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“Then what is it? He marked me for death, didn’t he? I’m too beautiful to die!”
Calvin clamped a hand over my mouth. “Calm down before the entire building hears you.”
I knocked his hand away. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll never speak to you again. I need to know what he did to me. I have a love affair with sunlight. We had a vitamin D baby and everything!”
Calvin glanced around, which made me look around too. The street was busy, cars driving by, people pulling into the strip mall across the street or stopping at the drive-thru next door for chicken. But no one was paying us any attention.
“He’s a wolf shifter,” Calvin whispered. “That bite mark means his wolf chose you for a mate.”
The skin under my eye twitched. “Dude, if you’re gonna lie, at least make it believable.”
Calvin pulled aside his collar to show me a similar mark that was already healed. “Believable enough?”
“Holy shit. I’m gonna kill him,” I said in an angry, hushed tone. “I’m gonna wrap my skirt around his neck and strangle him! The son of a bitch didn’t even ask me first. He just bit me like ‘la de da, you’re mine, sparkles’ then sank his sharp teeth in. I admit I liked it, but—”
“Dude, overshare!”
“Like you don’t have kinks. That’s not the point.” I brushed my hand down my shin. “He should’ve told me all that before I turned into his Milk-Bone.”
I was more pissed that he hadn’t asked than freaked out he wasn’t human. He’d taken it upon himself to decide something that important for both of us.
I would’ve said he was just like my father, but my father had never made me feel wanted like Deadeye had, which left me fuming.
“Just don’t tell him you heard it from me,” Calvin said. “I don’t want Riot upset at me for interfering.”
“Wait.” I sat up straighter. “Does that mean all his buddies are werewolves too?”
Calvin nodded and then said, “Not the other guys though. The shorter ones. Trent, Spencer, and Ollie… They’re human.”
“Like that makes it any better.” My mind had just been blown, but the wrong person was telling me. It would’ve been nice hearing it from Deadeye.
“I gotta get to work.” Calvin stood. The laundromat was across the street, but he’d stopped an hour before his shift to hang out.
Which I appreciated.
Calvin headed down the walkway but stopped and turned. “Don’t be so hard on him. Deadeye is scary, but I can tell he cares about you. I saw his face light up when you called yesterday. For a guy who looks like he’s constantly contemplating someone’s death, that’s gotta count for something.”
Deadeye wasn’t scary. He was sweet, sexy, and my hypothetical savior. He was also a dead man when I got my hands on him. “Watch crossing the street. You suck at jaywalking.”
“Do not.” Calvin glanced both ways then nearly stepped out in front of a black Honda.
“Cross when cars aren’t aimed at you!” I shouted. “Go!”
Calvin took off, running like a car might hit him at any second, then gave me a thumbs-up when he made it safely to the other side. I rolled my eyes. Hopeless.
As I headed back inside my building, I thought about what he’d told me.
Deadeye was a werewolf.
“You definitely know how to pick them, Niles.”
Then I smiled when I thought of introducing him to my father. Don’t even entertain that idea, dork.
Chapter Eight
Deadeye
It was dark out by the time I made it to Niles’ apartment. I parked the bike at the curb and killed the engine. The silence that followed felt heavy, pressed down by the weight of what I needed to say. Above me, Niles’ window glowed with warm light. He was home. Waiting, probably. Or not waiting. Maybe just existing in that chaotic little apartment with his thrift-store art and his suit bag full of disappointment.
