bound canid-thing, those too-hard features made softer, the pale eyes warmer. And reversing that transformation, causing the lines around his eyes and mouth to become visible again, felt…unkind.
But again, fuck him. I worried about kindness when it came to cats (of the non-shifter variety), children (of any variety, be they cat shifters, human, or other—even gnome kids were cute), and anyone who might be making my drinks out of my sight (for purely practical reasons).
Everyone else could go jump in a lake.
“My brother’s not an alpha,” Jack said after an uncomfortable pause. Yeah, okay, I’d gone too far. But Irefusedto feel guilty about it. More guilty. Excessively guilty, anyway. “That might have something to do with it. Brent never liked alphas much. Which makes me wonder why he decided to mate with one.”
And now Jack sounded more sad than angry.
Oh, fucking Madonna mia. Now I felt like an asshole, no two ways about it. Maybe I should walk it back a little.
“I’m sure you have some redeeming qualities.” Shit. I cleared my throat and prepared to try again, since that hadn’t walked anything anywhere, except maybe into a deeper hole. “You’re obviously a devoted brother. I mean, he fucked your mate and you still haven’t given up on him.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at me, and I forced myself not to fidget, facepalm, or actually, gods forbid, apologize. The hell was wrong with me?
“Maybe you should stop talking now,” Jack said at last, in a tone too even and neutral to be genuine.
I definitely should have. But I’d had quite a few questions brewing in my mind on the drive over.
“Do you think they were screwing behind your back for a while? Or just the once? And what did your mate steal?”
Jack’s whole body went tense, his massive shoulders going as hard as rocks. And then he stood up. I tensed in turn, my gums itching with the urge to drop fang. Jack prowled toward me, looming in a way that I should’ve been used to by now from nearly everyone but that still pissed me off mightily. His body ran at least a degree or two hotter than mine; my enhanced senses picked it up after he’d crossed the few feet between us and stopped scant inches from me. I had to tip my head up to look into his face.
When I did, I found that he’d tilted his down to peer into mine.
My skin warmed with his proximity, and I could feel the soft gusts of his breath on my lips. It smelled like mint, but somehow not like the bland, soapy mint of the toothpaste he’d undoubtedly used. Transmuted by the magic of his body, it had an invigorating freshness like wild mint growing in a forest.
Or maybe it didn’t have anything to do with his magic.
Maybe that was simply him.
Well, fuck me sideways. Werewolves usually didn’t smell great to me, mostly because their blood made me want to puke.
I had the feeling Jack’s blood might be delicious.
Fuck me sidewaystwice.
“They fucked once,” Jack said softly, wafting more of his forest scent across my face. I had to fight the urge to close my eyes and inhale deeply. “I’d have smelled my brother on him if they’d done it before. Yes, even with all the showers and deodorant in the world. And I’m still trying to help Jake because he’s my twin, and because I can’t kick his ass if he dies in a fucking coma.”
I blinked up at him, trying not to laugh despite the looming, heated presence of this damnably wonderful-smelling alpha werewolf and his sob story.
