This situation was going to require patience, understanding, and finesse. While it would agonize him to walk away, her needs came first. So he forced himself to rise and said, “It was good to see you, Frankie. I’ll talk to you again soon.”
One brow rose at the sheer confidence in that statement. “Will you?”
“Yeah, I will.” Allowing himself the small luxury of skimming his fingers over her hair, Trick headed for the door. His wolf snapped his teeth in anger, lunging for her hard. Trick fought his desperate attempts to surface, half-surprised he didn’t sprout fur.
Soon, he promised his wolf. Soon she’d belong irrevocably to them. But his wolf wasn’t placated. The animal didn’t just covet and crave Frankie; he wanted to keep her close, where he could be sure she was safe.
His pack mates were already in the SUV when he hopped into the passenger seat. Ryan looked at him, face twisted into the scowl that seemed to be his default expression, and asked, “What was that about?”
“What?”
“The delay. What were you talking about?”
“I was just trying to convince her to take a chance on the pack.” Trick glanced at Lydia in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”
Lydia inhaled deeply. “The meeting went better than I thought it would. There was no yelling or condemning.”
Trick nodded. “She impressed me.”
“Why?” asked Ryan, reversing out of the parking space.
“I’d already figured that her grandparents fed her some lies,” Trick replied. “She didn’t do the textbook ‘I don’t know who I am now that I know my past is a lie.’ Apart from the odd snippy comment, she didn’t throw accusations around or take out her anger at Christopher or the situation on Lydia.” He met her gaze in the rearview mirror again. “I mean, you’re the closest thing to him right now, Lydia, but she didn’t lash out. She’s a cool one.”
“It would be a shock to find out that your parent killed someone,” said Ryan. “Especially if that someone was your other parent. As Frankie said, she hasn’t properly processed it all yet. Once she does, she might act differently.”
Cam linked his fingers with Lydia’s as he asked, “Do you think she’ll call?”
Trick twisted his mouth. “Yeah, I do.” Hell, she’d do more than call and visit their territory. Sooner or later she’d be living there. He didn’t say that, though, because he already knew what would happen—Lydia would panic, thinking he might scare Frankie away, and ask him to keep his distance from her. He wouldn’t even be able to blame Lydia for that, considering the situation was already complicated enough. But staying away from Frankie wasn’t something he could do, so he’d keep quiet about his discovery for now.
Cam lifted a brow. “Even though it will upset the people who’ve raised her?”
“Even though,” said Trick. “Her wolf is very dominant. I’ll bet her grandparents have had a damn hard time trying to get any compliance out of her.” His mate was no pushover, he thought proudly.
She was not at all what he’d expected his mate would be like, which just seemed typical of fate, really. It wasn’t only that she was very different from his usual type, it was also that she was human in many ways. She might have spent the first few years of her life in a pack, but she had no memories of that time. She’d lived as a human. Probably didn’t know much about the ways of shifters. In fact, it was unlikely that she knew much about true mates either. He hadn’t been prepared for a mate who knew so little about their kind.
Even more shockingly, he knew her. He’d once had her so close to him, yet he hadn’t known she belonged to him—or at least he hadn’t consciously known it. Now he wondered if he had in fact sensed she was his on some level and if that was why he’d lived with a drive to find his mate all these years—it had been more of a need to recover what he’d lost. And he hated that he couldn’t do exactly that. Hated that she wouldn’t be receptive to him yet. Hated that his long-standing plan to quickly claim his mate as his own wouldn’t work.
That didn’t mean he’d back off. It just meant he’d have to revise his plan. He would slowly but surely insert himself into Frankie’s life until she couldn’t imagine not having him in it.
He knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn’t be tactful about it. No, he’d be intrusive. Full of unwanted advice. He’d question her under cover of polite conversation. Insist on doing things for her. Turn up unexpectedly at her home. Yep, he’d be a pain in her ass. And that perversely made him smile.
CHAPTER FOUR
As Led Zeppelin sang about the stairway to heaven on the radio, Frankie flexed her hand and winced. It was starting to go numb and stiff from all the metal grinding. She didn’t want to stop working on her sculpture, though. She wasn’t ready yet.
Grabbing her water bottle from the shelf, she unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. She heard someone knock on the front door, thanks to her enhanced shifter hearing, but she ignored it. She figured it was Brad, who’d tried calling her several times that morning. He’d left a voice mail saying he just wanted to talk about the Lydia matter before Frankie made any rash decisions.
In other words, he hoped to talk her out of meeting with Lydia.
That would be a pointless conversation, considering she’d already done so. He wouldn’t be mad—he respected that she had her own mind and would make her own decisions—but he’d be disappointed in her. His lectures were long and boring, and she had no time or patience for one.
Besides, she hadn’t yet decided whether to go see Iris, and she didn’t want anyone else’s opinions to influence her decision. Making said decision was proving hard while she was feeling emotionally off balance and as if she were being tugged in different directions.
Iris’s deathbed request was fair. The old woman had lost her son and, if what Lydia claimed was true, had then also been denied access to her grandchild. Iris didn’t deserve to be punished for another person’s actions, even if that person was her son.
