How It Needed to Be Page 5

  Ruby scooted over to him and began removing the rest of his bandages. There were only a few left, and he remained perfectly still as she gently pulled on the tape and added them to a little pile beside him.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, his lips only inches from her ear.

  Ruby stilled, and dared a glance at him. “You’re welcome.”

  “You’re tough. I can tell.”

  Slowly, Ruby pressed her hand onto his muscular chest, right over his pounding heartbeat. Divar’s chest rose and fell harder, and something unfathomable drifted across his bright eyes. He slid his big warm palm over hers, holding her in place. “Touch feels good here,” he said, his voice full of gravel, his presence filling up every inch of space. “My head is quiet.”

  She knew all about animals who felt trapped, and Divar was making noise in his chest. “Then why are you growling?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed deep in his thick throat, but the sound returned as if he didn’t have the right answer. He didn’t speak. Instead, he slipped his hand from hers, up to the back of her neck. He pulled her in, closing the last few inches of space between them.

  His lips were rigid against hers, strained almost. It was a peck, and then it was done and his grip released her, but she wasn’t ready to go.

  The drumming of her heart was loud in the silence. She hovered there, searching his sterling silver eyes, breath shaking, lips swollen and wanting more.

  His grip stiffened again on the back of her neck and she leaned in, pressed her softened lips to his. This one was different. There was nothing rigid about it. He drank her, sipping her lips. He sucked gently at the perfect times, and brushed his tongue against hers until she melted into him. His fingers gentled, exploring her skin as he dragged his touch down her throat and along the length of her exposed collar bone.

  That man trailed fire where his fingertips connected with her. He kept things slow, drew it out, refused to rush as she settled into his kisses.

  This was something.

  This was important.

  This was like nothing she’d ever felt before.

  There weren’t butterflies, or anxiety, or tremors of a first-time kiss. Just a bone-deep feeling of rightness, like she’d been missing this her entire life and hadn’t realized it.

  He didn’t push her. Didn’t ask for more. Divar only stayed in the slow build that would devote her heart faster than any loss of control on either of their parts.

  Ohhhh, this boy was dangerous, and he knew exactly what he was doing. With each soft lap of his lips, he was pulling her heartstrings one by one and placing them onto himself.

  She’d never known a man could be so big, dominant, aggressive, overpowering, or consuming.

  She’d never known a man could be this gentle.

  “Your alarm is going off,” he murmured against her lips. Kiss. Kiss.

  “Hmm?” she asked, feeling utterly drunk on him.

  “Your alarm.”

  Kiss. She frowned and listened. Kiss. There was something chiming faintly.

  “It’s been going off for ten minutes but I didn’t want to stop,” he said, dropping his mouth to her neck. Kiss. Kiss.

  “Whoa,” she said on a breath, jerking back. “Ten minutes? How long were we making out?”

  His smile was downright devilish. “Not long enough.”

  “My alarm is set for six in the morning.”

  “You need to get ready for work?”

  She nodded, pouting a little.

  “I was already supposed to be at the jobsite. My boss is a bit of a dragon.”

  “Are you…are you okay to work today?” she asked, studying his scars. They were red but faint.

  “Always,” he said in a rumbling voice.

  And she believed him. He stood smoothly and sauntered over to the sink, turned on the water and rinsed his face. She’d done her best to clean off all the blood, but she’d missed some.

  It reminded her of what Moore had said about blood bringing out the worst in the monsters he lived in the trailer park with. His life, and the rules he lived by, were incredibly different from hers.

  Ruby followed him to the front door. She pulled her longest and thickest cardigan off the coat rack, and then walked beside him to the truck. “You sure you don’t need any breakfast or anything?” she asked.

  “I’m good. I’ll grab something at my place.”

  Divar’s truck was missing a window. Ruby’s mouth plopped open. “You got robbed,” she said.

  “Nah, there is nothing in that truck to take.”

  She drew up to the truck and looked at the window more closely. There were jagged edges and shattered glass in the bed of his truck. This had just occurred. He hadn’t even had time to clean out the glass. “Divar, what happened?”

