I turn the bottle between my palms. It’s empty. “I’m just relieved to know the truth.”
“Yet I would expect some reaction.” He studies me.
I open my mouth and don’t know what to tell him because I don’t understand it myself. When I saw him in his wolf form, something in me resonated, and it all felt so right. Fear didn’t have room in my head or heart.
“Maybe I’m strange,” I finally offer.
He reaches over and tucks a piece of damp hair behind my ear, his thumb lingering at my jaw a second longer than the motion needs. “You’re plenty strange, but I like you that way.”
“So what does it mean for your biology?”
He blinks. “What are you asking about?”
“I mean your biology. You said your blood is different. What does that mean for how you heal, your senses, all of it?”
A laugh shakes out of him. “Only you would ask that.”
“I’m a nurse, Grayson.”
“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “We have the same blood as a human at a glance with a few small differences only a lab would catch. We heal four or five times faster than you do, depending on the wound. There’s natural strength, though not as much as the movies would have you think. Our senses run further too, mostly hearing and smell.”
“And the eye thing is what, exactly?”
“That’s emotion, when the wolf surfaces. Usually it’s anger, but not only anger.”
I nod, turning it over in my head. “What’s a pack, exactly?”
“There are several in the region. Mine is Silverpeak. All the private property in the forest belongs to us.” He gestures vaguely. “Coach is our alpha.”
“Which pack does Vanessa belong to?”
He stiffens at the question. “She’s Crimson Rock now, after leaving Silverpeak when she married Brent. Different territory, different rules.”
“Oh.” I pull my knees up to my chest as carefully as I can with the stitches. The flannel rides up over my ankles, and he watches me arrange myself without comment. “So we really are from two different worlds.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
The picture stays in my head a moment. “Can Ethan also shift?”
“He can’t yet, but he will eventually.”
A smile climbs onto my face before I can stop it. “I bet he’ll be cute as a wolf.”
“He’d better be.” Grayson’s mouth tilts. “First shift should make him roughly the size of a full-grown golden retriever, maybe a little smaller. Pups always come out underestimating themselves.”
“That’s why you’re so strict with him on the boundaries thing.”
“Pups need to learn what no means. Otherwise the first time he loses his temper at school, he’s going to put claws through a kid he doesn’t mean to hurt.” His face goes serious. “He’s been pushing me on it since he met you, trying to win you to his side every time I tell him no. The boy’s never had anyone soft to run to before.”
“It’s okay if he does that.”
“No.” His tone is level but firm. “The human world isn’t forgiving, Miranda. He gets one chance to slip up in front of the wrong person, and the consequences are too dangerous.”
The breath catches in my chest. He’s right.
The thought that surfaces is quiet and final. Any hopes I had left about something real with him just died. The pull I’ve been pretending isn’t there, this thing between us that has been turning into something, all of it lives on the other side of a line I can’t cross. The ache that spreads inside me is hard to ignore.
“I’m going to bed,” I say abruptly, needing to process this turn of events, to come to terms with my new reality.
