Coolly, Raluca replied, “Send me the bill.”
Nick looked again at the hole she'd left, then at her hands. “You smashed it with one finger. Fuck, you’re strong.”
For a mad instant, she thought she heard reluctant admiration in his voice. Then she decided that she’d imagined it. He couldn’t be impressed that she’d destroyed one of his possessions. And he hated her. Everything about this trip was specifically designed to annoy her.
“I’m a shifter,” Raluca replied, making sure he heard the subtext of you idiot. “And as you are well aware, I do not like that word. That other word too.”
“What other word?” Nick asked with exaggerated innocence that made her want to shake him.
“The one in that... I am not sure I would even call it a song...”
“That was rap,” Nick said. “Real American music. So yeah, it's a song. An American song. But which word did you mean? I already know how you feel about ‘fuck,’ so was it ‘pussy’ or ‘ho?’”
Raluca had meant the first, as she’d never even heard the other before and didn’t know what it meant, though she could guess by context. But it was obviously a swear word, so she replied firmly, “Both of them.”
“Check,” Nick replied. “No fuck, no pussy, no ho.”
The surge of rage that burned through Raluca actually made her vision cloud with red. She was seriously tempted to throw him out of the car without stopping first. He had werewolf healing; he’d survive.
She shoved her hands under her thighs and sat on them, then stared out the window. Cows. More cows. Fields. More fields. The pastoral scene should have calmed her, but it instead made her more angry. With the window down, the odor of manure was strong.
This will not go unavenged, she thought. Tomorrow is the formal ball. Let’s see how you feel getting dragged into my territory.
An hour of fields and cows later, Raluca had to work hard to keep her annoyance off her face when Nick called her attention to a billboard reading, WORLD’S BIGGEST BALL OF TWINE: NEXT EXIT.
A few minutes later, they stood looking up at a ball of string the size of a house.
“Well?” asked Nick.
“Will our next stop be to see the world’s biggest cat that coughed up this hairball?” Raluca inquired.
Startled, Nick laughed, then hastily turned it into an unconvincing throat-clearing. “I was thinking of the UFO Watch Tower, actually.”
Raluca was hot and tired and hungry, angry and frustrated and disappointed. The completely pointless giant hairball, showed to her for no reason other than to annoy her, by her supposed destined mate who couldn't stand her, seemed to sum up her entire existence.
“No.” Raluca felt her dragon rise to the surface, and knew her eyes were glowing silver.
Nick’s eyes too changed, letting her see his wolf. But his eyes deepened in color rather than glowing, until they were the exact shade of her favorite jewel in her hoard, a priceless emerald found in the deepest jungles of India. His instinctive alpha dominance was responding to her challenge, though she hadn’t meant it as one.
She readied herself for a fight — not a physical one, but a battle of wills.
He cannot fight, her dragon said unexpectedly. He is honor-bound to protect you. And so long as he is your bodyguard, he is also bound to obey you, so long as it does not conflict with your safety. Do not humiliate him by forcing him to back down.
Angry as she was, Raluca recognized the truth of what her dragon had said. She felt the heat and silver glow fade from her eyes as she said, “I am weary. I would like to rest. I have seen enough sights for one day. Please take me back to the hotel.”
Nick’s wolf faded as well. His green eyes were still bright, but the deadly alpha ferocity left them. He even sounded slightly guilty as he said, “Sure. No problem.”
They drove back in silence. Raluca thankfully entered her air-conditioned hotel, closed the door between her and Nick, removed her boots, and flopped down on the bed. Her closet door was open, showing her that her haute couture clothes had been delivered as promised. But not even the thought of the ball could console her.
She longed for her hoard to comfort her, but it was at Protection, Inc. She wished she had a book rather than television, which she’d never particularly cared for. But to get either, she’d need to collect them with Nick, and she didn’t want to see him. The combination of his obvious dislike of her with the physical attraction that she couldn’t repress was sheer torture.
Raluca ordered room service, took the tray from Nick without speaking to him, and closed the door. She ate with little appetite, then slept badly, dreaming that she had inexplicably flown to America on an airplane rather than on her own wings, had checked her hoard into luggage, and the airline had lost it. She spent the entire night vainly searching for it, with Nick appearing periodically to shout “Fuck!” and then disappear without helping her.
***
She awoke at dawn, tired and annoyed. Without bothering to shower or get out of her nightgown, she opened the door to Nick’s suite, hoping to catch him in some embarrassing state of undress.
To her disappointment, he was fully clothed and watching her door.