Hidden Crimes (32 page)

This should have made her feel better . . .
except, what if he hadn’t mentioned it because he didn’t want them
to know his girlfriend could shove his face in the dirt?

Don’t be paranoid
, Evina ordered
herself.
He’s been through a lot. He isn’t pulling away from
you
.

Not necessarily anyway.

~

Evina’s second in command lived a couple
blocks from her in the same complex of townhomes. In Nate’s
opinion, the dated cookie cutter structures were an eyesore. Ah
well. He supposed the grassy stretches between the buildings were
good for the kids to run on.

“You don’t have to do this,” Evina said once
he’d parked and shut off the engine. “It’s my problem, really.”

Nate disliked hearing that more than he had a
right to say. “I don’t mind. This might be easier with a buffer
there.”

Evina blew out her breath, looking more
nervous than before.

“Come on,” he said, getting out. He didn’t
walk around to open her door for her. This was alpha business. She
didn’t need to be treated like a girl.

She got out and joined him on the front walk.
He noticed she put her shoulders back as they strode up it
together. Christophe opened the door a minute after she’d
knocked.

His gray sweatpants and RFD T-shirt covered
some of the damage, but his appearance inspired an inner jolt. With
the bandages removed, his skin looked like a paper-mache project
gone awry. The scars appeared to be hampering his range of motion.
His arms were stiff as he swung the door back to let them in.

“Nate,” he said, surprising him by
remembering.

“Christophe,” he returned, maybe just as
surprised at the warmth that welled inside of him. The reaction
felt like it was coming from his wolf. “Good to see you up and
about.”

“Well, it’s better than the alternative.” He
hugged Evina, the gesture seeming natural and affectionate.

“You ready to try this?” she asked.

Christophe let out a sigh.

“You need to,” Evina said, surprised by his
reluctance. “You can’t return to work as you are. You’re as stiff
as an arthritic.”

“Maybe I’m not meant to return.”

“Not meant to!” Evina’s exclamation was
breathless. “Chris, you love being a firefighter. Hell, in a lot of
ways you’re better at it than me!”

“Things happen for a reason.”

“Bull,” she spat back at him. She hesitated.
“Is it me? Are you afraid I’m going to screw up helping you to
change?”

“Of course not,” he said. “If you say you can
do it, I believe you.”

He was afraid of something. Nate saw that
shadow cross his face. He took Evina’s arm before she could speak
again. “You know, maybe Chris and I should have a guy talk.”

“A guy talk.” Evina’s fists had found their
way to her waist.

“Sure. In case there’s anything he’s too
embarrassed to tell you.” Both Evina and her second stared at him.
“Come on, Chris,” he said, ignoring how ridiculous they both seemed
to be finding him. Nate had instincts, and they were telling him to
keep at this. “Let’s go to the kitchen and crack a beer.”

Bemused, Chris led the way to his fridge.
Perhaps cruelly, Nate let him fumble over opening two bottles of
faerie stout with his damaged hands. Nate took one long swallow
before he spoke.

“She can do it,” he said quietly enough that
Evina would have to strain to hear. “She might have doubts, but I
don’t. I’m a wolf, and she mastered me. Most alphas can only force
their own pack members into a change.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Chris said. “We
came up in the same class at the Fire Academy. Once Evina figured
out how to do something, she always had it down.”

“Then what’s the hang up? And don’t bullshit
me about what’s meant to be. You’re afraid of something.”

Christophe worried at the label of his
chilled beer. “I keep thinking about that day. About how Evina
warned me the room was going to flashover. She ordered me to get
out of there. That’s how they train us. You don’t play crazy hero
unless you’re convinced you can make it pay off.”

“You did make it pay off. You got those kids
out of there.”

“But I wasn’t convinced I could. I wasn’t
even thinking. I might have been on two legs, but my tiger was in
charge of me.
It
saved those kids.
It
tore off my
protective gear and wrapped them up in it. I wasn’t afraid at all,
and that—” He gestured with the bottle for emphasis. “
That
scares the hell out of me. What if I change and it takes over? What
if the impulse it decides to act on isn’t benign?”