  “Just a problem I’ve got to figure out. It’s nothing.”

  “A broken window is nothing?” After a night of fighting and bleeding and almost dying and super-speedy healing? She didn’t know why, but the broken window was dragging her back down to earth.

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “This truck has been through worse.”

  He didn’t seem worried at all, so she murmured, “Okay,” and drew her cardigan more tightly around her.

  “Hey, remember when we made that deal to just be friends?” he asked.

  “I failed.”

  “You super-failed. See ya when I see ya.” Divar patted her butt and nipped her neck in a goodbye, then hopped in his truck like he hadn’t almost been a cadaver this morning and zoomed out of her yard and down the gravel road. A yellow piece of paper flew out of his back window and fluttered through the air as he disappeared into the trees. She padded gently across the snow and picked the thing up. What she read froze her breath in her lungs.

  Leave her alone.

  She knew that handwriting.

  Vager’s mother, Tessa, had written this.

  Chapter Seven

  Amos was waiting on him.

  Divar muttered a curse as he put his truck in park in front of his trailer.

  The bald eagle shifter was sitting on his porch sipping on a steaming cup of coffee.

  Why was he smiling?

  “What?” Divar demanded.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Divar narrowed his eyes. “Why aren’t you at the job site?”

  “Why aren’t you at the job site?” Amos repeated.

  “I’m getting changed and heading there now. I already texted Nuke.”

  Amos’s dumb face smiled even bigger. “You’re quite the ladies’ man lately.”

  Divar swallowed a snarl and made his way up his porch stairs. “I’m really not.”

  “Where’s your shirt?” Amos called after him.

  God, he hated this place sometimes. Divar slammed the door behind him and sniffed the air. Someone had been in his house. An annoying someone with feathers and an arsenal of stupid questions.

  Amos had left a book on his coffee table.

  Divar picked up the heavy volume and read the title. Dating for Idiots. It was some stupid how-to book.

  Divar stomped out the door and flung the book at Amos’s head. Only he ducked and Nuke, his dragon shifter boss, was sitting on the other side of him. He got nailed right in the head and his coffee went flying all over his flannel shirt.

  “Divar!” the dragon roared.

  “Ha hahaha,” Amos cackled.

  “Well, I didn’t know you were there, you fuckin’ creeper!” Divar yelled. “Why is no one working?”

  “Check your damn phone, you halfwit!” Nuke griped, wiping at his wet shirt.

  “Job was cancelled. The dude’s financing fell through. All we have today is a couple estimates this afternoon,” Amos explained as he picked up the discarded book.

  “Why were you in my den?” he asked, jumping over the railing of his deck to saunter over to Amos, so his fist could reach his dumb face.

  “Do you know you have a mouse in there?” Amos asked.

  Divar sk
idded to a stop. “What did you do to him?”

  “I squished him.”

  “That was my mouse!” Divar roared. “My mouse, my den, you had no right to be in there!”

  “It’s just a mouse,” Amos said, backing into the yard.

  “No it’s not! That’s the only damn friend I have here.”

  “You have me!”

  “Not me,” Nuke muttered. “I’ll probably eat you soon.”

  Divar pushed his legs forward, and then cocked his fist back. Amos was fast, but he knew what that little dweeb was going to do. He was predictable in a fight to someone like Divar. Amos blurred to the left and leaned right into Divar’s fist. Crack!

  Amos yelped and went flying. “Geez, Divar!” he screamed, holding his bleeding nose. “It was a joke!”

  Divar reached him, balled his fist again and went to swing, but Amos’s mate, Leanna, yelled from their trailer, “He fed your mouse!”

  “What?” Divar barked, twisting around to see her face.

  “He hit me,” Amos complained.

  “Yeah, well, I told you to stay out of his den,” she griped. “Divar, you get to clean up his bloody face! You boys fight too much. I’ve got to get Trev to school.”

  “You’re supposed to stick up for me!” Amos called to the sound of the slamming door.

  “You’re supposed to do less dumb shit,” she called back.

  Divar laughed. “Stupid bat can’t even get his own mate to have his back.”

