Annie Nicholas: Hunting Colby

“Your hair isn’t practical.” He moved to a different section.

I bit my tongue. “Fuck.” Fisting the fork, I stabbed a piece of bacon, pretending it was his thigh instead.

“And your language…”

I raised the fork. That was it. If I wanted criticism, I would have called my mother. I was done tiptoeing on eggshells around this male. “You’re an ass.” I gasped as my head was suddenly jerked back and the fork knocked from my hand.

Colby wrapped my hair around his wrist, keeping me pinned in the chair. “We’ve already covered that,” he whispered in my ear as he leaned closer to my neck to inhale deeply.

I’d seen my father do this to my mother. Not the pinning, but the smelling. Squirming in my chair, I tried to cross my leg and lean against my elbow. Not easy when someone held your hair in a vise-like grip.

“Your scent…”

“Could you be any more confusing?” I shot the question at him. Only yesterday he’d told me to leave him alone. Couldn’t he hear his instincts? They had to be screaming as loud as mine.

He snorted and released his hold. “ I confuse you ?”

I rose to face him. Unarmed. “Grooming is considered an intimate act within my pack. Isn’t it the same in yours?”

The frown line between his eyes grew deeper. “I wasn’t raised in a pack.”

My jaw dropped before I could consciously stop it. I cleared my throat and pulled my robe tighter around me. “Your parents were strays?”

“I don’t know.” His stare bore into mine, not wavering, almost daring me to flinch. “I was adopted. Humans raised me.”

“Oh.” I somehow kept a flat expression on my face while inside I cringed. How horrid for him. I couldn’t imagine his suffering.

He leaned against the bathroom door frame and crossed his arms. “Is that all you have to say?”

Nausea rolled the eggs and bacon in my stomach. I had a ton of things I wanted to express, but none of it was good. This, at least, explained Colby’s unnatural protective behavior of humans. “I’m sorry.” It seemed the safest answer.

He tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

“It must have been lonely.”

“Not at first. They’re not that much different than us.” He finally broke eye contact, and I almost gasped in relief. “All my memories of my adoptive family are good ones.”

I nodded as if I understood, though I didn’t. How had a pup ended up without a pack? It just proved how strong-willed this male was that he’d survived such isolation.

“They loved me.” He spoke so quietly I had to lean forward to hear him. His words sounded strained and they struck me as wrong.

I blinked. “You’re speaking in the past tense.” My stomach dropped at the implications. “What happened?” Had they abandoned him once they found out his true nature?

He glanced up at me. “You’re quick to pick things up.”

“No kidding.” I hugged myself. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He scrubbed his hair. “Not even sure why I did.” He turned his back on me to enter the bathroom.

Without a second thought, I grabbed his arm and pulled him to face me again. “You don’t need to be alone.”

The pain in his green eyes vanished, replaced by a wall.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. He’d been trying to open up, but his barriers fell in place quickly. “How old?” This was a new type of battle, something I didn’t practice often. A struggle of emotions instead of fists.

“Thirteen.” A tender age for a shifter. As puberty hit, we had to be taught the nuances of changing shape and finding the mental trigger that began the process.

I had a trigger, but I lacked the hormonal chemicals to physically change. Nothing but poor genetics in my case.

Colby glanced at my hand on his arm before taking it within his. Gently he tugged me toward him until he buried his nose into the nape of my neck. “You smell familiar, but I can’t place what it is.”

I jerked at the sudden heat of his body. “You shouldn’t tease me. It’s cruel.” Tingles traveled over my skin where the tip of his nose had brushed over it.

A deep chuckle rumbled in Colby’s chest. The sound contained an edge of pain that pulled at my soul. I couldn’t imagine not having a pack. The loneliness would have killed most shifters. “You have no idea how you affect me, Gwen.” He set his hands on my shoulders and ran them over my arms. “Having you here, wearing my robe…” This time when he leaned closer, I held my ground. His lips brushed my earlobes as he whispered, “I’m no good for you.”

It grew more difficult to take a breath. “Why?” I whispered back.

“I already told you. I can’t shift.”

Twisting from Colby’s grasp, I couldn’t contain my shock. A tsunami crashing over the city wouldn’t have stunned me more. “What?”

His gaze bore into mine with unspoken questions. “I told you at your hotel. I can’t shift.”

The world spun for a second when my heart finally restarted. “That’s not what you said.” I jerked out of his grasp. “You asked how much I knew about shifters who couldn’t shift. That’s not the same as ‘I can’t shift, Gwen.’” All of yesterday’s wounds cracked open and the pain oozed out. “I thought you meant me .” I pointed at myself as my chest constricted. “I thought you didn’t want me because…” My voice grew hoarse.

All this time, these last few months, he had run because of his inadequacies, not mine.

I shook my head as I retreated from his grasp. He didn’t know my secret.

He tilted his head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I want you?”

In my confused state, I’d managed to place the table between us. “Do you need a list?” Every single defect, shortcomings, and failures came to mind. Putting them into words would destroy what self-confidence I still retained. “How do you know you can’t shift?”

Scratching his head, he peered at me from under the hair that had fallen over his eyes. “Because I can’t do it. I’ve never been able to. Nothing changes on the full moon.”

“Full moon? That’s just a myth.” I couldn’t help gaping. My lips slowly formed an O as things fell together in my head. “You were raised by humans. You never had any contact with shifters?”

He shook his head. “At first…” Shrugging, he gazed out the window. “When I was younger I tried, but they all shunned me. So, I—survived.”

The modern world made it difficult for packs to remain secret. At one point in ancient history, our race had almost gone extinct because of human hunting. Fear remained a large part of pack society. Heck, it had driven mine to serve vampires. Strays proved to be a problem for packs. They’d been used in the past as decoys and spies—even children—so I could see packs being wary of a lone teenage pup.

“You never had anyone to teach you.”

His frown grew from confused to sad. “I’d thought when you agreed to come here that you were okay with my not being able to shift.” He shook his head and tugged at his hair. “I need to shower and rest.” The hard mask he wore for the rest of the world returned on his face.

I rested my hand under my sore throat and cleared it. “You don’t understand anything.” A laugh escaped me with a hint of hysteria. “I’m so relieved.”

He raised an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. The few times I’d been in contact with Colby, he’d never appeared to be the emotional type. Some would call him cold, but I saw only reservation. He didn’t waste his time and energy on feelings. It’s what made him Colby. Yet he’d taken the time to open a little to me and expose those delicate emotions.