Nate couldn’t speak for a few seconds.
Christophe might have stolen his own terrors and put them into
words. He must have been channeling Tony then, because what he
finally did say was pretty damned silly.

“Cats don’t wear coats.”

Christophe’s fire-thinned eyebrows shot
up.

“They don’t wear coats,” Nate repeated, “and
they can’t tear them off. They might risk their lives to defend
their own cubs, but they don’t generally risk them for a
stranger’s. You were in there, Chris. Your cat took charge so you
could do what you needed without being paralyzed. Maybe it knew
you’d be successful. Sometimes our beast halves are more intuitive
than our human ones. Bottom line: You’re the boss of it, not the
other way around.”

“You really think so?”

“I really do.” He felt better as he said it,
not completely but enough that the knots in his shoulders let go of
his trapezoids. Evina had said he’d let her dominate his wolf.
Maybe there’d been more truth in that than he’d realized.

“I’ll stay while Evina does it,” he added.
“You’ll have us both to look out for you.”

Nate had offered this without thinking, but
Christophe wasn’t offended. Though he was a grown man, relief
washed visibly through him. “I’d appreciate that.”

~

Evina had known Christophe would be her
second before he did. The first time they teamed up for an exercise
at fire school, the relationship simply clicked. The reason was
more than working well together or thinking in similar ways. They
had what she thought of as professional chemistry. Even at the
height of her and Paul’s romance, their rhythm hadn’t been as
smooth.

Chris had never said so, but he’d been
relieved when Paul broke up with her and went to a different
station. At the workplace, her ex had been the third wheel.

Her beta was in his bedroom now, laboriously
undressing while Evina and Nate waited in the hall outside. That
was a little weird, but not because she and Chris had ever been
intimate.

“So.” Nate leaned against the opposite wall.
“You and Chris ever . . . ?”

“No,” she said, amused by how closely his
thoughts tracked hers.

“It’d be understandable. I assume he’s a
good-looking guy.”

“He is, but we never struck those kind of
sparks. We count on each other. After Freda and I guess my Mom,
he’s one of my closest friends.”

Nate’s fathoms-deep eyes met hers. Her
stomach went into free fall. God, he was attractive—and for more
reasons than his looks. He was brave and smart and a hundred other
not-simple qualities she admired. She didn’t want to think about
losing him from her life any more than she did Chris. His lips
tightened as if he were about to speak. Was he going to share what
he and Chris discussed? Did he perhaps have something personal to
say? Maybe on the topic of being her friend himself?

“Okay,” Chris joked from behind the door.
“I’m indecent.”

They went in without laughing. Chris was in
the bed, propped up on pillows. He’d pulled the sheet to his waist
for modesty. Scars webbed his upper body, the hardened tissue
seeming most constrictive on his right arm and face. On his chest,
a couple muscles looked as if portions had melted. The sight made
her hurt inside. More than ever, she hoped she could do this, if
only to restore what had been a fine example of tiger male
beauty.

“Nice, huh?” Christophe said, pulling a
sarcastic face at himself.

Evina sat on the edge of the bed. “Consider
it a blessing. When you’re healed, you’ll really appreciate what a
handsome stud you are.”

Chris smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re my
boss. And my friend. No matter what happens next.”

He was making her tear up. Pulling herself
together, she took his right hand in hers. She held it gently
against her breast and looked into his eyes.

“I’m not feeling her up, I swear,” he teased
aside to Nate.

“Shush,” Evina said. “Focus on me right
now.”

He settled, letting her gaze sink into
his.

“You’re mine,” she said much more gently than
she had to Nate in the woods. “My tiger. My beta. My right hand in
the pride. You’ve always trusted me, and I want you to trust me
now. I’m going to compel you to change. My will is going to rule
yours.”

She pushed. She knew Chris felt it, because
his eyes grew worried. Very aware of Nate standing behind her, she
upped the amperage. The air between her and Chris wavered with
magic. Chris made a tiny noise like she was hurting him.