But stepping on pack territory could open a can of worms. Iris would no doubt be pissed at the people who had kept her grandchild from her, and Frankie didn’t want to listen to someone bad-mouth her grandparents—people who’d be upset that she’d paid Iris a visit.
Would Frankie then be forced to choose between the two sides of her family? Would the pack expect answers from her about what had happened that night long ago? Did she have extended family within the Bjorn Pack that would want contact with her too?
Frankie could also admit to being hurt that no one from either the Bjorn Pack or the Phoenix Pack had tried hard to see her. Brad had made a good point when he’d said that shifters were protective of their young. If what Lydia said was true, they had tried when she was a kid. But Frankie hadn’t been a child for a very long time, and she didn’t feel that Lydia’s “I was worried you’d hate us and it was more comfortable not to know” claim was really a valid excuse.
In fact, it seemed more likely to Frankie that Iris and Lydia saw her as a reminder of what Christopher had done and—on a level that could be subconscious—didn’t want that reminder around. Maybe Iris and Lydia, just like Marcia and Geoffrey, had wanted to push the truth aside so that they could more easily move on.
Frankie couldn’t even blame them for that, but it still hurt. And that hurt part of her resented the pack for walking back into her life when they’d avoided her for so long. What right did they have to request anything of her when they’d let her go and then stayed away? She owed them nothing.
Still, she couldn’t help wanting to know about her father, her family, the people who would have been her pack mates. Was it bad that, despite everything, she was curious? Would her mother judge her for that and see it as a betrayal of her memory? Frankie didn’t think so, but the guilt crept up on her all the same.
Yeah, well, that guilt could just add to the pile she was already carrying. Her mother had been murdered. She’d seen it happen. Yet she didn’t remember a thing.
It was unsettling e
nough to know she’d witnessed her father kill her mother and then himself. But to have no recollection of it? How could a person forget something like that? Okay, yeah, she understood it was rare for people to recall early memories. Still, she’d witnessed a murder and a suicide. Yet nothing.
She wondered if those nightmares she’d had as a child were actually replays of the event—an event that her mind had seemed intent on burying for her own sake. She didn’t remember the nightmares either. Only snippets of—
The music suddenly lowered, and Frankie spun. And there was Trick, who’d seemingly rounded the house and entered through the open side door of the studio. She shoved up her protective goggles, annoyed that—odd as it was—she was glad to see him. Her wolf sat up, instantly alert and pleased that he’d come.
Trick raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I knocked. You didn’t hear me.” His eyes cut to the sculpture. “Wow.”
“I heard the knocking. I just ignored it, since I’m busy and all.” She hoped that was a clear hint for him to leave, but he wasn’t listening to her. His attention was on the sculpture. Standing on a workbench, it was taller than he. He circled it, studied it, and absorbed it, looking genuinely awed.
Frankie blushed, self-conscious all of a sudden. She wasn’t used to people other than Abigail and those within her field taking such a close look at her work. It made her feel exposed.
“I’ve seen some of your pieces on the interactive gallery on your website, but it’s a whole other thing to see one in person.” Trick backed up a little. “I wouldn’t have thought I could ever find anything scary about a horse. How can something look beautiful, powerful, yet scary as fuck at the same time?”
She put the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the shelf. “It’s a hellhorse.”
“It’s fucking amazing, Frankie,” said Trick honestly—he wasn’t simply trying to please or flatter her. The sculpture was genuinely super impressive, and he found himself in awe of her.
It represented the front half of a horse’s body, yet it didn’t look incomplete. More like it was in the middle of leaping from another dimension or something like that. It was entirely black metal—some parts were thick and smooth and curled slightly, almost like ribbons. Other pieces were so thin they looked more like mesh or metal string.
The creature was in midlunge, legs extended, mouth open, eyes like angry slits, broken chains hanging from its ankles. The wings were huge yet ragged, as if the creature had been left alone to rot and wither. It had broken free of its restraints, but it wasn’t lunging for freedom. It was lunging for its captor. Lunging for vengeance. Or at least that was how it seemed to him.
He turned to Frankie, enjoying the simple luxury of looking at his mate. She was wearing blue coveralls that did nothing for her slim figure. Yet there was still something sexy about the picture she made right then.
When Trick had walked in, his wolf had reacted instantly and fiercely to the sight of her; he’d leaped so hard and fast to the surface that Trick would have shifted if he hadn’t had such iron control. Well, maybe not iron control, given that his cock was so painfully hard and heavy that it hurt to walk.
He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted Frankie Newman. Just looking at her made his gut twist with a fierce sexual need. The sight of her also brought him a supreme joy that nothing else could equal.
He’d woken more than once during the night, his cock full and aching, the image of her face in his mind. He’d showered several times since first meeting her, but her scent still haunted him every moment of the day. It seemed to live inside him now, like it had sunk into his pores. He’d know it anywhere.
Trick’s eyes involuntarily dropped to her lush mouth. He wanted it under his. Wanted to lick and taste and bite. “What made you decide to make a hellhorse?”
