Huffing, she marched to the front door and unlocked it. “Do you have to be so f**king nice and helpful?” she growled.

“Now, Shay—”

“It’s hard to hate you when you’re nice and helpful!”

“Good. I don’t want you to hate me.”

Ignoring the murderous look Shaya shot him, he walked right on into the house like he had every right. She followed him, watching with growing agitation—like she wasn’t agitated enough!—as he began puttering around her kitchen. “Okay, look, you’ve earned a gold sticker for ass-kissing. Now get the hell out and—” She gave a startled yelp as he lifted her, sat her on the kitchen counter, and then stood between her legs.

Nick handed her some Tylenol and a glass of water. “Here. Take these.” It was most likely sheer stubbornness that made her hesitate. “You’re in pain, baby. Take them.”

There was enough authority in the latter words to make her bite back a snappy comment. Her wolf reluctantly backed down too. Conceding to herself that she did in fact need the pills and that refusing would be stupid, she sighed inwardly and snatched them from his hand. Once she’d washed them down with the water, he took her glass and placed it on the counter.

“Good girl.” He moved his hand to her stomach and gently massaged it, hating that she was in pain and feeling totally helpless. “Now…would you rather curl up on the sofa or go lie down in bed?”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“Every male shifter knows that when his mate has PMS, it’s best for her to curl up on the sofa or in bed and enjoy doing absolutely nothing.”

“I’m not your mate.” Her wolf sassily swished her tail at her for that offensive comment.

Wearing a reprimanding expression, Nick tsked. “Yes, you are, baby,” he insisted softly, tapping the tip of her nose. “You always will be, no matter what. You were made for me, belong to me in a way you could never belong to anyone else.” He soothingly combed his hand through her red corkscrew curls. “I love how soft your hair is. Like silk.” The compliment seemed to disarm her, and he got the feeling that she hadn’t gotten a lot of them in her life. “What will it be: the sofa or the bed?”

She sighed, slumping in defeat. “Sofa.” Her eyes widened as he curled her legs around him and carried her to the living area. He placed her gently on the sofa, where she immediately curled up like a fetus, and handed her the TV remote. Instead of leaving the house, he disappeared back into the kitchen. Hearing the banging of the cupboard doors, she realized he was unpacking her groceries. A part of her wanted to yell at him to get out, but then she’d have to do the unpacking herself, and she’d much rather stay where she was. So, instead, she turned on the TV and began flicking through the channels until she found something she wanted to watch.

When Nick returned to the living room a little while later, it was to find that she was crying. Putting the chocolate bar and cup of coffee he’d brought in onto the table in front of her, he crouched down and cradled her face with his hands. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“This damn movie,” she said, sniffling. “The dog just died.”

It took everything he had not to smile. He kissed her hair. “Maybe you should watch something else.”

“I can’t believe they called the movie My Dog Skip—it sounds like such a happy movie, doesn’t it? You don’t think the dog’s going to die.”

He swiped her tears away with his thumbs. “That’s a good point.”

“I know you’re trying not to laugh, Beavis.”

“How about we talk about something else? Distract you from the movie?” She looked about to snort at that, but then her expression shifted from annoyed to speculative. “You want to ask me something.” She shrugged, as if it wasn’t important. “Ask.”

Shaya bit her lip, unsure. When she noticed that Nick’s eyes had tracked the movement and he was staring at her mouth, she quickly released her lip from her teeth. His eyes moved to hers, daring her to ask her question. “Why were you sent to juvie?”

He sucked in a breath. “Ask me anything but that.”

“I want to know.” His hands slipped away from her face as his expression closed down. She could almost feel him pulling away emotionally. When he went to stand, she fisted her hand in his T-shirt to stop him. “You can’t expect to earn someone’s trust if you keep things from them.”

Knowing she was right, he sighed tiredly. “Why do you want to know? Do you really need more reasons to think badly of me?”

“You can’t call me your mate and then deny me the right to know these things,” she said softly. “Tell me.” A minute or so later, he finally nodded, but she didn’t release him.

Nick inhaled deeply, preparing himself to go back to a time that he hated—preparing himself to reveal something that might make his job to earn a place in her life even harder. “I wasn’t born in the Ryland Pack. My family is originally from a pack in Manhattan. They don’t have a plot of land; they purchased an apartment block that’s near a wooded area. The entire pack lives inside the block, and they use the wooded area to run in. One day, I was walking with my sister through the woods when we came across four human males. Their ages ranged from seventeen to twenty-one.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen. My sister was twelve. They knew what we were, and like many humans, they weren’t too happy about our existence. But they were happy enough to rape my sister—or, at least, to try. Two of them held me back, wanting me to watch, while another pinned my sister down. They threatened her that if she shifted to her wolf form, the others would kill me. In turn, they threatened me that if I shifted, they’d kill her. The fourth one was ready to record the whole thing.”

When his eyes took on a faraway quality, she prodded, “Nick?”

His focus returned to her. “I shifted. My wolf was too enraged to hold back, and I didn’t want him to. They were going to hurt her anyway, so obeying them seemed pointless. I killed the kid who’d tried to rape her, and I badly maimed two of the others. The fourth human ran off and got help.” He waited for disgust to contort her expression, or for fear to enter her eyes. But she said nothing, and her expression remained blank.

Hopeful, he continued. “I might have been executed rather than sent to juvie, but the video clearly showed what the humans’ intentions had been, and that it was self-defense. Still, I was thirteen and I’d killed a human and maimed two others on my own. The human authorities were nervous about it. I think they thought the likelihood was that I wouldn’t get out of juvie alive, so problem solved.”