It didn’t change any of his worries about her safety as an Alpha female, but it at least meant that she couldn’t be intimidated into submitting. “You must be proud to be a salient submissive.”

“I often wonder if it means Mika would have been a salient dominant.” Watching as his brow creased, she asked, “Another headache?”

He shook his head. “No. I hate hearing pain and tears in your voice. It cuts through me. You’re not ever allowed to cry. Ever. I really can’t take it when you cry.”

“There’s something I don’t get. If you’re so worried about whether you’re truly healed, what made you come here? What changed?”

“I found out you’d gone. The idea that I’d never see you again, never get to touch you…It made me realize just how important you are to me. All of a sudden, all that other shit fell away, faded into the background. My pack, my issues…they didn’t seem significant anymore. And that’s because, compared to you, they’re not.” He cocked his head as he studied her intently. “Have you really been happy these six past months, Shay? Really?”

“If I said I was…?” She wasn’t, of course.

“I’d still want the chance to see if you can be happier with me.” When wariness entered her expression, he kept one arm tightly locked around her while sliding his free hand through her hair and around to her nape. He squeezed lightly, as if it would help him get through to her. “You can trust me.” He dabbed a light kiss on her neck. His wolf growled in approval as her scent washed over him. “You can trust me.” He dabbed another kiss on her neck and then licked his way to the hollow beneath her ear. He scraped his teeth over the spot and then sucked at it. Releasing a soft moan, she dug her fingers into his shoulder, and he thought she’d shove him away. She didn’t. “I’ll never leave you again, Shay.”

Lifting his head to examine her expression, he saw several emotions flash across her face—all of which had come and gone too quickly for him to identify them. “Not ever, I swear.” He brushed his mouth against hers and nipped her lip. “I’m not asking you to let me claim you straightaway if you’re not ready for that yet. But I’m asking you to let me in a little.”

Looking into those dusky-green eyes, Shaya saw a possible future there. She saw everything she would ever have wanted. With all the things she’d said and done to him these last few weeks, she’d pushed him to the brink; she’d hurt him and his pride, but he was still here. And now that Nick had told her everything, now that she knew the complete truth and understood all of why he hadn’t claimed her initially, the pain inside her eased. Oh, she still wanted to smack him over the head for not telling her all this before, but knowing Nick as she did, she could understand why he hadn’t. More importantly, she understood that he’d never meant to or wanted to hurt her. Still…“Fuck up this one chance and I’ll cut off your balls, put them in a blender, and make a margarita out of them.”

He winced, smiling. “Understood.” Sweeping the pad of his thumb across her velvety soft bottom lip, he asked in a whisper, “Does this mean you’re willing to let me in a little?”

“Yes.”

Satisfaction, exhilaration, and triumph rushed through him. “I need your mouth, Shay,” he growled. “Open for me.” His tongue shot inside to find hers, groaning at her taste. It wasn’t a kiss. It was an explosion. An explosion of need, of heat, of desperation.

Needing to go deeper, Nick knotted a hand in her curls and angled her head how he wanted it. When she tried taking control of the kiss, he growled into her mouth and tightened his hold on her hair. She softened slightly, and he growled again—this time in approval. He slid his other hand down to her ass and cupped it possessively. It was the hottest ass, and it was his. He rocked her h*ps against his, making them both groan. At the sound of a heavy knock on the front door, they broke apart.

“Nick, you need to get out here,” called Derren.

“What is it?” Nick gritted out.

“Trust me, you need to get out here.”

Squeezing his eyes closed as he dug deep for self-restraint, Nick took a long breath. “I’ll be right there.” Opening his eyes again, he nearly groaned aloud at the heated expression on Shaya’s face. “We need to postpone this for now, baby. But later, when I’ve finally got you in bed, nothing will stop me from getting inside you.” It was as much a warning as it was a promise. Shaya’s nod of acceptance settled something deep inside him. “But until then…” He bit her. Bit down hard in the crook of her neck, wanting and needing to mark her in some way, just as he’d been aching to since first laying eyes on her. She moaned and held his head close. He took the hint and sucked hard, ensuring it was a definitive mark that no one could miss.