  “I’m an eagle, not a bat, and she had my front just fine this morning.”

  Nuke snorted, and Divar rounded on him. “You’re supposed to be some kind of leader here when Krome isn’t in the trailer park. Keep him out of my den!”

  “I’m your boss, not your babysitter.”

  “Chapter six is about emotional intimacy,” Amos spouted off from where he sat on the ground, chin red from his bleeding nose. He cracked his nose, re-setting it with a grunt.

  “I don’t need help dating. I don’t have a lady.”

  “Moore said differently,” Trina, Nuke’s mate, illuminated him from the doorway of her and Nuke’s trailer.

  “Well, Moore is a rat,” Divar grumbled as he kicked a clomp of snow at Amos’s stupid grinning face. “When did you even have time to buy that dumb book?”

  “It’s his personal copy,” Nuke teased.

  Amos tossed a middle finger at Nuke and then said, “I’ll have you know that yes, it is my copy, because unlike you Neanderthals, I care about taking care of my mate’s emotional well-being.”

  Divar crossed his arms. “Pretty sure she is done with you for the day and it’s only seven a.m..” He jutted his chin toward Nuke, who was hugging his mate before she headed to work. “Nuke seems fine. I’m fine.”

  “You’re a nightmare.” Amos stood and wiped his chin with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Moore came back here looking half-dead, asking us to patch him up before his mate saw, and his scars match your claws. You damn-near killed Moore Bane. Moooooore. Baaaaane. The devil-bear himself. You nearly took him out. You’re getting stronger.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That’s not a compliment,” Nuke called out.

  “What is this?” Divar asked. “Why do you two care what I’m doing with my life?”

  “Because I don’t do well with blood on my hands, and we have to put you down if you kill someone,” Amos enlightened him.

  “Says who?”

  “Says Krome,” Amos told him. “He said, and I quote, ‘if you numbnuts can’t get him to stop fighting, you’re in charge of putting him down’.”

  Divar huffed a pissed off sound and stomped toward his trailer again. “I hate this place.”

  “Your mouse has problems,” Amos called after him.

  “He’s fine! I’m fine! Everything is fine!”

  “When a girl says that, it means nothing is fine.”

  “I’m not a girl!” he yelled, then slammed the door behind him and inhaled deeply as his bear scratched at his skin to Change. God he wished he could go full bear and fight every male in this park. That’s what had gotten him here. That’s what had made him the Wrong One in his old Crew. That’s what would end his life early.

  He felt like a comet hurling toward earth. As much as he hated his path, he couldn’t change it.

  He paced the living room, his chest rattling with a growl that he couldn’t stop anymore.

  His pet mouse, Mr. Scurries, was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor eating a marshmallow from a paper bowl full of them. Stupid Amos. “You don’t need to eat sugar,” he said.

  The mouse scampered away, dragging his huge nuts behind him.

  “You’re having broccoli tonight. It’s important to have a well-balanced diet so you live to be a hundred.” So the mouse wouldn’t croak early and leave him alone in this place. Mr. Scurries was definitely mad at him. He ran under the cupboard and watched him with judgmental eyes as Divar cleaned up the marshmallows and threw away the paper bowl. He pulled a piece of broccoli from the fridge and dropped it on the ground, and Mr. Scurries scampered into the shadows of the open cupboard and disappeared.

  And now they were in a fight. Great. Stupid, meddling, thinks-he-knows-everything, Fart-Wagon Amos.

  A knock sounded at the door, and now Divar was going to kill Amos. Just go bear, kill him, and live happily ever after for the three minutes it took for Nuke to realize he’d killed his stupid friend, and then turn into his stupid dragon and shoot Divar with stupid fire and then eat him.

  “Eat me then!” Divar yelled.

  Oh, and now Bear wasn’t talking inside of him? Just growling like an animal, with nothing intelligent or sarcastic to say?

  Another knock sounded and Divar roared as loud and long as he could before he stomped over to the door and threw it open.

  Logan stood there.

