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Oh, yeah.
He took another shower, though avoided getting his hair wet, then dressed in his usual black tank and leathers like the rest of the wolves. He braided his hair as most of the wolves did, though he preferred his in a single down his back. A lot of wolves left some of their hair hanging free. He stared at himself in the mirror, but his mind suddenly took a profound detour.
His thoughts became fixed on Kryder and seeing him at The Sapphire Club. His movements had been erratic, his manner almost impulsive. He hadn’t looked like a wolf in control. In fact, he’d been the opposite.
He shook his head. What did that mean? Was there
a crack in the man’s armor that Grant could penetrate?
In the end, it hadn’t been Natalie’s futurist gift that had gotten them out of the club but his own speed. He’d never flown that fast before. His skills were improving, a circumstance he set down to Natalie’s presence in his life.
He pressed his fists into the marble sink and leaned over. He had to figure this out. Something was there he needed to understand. Yes, his speed had saved them in the end. But if Natalie hadn’t played cat-and-mouse with the future, they would have been caught, tortured and no doubt killed. Or at least, Kryder would have killed him. He felt certain Natalie’s fate would have been a lot less certain.
To some degree, though, he believed they’d gotten lucky. This was their first encounter with Kryder. Maybe they’d caught him off-guard, but Grant didn’t believe for a second the alpha wasn’t already planning his next move.
He returned to the bedroom and found Natalie straightening the sheets. For a moment, he watched her. He became acutely aware that he’d marked her as a wolf. From this point forward, all male wolves would know to keep their distance from her. She was his woman. It wasn’t a full bond, but it held a lot of weight in Savage.
He went to the opposite side of the bed and pitched in. The job was done in less than fifteen seconds.
“I brought you coffee,” she said, nodding toward the side table on his side of the bed. She picked up her own cup but turned toward the patio. She opened the door and stepped through.
The air was still warm this early in the evening. September in the desert still had them in triple digits, which would continue well into October. Eventually the Desert Southwest would cool down, but it usually took until December for any kind of consistently cool weather.
He followed her out as a burst of laughter flowed from the kitchen area.
She turned back to him. “Your wolves are cooking up a whole bunch of eggs and bacon. Someone was jugging three loaves of bread and two sticks of butter when I fetched the coffee. Hence the laughter. You sleep well?”
“Haven’t slept like that in years.” He joined her on the patio.
“You were dead to the world when I woke up.”
He turned to her. “How did you sleep, I mean after—”
Her brows rose as she took another sip. “After what?”
He took a swig of his coffee as well but watched her over the rim. She seemed oblivious to what had happened during the night. He felt he had to address it because of what she’d told him. “You had a nightmare last night.”
“I did? I don’t remember.”
“You told me about a fae friend you’d lost during the wars. You said you blamed yourself.”
She pivoted to face him fully. “I don’t remember waking up at all and I said that?”
“You were thrashing in your sleep and I reached for you, held you. Then you told me about your friend.”
“What was her name? Did I say her name?”
“Yes, Alexis.”
She sighed heavily. “Right. She disappeared during the Fae-Wolf Wars, presumed cremated at the Savage morgue. Your side was doing that back then, getting rid of some of the bodies. I guess we were as well, not reporting all the casualties.” She frowned heavily.
“It was a brutal time.” He drew a heavy breath. He didn’t want to do this, but it had to be done at some point. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “It was a terrible time. You and I both lost people, but what good would it do to hash things over now?” She held her mug with both hands. “This is so new between us, I guess I’m afraid what happened during those years, since we were both involved, might come between us.”
“I’ve let those tragedies go, or at least tried to. The Tribunal was right to intervene. It became a Hatfield-McCoy situation where the pain of loss began to drive the conflict. I also know there were rogue wolves inciting both sides. It wouldn’t surprise me if Kryder was somehow involved as well.”
She released a sigh. “I’ve tried to adopt a similar attitude through the years. But what if this becomes an issue between us?”