Keeping Shaya behind him, Nick opened the door. Whatever he’d been expecting to find outside, it hadn’t been the rebels.

“We thought you might want to know,” began one of them, “someone vandalized the salon where your mate works last night.”

CHAPTER TEN

Before Nick’s car had fully come to a stop, Shaya was attempting to jump out of the passenger seat. She might have been successful if Nick’s arm hadn’t clamped around her waist.

“Wait.” He didn’t release her until she nodded.

Shaya thought it was strange how he could sound so unyielding yet so gentle at the same time. Taking a proper look outside, her mouth fell open in horror as she saw the front windows of the salon almost completely shattered and the door hanging from its hinge. Pieces of broken glass littered the sidewalk like glistening diamonds, and the salon’s sign had been splashed with black paint. “Oh my God.” Her wolf whined, anxious and angry.

Once Nick had opened the passenger door, Shaya was out of the vehicle and dashing toward the salon only to, once again, be hampered by an arm around her.

“It’s okay, baby, Kent’s not inside. He’s over there.”

Kent caught sight of her at the same time as she spotted him, and then they were hugging each other hard. “Thank God you’re okay,” said Shaya. Her words came out in a rush. “When I heard what happened I started panicking that maybe you’d been hurt and then you weren’t answering your cell and my mind was just running away with me and I was imagining you dead, covered in blood and—”

Kent poked her shoulder. “For God’s sake, woman, breathe. I’m fine, really. The damage was done last night. I sent Paisley home a few minutes ago. She was white as a sheet.”

Draping a supportive, comforting arm around Shaya, Nick gave Kent a half smile. “What about you?” At that moment, Derren appeared at their side.

“I don’t think there are words to describe what I’m feeling right now.”

“How much damage is there?” asked Nick.

“Damage is a mild word for this,” said Shaya. “It looks like a tsunami hit it.” Nick’s hand slid around her throat, and his thumb massaged her nape soothingly. His presence and his touch anchored her when she wouldn’t have believed anything could at such a time.

“Shaya’s right, this is beyond damage or vandalism. This is…” Derren broke off, searching for an explanation that seemed to be just out of his reach. But it wasn’t out of Nick’s reach.

“Personal,” finished Nick. “It seems personal.”

“How bad is it?” Shaya asked Kent.

Kent puffed out a long breath. “Bad. Bottles of shampoo and conditioner have been poured everywhere. The mirrors have all been smashed. The leather chairs have been slashed with scissors. To add to that, broken mugs and plates are scattered all over the kitchenette, and the contents of the fridge have been thrown around. And then there’s the office—it looks like a hurricane hit it. Papers and magazines and notebooks and files are all over the places. The computer hard drive, monitor, and keyboard have been completely wrecked. What’s baffling the police is that the safe hasn’t been touched and neither has the till. But I have a pretty good idea why that is.” Noticing Nick’s confusion, Kent added, “For the same reason that the vandals entered through the back door. That’s right: The damage to the front door wasn’t done out of a necessity to get inside—they basically did it for sport, along with the rest. The reason for that is the extremists are involved. I recognized a few of the scents.”

“The extremists?” echoed Shaya.

Kent’s voice was gravelly with emotion. “All I can think is they discovered I’m a half-shifter.”

Before Kent had even revealed the extremists’ involvement, Nick had known they were responsible, because he could clearly see Logan among the gathering humans. His expression was smug and daring. Little bastard. Vandalizing Nick’s mate’s—or girlfriend, as Logan believed—place of work definitely counted as personal and was definitely one very good way to rile him.

As both Shaya and Kent tracked Nick’s hard gaze, they each snarled at Logan as the same realization dawned on them.

“He’s got balls, showing up here after what he’s done,” hissed Kent, moving toward him. Derren’s hand on Kent’s arm stopped him.

