I wanted to point out that he had once promised never to leave me and he’d broken his word, so why should I believe him now? But somehow my mouth wouldn’t form the words. Instead, I heard myself whispering,
“Do you promise?”
“I promise,” Nick said firmly. He swiped a thumb over my cheek and I realized he was wiping away tears that were somehow trickling from my stinging eyes.
I wanted to pull away, to yank my gaze from his and stop crying. This wasn’t like me, I told myself. The vulnerable, hurt little girl inside me had been buried for years, wasn’t me anymore. And I shouldn’t be letting her out now around the person who had hurt her the most.
But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I looked into Nick’s forest green eyes and felt like he was staring into my soul, seeing everything I felt, everything that had happened to me in the ten years since we’d parted ways.
“Goddamnit, you’re beautiful,” he growled softly, stroking my cheek. “Why’d you have to grow up to be so fucking gorgeous, Kira?”
I’d been thinking pretty much the same thing about him to be honest. Those dark green eyes of his were fringed with the longest lashes I’d ever seen on a man and they had a slight downward tilt that made them look sleepy and warm and interested. “Bedroom eyes”—that’s what you called Nick’s kind of eyes and the way he was looking at me with them half-lidded and filled with some emotion I couldn’t—shouldn’t—name, was making my breath come short and my heart speed up.
“I…I don’t think I look that different from what I did in high school,” I protested breathlessly.
Nick stroked my cheek.
“Yes, you do. You’ve got this gorgeous, full, curvy figure now. And what about your glasses? Where are they?”
I bit my lip, remembering the coke bottle lenses I’d worn all through school.
“Lasik surgery,” I told him. “It was one of the first things I bought myself when I started making decent money and I could afford it.”
I’d had to do it in payments and watch my budget for a while—an adjunct instructor doesn’t make that much. But still, I had prioritized the surgery because I had always hated those damn glasses.
“I love being able to look into your eyes without those thick lenses in the way,” Nick murmured.
Then he seemed to realize how close he was getting—close enough to kiss—and he drew back to my mingled relief and disappointment.
“Those gold rings you have around your irises—you’re probably an Omega, you know,” he said, beginning to dab the antibiotic ointment on my scratches in a businesslike way.
I shook my head.
“I know hardly anything about the Were world—you know that. What’s an ‘Omega’?”
“A very special kind of Were female,” he told me. “Extremely desirable. An Omega will only produce other Omegas or Alphas when she’s bred—that’s the top of the pack hierarchy.” He frowned. “It could be why McCain is so focused on you.”
“He and Deputy Boyd did say something about Omegas,” I said cautiously. “But he also kept saying I was his because he killed…killed my father.” Again the words tried to stick in my throat but I swallowed hard and forced them out.
“He killed both our fathers,” Nick reminded me. “But don’t worry, baby—we’re going to expose him to the Council and make him pay.”
“Did…were you able to get any evidence of what happened tonight?” I asked him. “I mean, were you able to record all the, uh, breeding in Fur Form?”
Nick nodded.
“Hell, yeah—they made us leave our cel phones behind but I had a hidden camera on me—one of those spy things you can buy. I got all of it, including McCain basically telling all the Alphas to Shift if they wanted to before or during the breeding. And then everything that followed after.”
“Why is no breeding in Fur Form one of the Unbreakable Laws?” I asked, frowning. “I mean, other than it’s basically bestiality…”
“It’s not, actually. Not in the strictest terms,” Nick told me. “A male Were in his Fur Form still retains his human consciousness. He might look like a wolf, but inside, his mind is still fully human and aware of what he’s doing.”
“Why, then?” I asked again.
He frowned.
“Well, it’s hard on the female being bred for one thing. A Were’s shaft gets so much bigger after a Shift—the knot can be hard for her to take when he’s in his Fur Form.”
“But do they still have a knot even when they aren’t in Fur Form?” I asked, remembering the throbbing, fist-sized thing I’d seen at the base of Bobby Aiken’s shaft after he had Shifted.
“Oh, yes.” Nick nodded. “All male Weres have a knot. It’s just a hell of a lot bigger and more pronounced in Fur Form.”
I bit my lip.
“Do you have a knot?” I asked in a rush. I knew it wasn’t something a sister ought to ask her brother, but I didn’t care what Nick and the Pack Laws said—the brands on our arms didn’t change the fact that we weren’t blood related, damn it!