“I’m merely pointing out the facts.” Nick shrugged. “Trying to take me on always ended badly for you in the past. You simply might want to take that into consideration. It’s a smart man who learns from his mistakes. Speaking of mistakes…how’s your shoulder? Many people say that once you have an injury to the shoulder, it’s never the same again. That true?” On one of the occasions that the sick prick had tried to touch him, Nick had dislocated his shoulder.

Logan’s bitter expression confirmed that Nick was right. “How can what happened be abuse when you’re not people, you’re animals?”

Nick raised a brow. “So it’s bestiality that gives you your kicks? Wow.”

After a tense silence, Logan backed up a little. “I’ll be watching you, Axton. You’ll slip up, and I’ll be waiting.”

“Sure you will.” Nick’s expression warned him to move away. Logan wisely retreated, along with the others. Only when the humans had driven away did Nick move his eyes from the white van. Striding over to the SUV, he saw a scowling Derren lowering his window. “I take it you recognized Logan.” Nick’s words were barely understandable while anger was still bubbling inside him.

Gritting his teeth, Derren nodded. “All I wanted right then was to jump out of the SUV and rip his throat out.”

Nick sighed heavily. “I have more self-control than most people, but I nearly killed the bastard myself.”

“You were right not to,” said Derren. “There are too many witnesses. His time will come.”

“You know him?” Shaya asked Nick and Derren.

Forcing down his anger as best he could, Nick opened the rear passenger door. He didn’t move to let her pass, though. “Unfortunately, yes. You okay?” He knew his voice was still strained with anger, but he couldn’t soften it yet. He inhaled deeply, taking Shaya’s scent inside his lungs and using it to calm him. But the only thing that could totally calm him right then was the feel of her, and that wasn’t something he could indulge in.

Shaya nodded, wanting to know how he knew the human but conscious that his wolf was extremely tense right now. Revisiting what just happened would make things worse. “Fine.”

“Derren’s going to give you a ride home.” Nick didn’t trust himself alone with her while he was this wound up. The impulse to kiss her and hold her was too strong to ignore, especially when she would provide the calm he so needed.

The overprotectiveness got her back up. Making her even more pissed, Shaya found that she actually wanted to be with Nick and wanted to comfort him. It was instinctive—he was her mate, and something was clearly paining him. But that instinct made her want to slap herself. “He doesn’t need to—”

Nick ignored her. “Kent, do you need a ride home?”

“No, thanks,” he replied as he hopped out of the other side of the vehicle. “I have my MINI Cooper.”

Nick gave him a brief nod and then returned his attention to Shaya. “I’ll see you in the—”

Frustrated, Shaya went to get out of the SUV, but then she froze at the low warning growl that rumbled out of him.

“I can’t be around you right now, Shay. And I think you know why. But if you really insist on Derren not taking you home, I’ll do it myself regardless. The problem is I can’t guarantee I won’t touch you.” There was no way he’d let her walk home on such a cold evening. No mate would. When she opened her mouth to object again, he gave her a look that said he’d argue with her all night if he had to. Eventually she sighed and slumped in her seat. “Good girl. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Go squat and piss up a tree, ass**le.”

He almost smiled at that. “Right.”

A few hours later, Nick was in his motor home tossing several pills into his mouth. These days, he took so many pills so often that he was surprised he didn’t rattle as he walked.

Derren shook his head from his seat at the U-shaped black leather dinette. “You didn’t tell me the headaches were happening so close together.”

Nick forced a careless shrug. “Why would I? It’s not important.”

“You can’t afford to be flippant about this, Nick.”

“The healing sessions worked, remember? As I recall, you were one of the people telling me not to let fear rule my actions and to go after Shaya.”

“I was also one of the people who heard Amber tell you the symptoms might return.”

Nick slumped onto the black leather sofa bed opposite the dinette, his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. Bruce joined him on the sofa and butted his shoulder, hinting for some attention. With his free hand, Nick began scratching him between the ears. “They’re just headaches, Derren. Bad, yes. Frequent, yes. But they’re still just headaches.”

Exasperation filled Derren’s voice. “Look, I get why you’re refusing to consider this might be something to worry about. And I get that you don’t want to let Shaya down again. But this is one time you can’t afford to risk yourself for other people. This is serious.”

Nick’s eyes flipped open. “You think I don’t know that? If at any time I’m convinced the symptoms are coming back and the healing sessions failed, I’ll leave. I don’t want Shaya being my caregiver. Unless that happens, I’m staying where I am.”

There was a short pause before Derren sighed. “Fine. Off topic, do you think Logan will be smart enough to leave you alone?”

“Nope. He has a score to settle—not just because I dislocated his shoulder once, but because I always managed to fight him off and intervened many times he tried abusing other shifters. Plus, I’m guessing he knows just how badly I’d like to hurt him. It would suit him if I retaliated, and he probably thinks that it won’t take much to make that happen.”

“You think he’ll spend his time trying to rile you, trying to get a violent response from you to support the extremists’ argument?”

“Think about it: If he can rile me enough to attack him, he can present an argument to the court that an alpha male who spent time in juvie isn’t reformed after all, that he’d attacked humans again. That will go a long way to proving that the current way of dealing with offending shifters isn’t working and that some changes are necessary.”

Derren shook his head, blowing out a breath. “Shit, Nick, you really need to leave this place. Any shifter with any sense is keeping a low profile while the court hearing is due.”