“Not balls,” said Derren. “He’s hoping Nick will react.” Derren briefly explained the situation. Nick had expected Kent to be pissed with him, to blame him to some degree for bringing this trouble to his salon. But Kent gave Nick a look of sympathy.

“I can’t imagine what you must have gone through in that place. A lot of shifters don’t last in juvie.”

“You’re not going to blame me for what happened to your business?”

Kent frowned. “Why would I do that? He did what he did because he’s a bastard, not because of you. Besides, I was expecting it to happen sooner or later—though I thought it would be because they discovered I’m a half-shifter.”

As Nick’s eyes again locked on Logan, Shaya could almost feel his fury. Enraged though she was, she knew better than to confront Logan, particularly right now in front of all these people and a news reporter—oh yeah, any crime that might possibly be related to shifters counted as news. “Nick, don’t give him what he wants.” He didn’t respond. “Look at me.” Finally, he did. “Don’t play into his hands.”

“Right now, I need to make some calls,” announced Kent. “I need to get some people out here to deal with this mess.” He patted Shaya’s hand. “You need to go home.” When Shaya opened her mouth to object, he raised a hand. “There’s nothing you can do here. All you’ll be doing by sticking around is upsetting yourself. Now go. You’d say the same thing to me if it was the other way around.”

Sighing in defeat, she nodded and gave Kent another hug. Then Nick was leading her back to his car, his eyes again on Logan. “Nick, don’t play into his hands,” she repeated.

Oh, Nick had no intention of doing that, despite how livid he was. Still, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have a little chat with the human. “Baby, I need you to get inside the car.”

“Nick, don’t.”

“I’m not going to touch him. I just need to have a little talk with him.”

“Your version of ‘talking’ is often fighting.” He stubbornly didn’t budge. “Promise me you won’t rise to anything he says.”

“I promise. Now get in.”

She sighed. “I’m trusting you to keep your word. Don’t abuse that trust.”

Once she was inside the car, Nick slowly made his way to Logan, who gave Nick a mockingly sympathetic look that made his wolf growl. “This place looks bad. I’ll bet your girlfriend and her friend are pretty upset.”

Drawing on every bit of control and experience he had at suppressing his emotions, Nick kept his face blank.

When Logan didn’t get a reaction, he continued, “The police think it’s something to do with the turf war that’s going on between the shifters.” He pursed his lips. “It makes sense. You know, you’ll want to be careful that your redhead isn’t targeted next time.”

His wolf growled at the veiled threat, but he didn’t urge Nick to lunge at the human because he knew as well as Nick just what game Logan was playing. “You haven’t thought this through.”

A frown marred the human’s face. “Haven’t thought what through?”

“You may have done this to piss me off, but it won’t have been only me this has affected. As you said, the police are speculating that the local shifters are responsible. The local shifters won’t like that. They’ll know that if they want to find out who is responsible, all they’ll have to do is take one footstep inside the salon—the scent of the perpetrators will be right there for them to sense.”

Logan swallowed hard in a nervous movement.

“Then, naturally, they’ll seek out said perpetrators for not only implicating them in a crime they didn’t commit, but committing that crime on their turf. Congratulations, Logan, you not only just succeeded in uniting all the local shifters on something, you earned yourself more enemies than you’ll know what to do with. Trailing the Nazi was one thing. But this?” Nick shook his head, tsking. “I wouldn’t like to be you right now.”

Logan’s voice was shaky as he spoke. “If you or any of the others touch me, I’ll—”

“Be dead before you even knew anyone was there. They might not do it straightaway, but it’ll be done eventually—you’re a walking dead man. You accuse shifters of being violent, aggressive, and disrespectful. But it hasn’t occurred to you that the shifters you’ve been following could have killed you at any time; you wouldn’t have even seen it coming. But they haven’t. They’ve chosen to ignore you…whereas you and your little gang are not only harassing shifters but pulling shit like this. The word ‘hypocrite’ comes to mind, but so does the word ‘motherfucker.’” With that, Nick turned his back on the pathetic excuse for a human and returned to his car.