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He opened his mouth, and I shook my head at him, dropping my ward. “I don’t have a lecture in me right now.”
“Later, then.” Hauling me into his arms, he held me tight, and I could hear his heart thumping beneath my ear. I’d worried him.
“Let’s get you home,” he murmured, steering me to one of the empty cars. One of his wolves threw him a pair of sweats, and he stopped just long enough to pull them on.
“What about—”
“Ryker and Naomi can handle it. Xander is on his way too.” Nathaniel opened the passenger door and gently helped me sit. I would have protested him treating me like I was made of glass, but now that my adrenaline had worn off,everythinghurt.
I was attempting to muffle my pain noises, but from the flash of the wolf in Nathaniel’s eyes, I wasn’t being as quiet as I thought I was. He closed my car door carefully enough that I suspected he was barely restraining himself from ripping it off and beating the closest HFE member with it.
He loped around the front of the car, slid inside, and closed his own door just as carefully. He was keeping his gaze away from Suit, who was currently surrounded by his wolves.
Nathaniel did a three-point turn, handling the car as expertly as he handled everything else. My cheek throbbed, and I poked at it. Pain exploded across my face.
“Don’t touch,” Nathaniel told me, and I glowered at him. He caught my hand in his and brought my palm to his mouth, laying a gentle kiss at the center.
It was hard to be mad at him when he was being so sweet. Unfortunately, I could also feel his wolf, simmering with fury.
“Sorry about the car.”
He just shot me a look that said I was acting crazy. I sighed.
“Stay there,” he told me, pulling up outside his house. I unbuckled myself but waited as he crossed around the car and opened my door. He held out his hand, and I moved as slowly as if I’d just turned ninety.
The house was quiet. Nathaniel escorted me inside and then took a deep breath, surveying my face.
“You have a fucking black eye.”
I squinted at him. He was taking this worse than I’d expected.
“What’s your deal?”
“What’s mydeal?Tell me, Evie, did you consider driving toward my territory? Toward your home?”
Okay, he was pissed. I angled my head, considering how I wanted to play this. Honesty was probably the best policy, which meant things were going to get worse before they got better.
I sighed. “Yeah, I considered it.”
“And why did you decide not to?”
“There are kids here, Nathaniel.”
He showed me his teeth. “Deep in our territory, tucked behind our sentries and several layers of security.”
“Your pack has been dragged into enough of my shit.” I pushed my hair off my face with a wince.
“And there it is.”
“Therewhatis?”
“They’re your pack now too. They’re your family.”
I felt my lower lip stick out. “Doesn’t feel like a family. Naomi still hates me, half the humans think I’m the worst thing to happen to this place…”
A flicker of humor appeared in those blue, blue eyes. “No one said that family was perfect. What is a family except a bunch of different people forced to get along and love one another even when they don’t particularlylikeone another?”
I shrugged. His eyes turned cool again as his gaze got stuck on the bruise on my cheek. He’d seen me much worse off than this and hadn’t lost his shit. Was it because I was his mate now?