“I didn’t. Sometimes I don’t really know what I’m going to create until I actually start the piece.”
That surprised him. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Not for me. If I spend a lot of time pondering what I’m going to do, I overthink it. The fun is in the creative process itself, watching it come together little by little. I guess it’s like when you tell a story—there are stages to it. I’m not a writer, but I don’t think I’d like to know the end of a story before I wrote it. Part of the buzz would come from watching what happens in my head and writing each part down as it comes.”
He nodded. “So you shove your consciousness out of the way so you don’t think too much and can just go with it and see what happens.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly it.” Frankie wasn’t used to people understanding her. She wasn’t used to people wanting to understand. It took her off guard, but her wolf liked that he showed such interest in her.
“You’re not going to make the rear of its body, are you? Because it looks amazing as it is.”
“No, I’m not.” She skimmed her finger over the creature’s neck. “There isn’t much left for me to do now. Shouldn’t take me more than a few weeks to finish.” Realizing he was staring at her, she asked, “What?”
“It just amazes me that a person can make something like that. Really. I mean, it’s one thing to see a picture of a sculpture. It’s another thing to stand next to one, see it from every angle, and realize that someone actually made it by hand. Are all your sculptures so dark?”
“Most.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Look, if you’re here for Lydia or Iris—”
“I’m here to see you.”
Her pulse skittered. “Why?”
He’d just needed to be around her, check on her, and breathe her in. Also . . . “I was curious about you.” About where she lived and what kind of space she’d need for a studio, because Trick would have to make sure she had one on pack territory. He intended to make sure she had everything she needed to be happy there.
“Well, I’m pretty busy.”
“You can take a break, right? All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
She sighed at the dumb phrase. “Who is this Jack? And why should I care if he’s dull?”
Trick’s mouth quirked. “It’s just a turn of phrase.”
“Yeah, but I don’t understand the point in using proverbs when you have the option of saying something that makes perfect sense.”
He supposed she had a point, though he didn’t see why they annoyed her so much. “Okay, I’ll rephrase. Working too much isn’t good for you—you need to make time for fun.” Glimpsing a door ajar behind her, he asked, “What’s through there?”
“It’s my display room. I keep all my finished pieces in there.”
“Can I see?”
Since he was already heading right for it, Frankie grumbled, “I guess so.”
Trick pushed the door open and stalked inside. What could only be described as nightmarish sculptures filled the space. Among them was a gargoyle, a large face scrunched up in agony, a nun wearing an evil smile, and a creepy-looking kid on a chair. “Wow.”
While he studied her sculptures, Frankie studied him. Trick Hardy was something of a mystery to her. Why? Because she could sense that he did his best to downplay his dominance around her. It was a futile effort. He had a powerful presence. The air in the studio seemed charged with the compelling intensity that practically bounced off his skin like tiny little sparks. He could play the easygoing charmer all he wanted, but she wasn’t buying it. Not even with his slow, lazy smiles and the sexy swaggering gait.
Trick turned to her, surprised to find her watching him. “Jesus, Frankie, how did you make this stuff? Every piece is both eerie and captivating at the same time.” Her cheeks reddened at the compliment. Trick skimmed a knuckle over one of them, felt the heat of her blush. “Not used to people admiring your work, are you?” It made him wonder . . . “Do your grandparents approve of what you do?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Neither of them are arty people, from what I remember. I just wondered if they’d find it hard to understand that you
have a passion.” As her mouth clamped shut, Trick nodded and trailed the tip of his finger over the row of piercings on her ear. “Okay, I get it, you don’t want to bad-mouth them to someone you barely know. Loyalty is good.” He wanted some of that loyalty for himself.
Frankie stepped back, a little uncomfortable with how casually he touched her. No, a little uncomfortable that it didn’t bother her wolf the way it should. The animal generally didn’t like having her personal space invaded, but she didn’t seem to mind sharing it with Trick. “You’re pretty tactile, even for a shifter.”
“You’ll get used to it. Your wolf will let you know if I’m taking it too far. Has she ever surfaced?”
“Sure.”
“How old were you when it first happened?”
“Thirteen.” And she’d been scared out of her mind, because she hadn’t known what to do.
Trick’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me you didn’t do it alone.” Her eyes slid away, and he growled. “No one should be alone during their first shift. I’m sorry you were.” And he felt like shit about it. He was her mate; he should have been there. If she hadn’t gone to live with the Newmans, he would have been there. Those humans had a lot to fucking answer for. “So you’re not used to being around shifters?”
“Nope.”
“How does your wolf feel around me? Threatened? Edgy?”
“She likes you.”
He smiled, since he’d half expected her to claim that her wolf didn’t want him around. “I like that you’re honest, Frankie. Far too many people aren’t.” Closing the distance between them in one fluid stride, Trick traced her cheekbones with his thumbs, all the while drinking in every curve, every line, every dent, every freckle on her face. “I’d like to sketch you.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Trick laughed. His wolf was delighted with her. She was unexpected in the best ways. “I’m serious. I like sketching. It relaxes me. The same way I’m thinking that sculpting relaxes you.”