Chapter 14
2265 Words
Kate kept giving him cryptic looks throughout the evening and Nick figured that she was probably mad at him for being around Zoe, she just didn’t want to pull it out in front of the girl. Zoe was so spent that she had fallen asleep halfway through the movie, much to Kate’s relief because it meant they didn’t have to watch the whole thing. She was clearly not a Frozen fan.
Nick carefully carried the girl to her own bedroom, noticing it was way tidier than Kate’s room. Before Kate pulled a blanket over her and whispered a few quiet words into her ears, Nick was already on his way to leave the apartment, hoping to avoid getting scolded for being there in the first place.
Her words made him stop in the door. “Thank you,” she said in a calm voice. That was certainly not what he expected. “For spending time with her. I haven’t seen her this happy in ages. You do know you don’t have to do that if it makes you feel uncomfortable, right? Just like you don’t have to clean up and cook for us.” He opened his mouth to say something but she raised her hands and interrupted him. “Not that I’m complaining, I’m actually very grateful. And the food was truly amazing. But I didn’t ask you to stay here to be my personal… house slave or something.”
“I never thought that,” Nick shrugged, “and I like spending time with Zoe, she’s sweet. I was worried that you would mind me being around her. I was planning to leave before you got back but she was very… persistent when demanding I stay. Sorry about that.”
“I don’t mind in the slightest.” She sounded honest and Nick felt a bit of relief. “Well, except one thing. I want you to use the card I gave you. Especially if you are buying things for her as well. No,” she interrupted him again, waving her finger in his direction, “that is non-negotiable. Nick, we have way more money than we need, and I have a feeling that you aren’t exactly the richest rogue around.”
No, he most certainly wasn’t. It didn’t make him feel any better about it though. “Just shut up and take it,” Adira rolled her eyes. “You are on her leash anyway since you are so into her you’d jump out of a window if she told you to.”
“It’s your fault, you kept telling me to have s*x with her!”
“To f**k her, not fall in love with her,” Adira snickered. “By the way, touch her now.”
Kate was standing just a few feet away from him, a soft, tired smile on her lips. He should just go and let her rest, she looked absolutely exhausted when she came home. “What?” he frowned at Adira.
“Touch. Her.”
“What?!” he repeated in disbelief.
Adira jumped up and stretched her legs. “Just walk over to her and put your hand on her ass.”
“Are you insane?”
“Fine, on her hand then.”
Nick shook his head. “Absolutely not! Why would you want me to do such a thing?” Kate was just being polite with him and his delusional wolf apparently fabricated some more nonsense about their mutual s****l attraction.
“Just do it,” Adira urged him, “I want to see what happens.”
“What happens is I get either slapped or punched in the face and then we get thrown back into the cage!”
“Hmm,” she mused, tilting her head to the side. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Was the wolf really crazy? “Care to share why?”
“Just a hunch. Touch her and you’ll see.”
He frowned and shook his head for real this time, noticing how Kate’s expression hardened since she thought it was a reaction to her request. “No, sorry,” he raised his hands, “I agree with what you said. I might not like it or be extra proud of it, and I will absolutely pay you everything back once I get a job, but I agree. I was just… I don’t know, my wolf is being really weird. Sorry. I should go, you are probably tired.”
“I am. And stop apologizing to me. If anyone should be doing that out of the two of us, it should be me. Oh, by the way, Zoe only has a school in the morning tomorrow and I won’t be home until evening. Emmet is going to pick her up, but she will probably run off to you anyway, so… would you mind watching over her until I get home? You really don’t have to,” she added quickly, “if you don’t want to. Or I can pay you as a babysitter if you want a job.”
Her grin was contagious and Nick found herself smiling back at her. “Hmm,” he scratched his head, pretending to think about it, “you do know werewolf babysitters are extra costly?”
Kate clicked her tongue and gave him a mockingly dismissive look. “I think I can afford you.”
“I’m kidding, I’ll do it for free, don’t worry about it. And Kate?” He was already in the hallway, closing the door, when he paused and looked at her again. “Stay safe.” She looked surprised and he took the opportunity to disappear before she could scold him for sticking his nose into her business. Nick wasn’t even sure why he said it. Maybe because he clearly smelt blood off her earlier and the thought of her getting hurt caused him pain as well.
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Kate got home earlier than she expected, mostly because there was nothing for her to do. The bird she was supposed to be trailing spent the entire day in meetings in a stupid soundproof room and there was no way for her to find out what were the people inside talking about. There were a couple of other birds there as well but most of them were humans, several of them in white lab coats. When the meeting finally ended, they seemed tired but strangely excited, although there was a great deal of worry written on some of their faces.
It was frustrating. Kate felt like she kept walking around something big and important but was too focused on the little things to see what it was. She should go over the footage from the previous day again, perhaps she missed something there.
