When she hesitated at a fork in the trees, he walked past her and pointed toward the left. “This way.”
Ooh, he looked bad from behind. Good in that he had a muscular back and a great ass, a confident stride, big powerful legs that were lithe when he moved—focus—but bad that the quills were in a solid pattern across one of his shoulders and hurt just to look at them. Tiny streams of crimson covered that side of his body. And bless that man, he was still dragging her luggage without complaint.
“Thank you for defending me back there,” she said. “I mean, no thanks for the tit-bite, but I appreciate the rest.”
Her voice was still raspy from Harlan choking her, she was blinking constantly to try to rid her body of the burning pepper spray, and her puncture wounds hurt like someone had burned her with cigarette lighters, but that could’ve gone a lot worse. And thanks to Tobias, she was really going to get off this island. Clayton was going to flip his lid when he found out. It would be interesting to see how the old codger reacted to one of his enforcers breaking the cardinal rule of this place—don’t take the crazies off the island.
Tobias was practically jogging toward his plane now, so she picked up the pace behind him. She didn’t think Harlan and the others would follow, but she felt safer sticking close to Tobias the Monster Grizzly. She shuddered when she thought about him in his animal form.
“Have you killed people before?”
“Why?” he asked, more growl than word.
“Just curious.”
“I’m an enforcer.” He spoke it like that should be answer enough.
“How many?”
“Rude,” he said, repeating her early retort back to her.
“Fine.”
His plane was a white and blue four-seater that looked newer than any she’d seen make deliveries on Perl. “New ride?”
“She’s one month young.”
“But you know how to fly her, right? I mean, you’ve been flying longer than a month.”
An impatient growl rippled through him. “I thought you did your research.” He yanked open the door and rummaged around in a small toolbox, then handed her a set of plyers. Bracing his hands on the edge of the passenger’s seat, he twitched his head at his shoulder. “Do the back first. I swear they’re getting deeper.”
“This is going to hurt.”
Tobias answered with a rippling, fully animalistic growl. Okay then.
“Don’t bite me. Again.”
Tobias winced with each quill she pulled out, and eventually, her hand began to tire and ache. It wasn’t until she made her way to his front that she saw his eyes. There was no human in them at all. She should distract him. “I hear the first year of marriage is the hardest one.”
Tobias snorted and stared at her, his eyebrows jacked up. Oh, she could imagine what she looked like: eyes red from the pepper spray, tears still rolling down her cheeks from the burn, mascara everywhere, bloody shirt, and her perfectly curled hair was probably now a tangled mess. She cracked a grin at the absurdity. The first year was the hardest? This was day one, and they were already bleeding.
A deep chuckle filled Tobias, and he angled his head toward the clouds above. She laughed, too, because his was infectious. They bantered back and forth with answering laughs until they were doubled over, cracking up. Maybe they were both in shock. They were mated now, complete strangers, and even though she’d known what she wanted and had written out the contract, they’d actually gone through with it.
Tobias’s chuckle finally tapered off, and he leaned back on the edge of the seat and took a long, steadying breath before she began de-quilling him again.
Because he’d been so nice about all this, Vera felt awful leaving here without him understanding at least part of what was wrong with her. “I have to tell you something. It’s kind of big.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched as she jerked another quill out, and the lingering smile fell completely from his lips. “Tell me.”
“Do you know anything about Turned shifters?”
“Not much. Only certain kinds of shifters are able to do it. It’s pretty rare.” He glanced at her and then away. “And they don’t Turn well.”
She gave him an empty smile and pulled another Harlan-dagger. “I didn’t Turn easily. I’m here because I have no control of my animal. Never did. Likely never will. Just so you know, that is something we’ll have to deal with.”
“Then why don’t you keep taking your medicine if the animal scares you.”
“I’m not scared of anything.” Lie.
Tobias shifted his weight and made a click behind his teeth as though he knew she was full of crap. At least he was nice enough not to call her on it.
“The medicine I make doesn’t just stop certain animal traits, Tobias. Your animal will shrink to nothing.” When Tobias gripped her hand in his, she gasped at his speed.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You have a very striking body,” she murmured, running her hand over his taut skin to make sure she’d gotten all the quills.