“Harder,” Nate said before she could ease up.
“You need to really slam your will into him.”

“Just do it,” Chris gasped at her.

She was trying. She remembered how mastering
Nate had felt and knew this was different. Her authority didn’t
feel as decisive. Maybe she couldn’t be as ruthless if the
situation weren’t life and death. Maybe she didn’t want to be a
stone cold alpha in front of Nate a second time. Shoving that fear
aside, she closed her eyes to concentrate better. It wasn’t
working. Sweat broke out on her skin.

Then Nate dropped his hand to her
shoulder.

All of them gasped in unison. Evina’s eyes
flew open. The contact was like a plug pushed into a socket. Nate’s
aura linked up to hers so neatly she was amazed it hadn’t happened
before. She felt twice as big, twice as strong, twice as
unstoppable. She felt whole—without having realized she didn’t feel
that way before. Now she knew why this had been so easy at the
lake. Nate made her more. Nate
supported
her alpha
power.

“Change,” she whispered, one hundred percent
certain it would happen.

Heat surged from her heart chakra into
Christophe’s. His big hand tingled inside of hers, and then simply
disappeared. He flashed from man to tiger in a split second, faster
than she’d ever seen anyone change form. Light burst outward from
where he’d been, radiant and gorgeous, like a soul she could
actually see.

An instant later, a giant tiger shape was
wriggling and huffing under Christophe’s plaid cotton sheet.

Evina started laughing and couldn’t stop. His
tiger looked completely silly trapped like that.

“Sorry,” she said when he growled at her.
Wiping her eyes, she got up and helped free him.

He lay down then, more than taking up the
bed. Evina reached to rub him between the ears. He butted her hip,
marking her with his scent glands. Then he looked up at Nate.

“
Can
I pet him?” Nate asked, slightly
awed. Evina understood the reaction. Christophe was intimidating up
close and in tiger form.

“Don’t let him lick you,” she warned. “Tiger
tongues scrape like sandpaper.”

Nate gave Chris an experimental scratch
underneath the chin, which Chris encouraged by lifting it. Nate
scratched harder. Chris’s tiger’s eyes drooped with enjoyment. If
they kept this up, he was going to purr. He marked Nate too, then
jerked his head toward the door with a sneezing noise.

“Okay,” Evina said, “that’s our cue to leave
and let him change back again.”

Since this only took a minute, she guessed
her beta was over his hang up.

He came out again tying the drawstring on his
sweatpants. The motions of his hands were easy, his skin once again
flawless.

“That’s more like it,” Evina said, meeting
his giant grin with her own. “Now all the hose bunnies can swoon
after you again.”

“Puh-lease,” Chris said. “Women love a big
guy with scars.”

He reached for Nate’s hand, giving it a manly
slap and bump.

“
You
,” he said meaningfully.

“Me?” Nate returned, his eyebrows
quirking.

It was Chris’s turn to burst out laughing.
“You’re a fricking alpha. And you’re her damn bondmate. The other
guys are going to have a collective cow. I hope you’re prepared for
it!”

“No,” Evina said, even as the girly part of
her nature fizzed like champagne. He was hers? Really, he truly
was? “Christophe, maybe you’re wrong.”

“Nuh-uh,” he said firmly. “My aunt and uncle
are bondmates too. Their energy does the same stuff as yours.”

Evina looked at Nate, whose jaw seemed to
have fallen to the floor. “I’m alpha?” he asked.

“You’re alpha to me, that’s for sure. To all
Evina’s pride, I’ll bet. I guess the wolves will have to speak for
themselves.”

“That’s . . . not possible,” he said. He
looked like he wanted to be convinced, which Evina took as
promising.

“I mistook you for an alpha when we met,” she
reminded him. “You certainly demonstrated a knack for making my
crew back down. Heck, Nate, you inspired Rafi to change into boy
form without a fight. He brushed his teeth for you!”

As proud as if he’d arranged this turn of
events himself, Christophe clapped each of them on the
shoulder.

“Look out, world. Resurrection has something
new in it.”