His eyes floated up to the plastic tubes going into my arm, the machines, and when he eyed the space beside me, I scooted a little to the right.
Reno walked around to the left side and tested his weight, slowly easing himself on the bed and turning on his side, draping his arm around my stomach. His nose touched my neck and I relished the warmth of his body so close to mine.
“Is this all he did to you?”
My stomach knotted. The sharp edge in his voice terrified me.
“Yeah.”
He looked at me softly, not like he had before. Why had I been so afraid of this man when we first met? I’d never dated a tough guy before, so I’d never had a clue they were all soft inside. Reno redefined what a man was in my eyes.
“You’re more beautiful without makeup on your eyes. You know that?”
Which meant I was lying there without a speck of eyeliner. Not that it should have bothered me, but I must have looked like a hot mess.
“How long do I have to stay here? I can’t afford this.” I coughed a few times and cleared my throat.
“Don’t think about that right now. Just get better,” he murmured against my neck, kissing me tenderly. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Those last words lingered in my mind. I wanted to be with Reno, but I also wanted a fresh start. I couldn’t enter a relationship with him with all this debt, a man trying to kill me, being homeless, and not having a job. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone. He’d almost died for me and I needed to sort out my problems so nothing like that would happen again—I owed him that much. If they never caught Sanchez, then Reno would always be in danger.
I listened to the sound of the machine pumping fluids through the IV and closed my eyes. “I can’t do this with you.”
“Shhh,” he said. “Close your eyes and sleep. We’ll talk later.”
“When they let me go, I’m going to figure things out with Trevor. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
Reno drew in a deep breath and sat up, leaning on his right elbow. “It’s about time you learned a little fact about your friend. Trevor is a Shifter.”
“Don’t do that, Reno. Don’t make up lies to try to turn me against my best friend.”
“How do you explain the night we found him beaten and he healed? Your friend had a compound fracture in his arm; that kind of injury doesn’t just mend with a little peroxide.”
“It’s not possible. I’ve known him forever.”
He quietly huffed out a laugh and looked up at the chalkboard where the nurses wrote their names. “He’s in the closet.”
My eyes went wide. “How did you know?”
Then he glanced at me with a quizzical brow. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
“What are you talking about?”
Reno rubbed his face and then dropped his hand on mine, quickly moving it when he felt all the tubes. “He’s turned his back on his own kind. Trevor’s a Shifter. When we get close enough, we can usually sense someone who is Breed. Trevor was easy to peg in the grocery store because of how territorial he was. There’s a subtle body language and something you notice in the eyes of other Shifters when we’re acting on instinct. Austin forced him to shift that night and Trevor was madder than a hornet’s nest. I’ve seen his kind before. He doesn’t want to be part of our world. He’s living in denial, trying to be human. I don’t know if he lets his wolf out—if not, that makes him unpredictable and dangerous. Our wolf has to come out; that’s just a fact of life.”
“It’s impossible. There’s no way I could have known him this long without noticing my best friend is a wolf. I would have… I…”
How could I have known Trevor was a Shifter? None of it seemed logical, but it’s not as if they had a membership symbol stamped on their foreheads.
“Even after shifting, he denied what he was,” Reno continued. “He called us lunatics, but he knows. He knows what he is. He’s in the closet and living in denial. It’s a sad fucking thing to behold because I’m proud of what I am. If you want to stay friends with him, then you have a right to know your safety will be compromised. We can’t control our animal and I’ve got no idea what his pattern is. That makes me uneasy. If you won’t stay with me, then so be it. But you sure as hell aren’t staying with him. Over my dead body, and that’s the deal.”
I’d never lived with Trevor, but we’d crashed together a time or two. I suddenly thought about him storming out on the occasions when his temper flared or when he was hurt. What Reno said made sense: Trevor’s wolf wanted to come out and he couldn’t be around me or I’d find out what he was.
“Unbelievable,” I whispered. “This just isn’t my life. How strong are these drugs they’re giving me?”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t confront him on it. He’s not ready to face his demons, and I don’t want you pushing his buttons. Sorry, but I don’t trust his wolf. That’s just the way it is.”