The familiar scents pushed a smile on her face when she got home. Zoe was sitting on the couch, watching TV that was running more quietly than usual. Nick’s strong predator scent was lingering throughout the apartment but he was nowhere in sight. Before Kate could ask the girl about it, Zoe turned to her and pressed a finger against her own lips. “Ssh, Nick is sleeping,” she whispered with a mischievous grin.
“Sleeping?” Kate smirked. Some babysitter he was.
Zoe nodded and chuckled quietly. “We made a pillow fort in your bed and he fell asleep in it.”
“In my bed?” Great, now her whole bedroom will smell like him and she was going to spend the night perpetually horny. “Have you been watching TV all afternoon? Why don’t you go play outside for a while? Emmet said something about setting up a swing for a little devilish kitten in the courtyard. He probably didn’t mean you but-”
“A swing?!” Zoe squealed in excitement, immediately slapping her hands on her mouth when she remembered the sleeping werewolf. “Cool!” She sprinted out of the apartment and Kate barely managed to call after her to be back in time for dinner.
Even the few moments she spent tiptoeing around her bedroom to pick up some clean underwear, shorts, and a tank top made her want to jump on the sleeping figure in her bed and f**k him right on the spot. Why the hell was she so damn attracted to him? She has never felt anything like this in her entire life. It was infuriating. And dangerous.
A quick cold shower helped her calm down a bit but she still had to fight the urge to go back into that room. Fatim stayed mercifully quiet although she has been giving her the I-told-you-so looks, still insisting that having s*x with the werewolf was the best course of action in the current situation.
His breathing was more ragged now, Kate could hear it even through the closed door. He rolled over a couple of times, whimpering quietly. It looked like Zoe wasn’t the only one with nightmares. After all, Kate had her own ones as well.
Before she could stop herself, she walked into the bedroom and sat down next to Nick, gently touching his shoulder through the blanket. He shook his head and whispered something unintelligible. It sounded like he was begging someone to stop and sharp guilt pierced Kate’s heart again. “Nick,” she said quietly, trying to wake him up, “Nick!”
He jerked awake, panting heavily, immediately trying to crawl away from her, fear and confusion dominating his expression. Kate stood up and moved to the door to give him space. He had every reason to be frightened of her, something she wasn’t exactly proud of.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a calm voice, “you were having a nightmare, I thought it would be better to wake you up.”
Resting his back against the headboard and hugging his knees, Nick nodded. “Thank you.” He still had trouble controlling his breathing and it seemed like he was barely holding back tears.
Kate should probably just leave him alone, she has done enough damage to that poor man already, but, for some reason, she couldn’t bear to see him suffer like this. With a sad sigh, she sat down on the corner of the bed. “I think I can safely guess what the dream was about?”
“It was not that,” he shook his head. “Yes, the local hospitality was definitely a decent nightmare material,” the corner of his mouth curled into an amused smirk, letting her know he was just joking, “but this was… something else.”
So it must have been something from before, something that had to do with why he became a rogue. He could be a murderer, Grams’ words sounded in her head but Kate chased them away. No, Nick was a lot of things but a murderer was not one of them. “You wanna know what mine are about?” She could hardly expect him to trust her if she was not willing to trust him.
He watched her with his head tilted to the side for a few moments but then he nodded and scooted to the side so she could sit next to him. He was so close now she could easily grab his hand if she wanted to but of course she was not going to do that. Not with how he always flinched when she made an unexpected move in his direction.
Resting her head against the headboard and closing her eyes, Kate had no problem bringing out the memory that her mind kept replaying to her every night. “I see my sister falling to her death,” she said quietly. “And there is nothing I can do to save her.”
“s**t,” he breathed out. “Zoe’s mom?”
Kate nodded solemnly, a couple of tears trailing down her cheeks. “She was always the strongest and the fastest of the whole gang. We were spying on the birds in some luxurious loft atop this highrise building, thirty-two floors above ground. She was faster than me to get up there, I was never really fond of heights. I don’t know if she made a mistake or just got unlucky, but they noticed her, and… they pushed her out of the window.” Em’s panic and horror that seeped through the mindlink haunted Kate’s every waking moment. And most of her sleeping moments as well. “She was falling for so long and I… I couldn’t do anything to help her. I just watched her die.”
She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand. f**k, why was she even telling him this? Was she trying to make him feel sorry for her? “She was thinking about Zoe, you know,” Kate smirked. “When Em realized she was about to die, her last thoughts were about her daughter.” Daughter, whose life was Kate screwing up ever since. Why did she ever think she would be able to take care of a child? She was barely more than a child herself!
Zoe deserved better, a stable family, someone who knew how to cook and clean, someone who could help her with her homework. Damn, even the stupid werewolf was a better mother to the girl than Kate was. And here she was, pouring her heart to him as if he had even the slightest reason to care.
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Next update: Saturday
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