  The snarl was startled from Divar’s throat. Logan was one of the newest members of the Crew. He was the mate of Trina’s sister, Tory, and had been tortured by crows before he’d come here. Even now, he didn’t bear any weight on his left leg and his eyes looked haunted, like he hadn’t slept since he’d come to live here eight months ago.

  Logan was a bit of a ghost around the trailer park, so Divar just stood there gawking for a five-count before he said, “What do you want?”

  Logan was tall and lean, with dark hair and a beard he hadn’t bothered shaving since the day he pledged to Krome as his Alpha. His eyes were black, and he didn’t seem to be able to hold Divar’s gaze.

  Logan didn’t say anything. Instead, he held up the discarded Dating for Idiots book. The back cover was bent and stuck out oddly.

  Okaaay. Divar took the book from him and moved to shut the door, but Logan came right in. He brushed past Divar and into the living room, and looked around. He’d never been in here before. Up until stupid Amos broke in earlier, no one had besides Divar and Mr. Scurries.

  Logan gestured to the newly patched hole in the wall, and the pile of splinters that used to be the couch.

  Feeling the need to defend himself, Divar murmured, “I got pissed off.”

  “I’m fucking it up,” Logan said suddenly. When he cast those hollow eyes at Divar, Logan looked two hundred years old.

  Divar didn’t know what to say. He’d rarely even heard Logan speak. “Fucking what up?”

  Logan scratched at the scruff on his face and looked at the door, then back to Divar. “Can I borrow that book after you’re done?”

  “Dating for Idiots,” Divar murmured. “You want to read a dating book? You already have a mate. Tory is good. You should stay with her.”

  “Just because she’s my mate doesn’t mean I should stop dating her,” Logan said softly. “You’re fucked up, too.”

  “Thanks,” Divar muttered sarcastically.

  “It’s not an insult. Just an observation. What did they make you do?”

  Mayday. He knows too much. He’s getting too close. Oh, there was Bear. He was right though.
br />   “Who are you talking about?” Divar asked.

  Logan huffed a laugh and shook his head. “It takes one to know one.” He meandered toward the door slowly.

  “What do you mean by that?” Divar asked.

  “Enforcer.” Logan looked back at him with an empty smile. “I’m right, aren’t I? Enforcers lose it.”

  “Bears lose it. Everyone knows that,” Divar barked.

  Logan stood in the doorway, head cocked, staring at him with those bottomless black eyes. “Not all bears. You and I know better. Not all bears lose it. Who was your dad?”

  “Enough.”

  “Branson? Goliath?”

  “Enough!” Panic flared in his chest. “Stop, stop, stop!” Logan wasn’t supposed to know about his Clan. No one was supposed to know.

  “I’m fucking it all up,” Logan repeated.

  Divar just stood there in shock. What could he say? Logan was crazy. Damaged from whatever the crows had done when they’d taken Tory as leverage. He was a shell of a crow shifter now, but he knew names no crow was ever supposed to know.

  Goliath was Divar’s father.

  “Secret’s safe,” Logan murmured. “Give me the book when you’re done. Don’t fuck it up like me.” He closed the door behind him, and then all Divar could hear was the flapping of his wings. Sure enough, when he opened the door, Logan’s clothes lay on his porch in a pile and a huge crow was flying for the tree line, cawing loudly as he went.

  Movement caught his eye, and he jerked his attention to the trailer two spots down. Tory was standing on her and Logan’s porch, watching the crow fly away with a worried frown painted across her pretty features.

  Divar wished he had something profound to say. ‘Give him time,’ or ‘he’ll come around,’ or ‘everything will be okay.’ He wished he could erase the tension from Tory’s face with a few words, but whatever was happening between those two was bigger than he’d realized, and probably larger than he would ever understand.

  Sometimes shifters got broken. Sometimes they didn’t come back.

  Divar swallowed hard and dropped his gaze, then melted back inside, knowing that tomorrow he would ask Trina to check on her sister and make sure she was okay. Girls were good at that. They were caring and knew the right things to say. Trina would help her. Maybe Tory needed all of the girls here. Maybe the Bane brothers’ mates, too.