“So by blonde, do you mean dirty blonde, or platinum, or—”
Slam!
Nuke kicked the door shut on Amos’s idiot face, and then dropped the boxes in the middle of the room.
“You’re definitely a reptile shifter because you’re so fuckin’ rude!” Amos called through the door.
He’d been called worse.
The trailer was no castle, but it felt like a good enough spot to him. He could probably sleep for a week. It had been a long year and there had been no time to just…breathe.
A mouse scampered across the floor and disappeared behind the mini-fridge he’d found on clearance at the general store in town. Nuke narrowed his eyes at where the critter had disappeared. Great. He couldn’t wait to find little turds in his cereal.
He hated mice, but it was nothing personal against the tiny creature. In all fairness, he hated most things.
A knock sounded on the door.
He was going to kill Amos. Nuke nodded to himself, because murder sounded like a great plan right about now, and yanked the door open. He was going to kill Amos.
A girl stood there. No, not a girl. A woman. She didn’t wear any make-up, and her honey-colored hair was a mess on top of her head. She had a big birthmark down the left side of her face, and her eyes were red like she’d been crying.
“What?” he asked.
“Ummmm…” She looked around, but probably saw what he did. No one was here but him and Amos, and Amos was probably in his trailer right now internet stalking blonde triplets who only sang in eagle screeches. “I’m looking for Lauren Tobias. I think she lives here, but I don’t know what trailer. I knocked on all of them and no one answered, and I’m so sorry to bother you.”
The woman trained her eyes on the ground. He didn’t like it, but that’s what everyone did around him.
Gruffly, he said, “I don’t know who Lauren Tobias is. I think you’re at the wrong spot, lady.”
He moved to shut the door, but she said, “I think she goes by Ren sometimes.”
Oh. Ren. The mate of Bron. Nuke opened the door wider and pointed to the second dirt road from the left that would lead to Bron’s cabin. “That-a-way.”
The woman frowned at the spiderweb of roads. “I think I’ve been down all of those and I’m confused on direction now.”
Huh. “A helpless one, great.”
Her eyes flashed with anger and dropped back down to the ground. Softly, she said, “I’m not helpless.”
Okay. She had some grit behind those words.
“I’ll take you,” Amos called from where he’d opened his trailer door a couple buildings down. “I can take you to Ren. She’s about to head to work in an hour, so I’ll get you there fast.” He jogged down the stairs, mussing his hair with his fingertips. “Sorry for the reptile,” he told her. “Nuke is the cactus of the trailer park.”
He didn’t know what that meant, but fuck Amos.
“You’re Nuke?” the woman asked softly.
Nuke narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like people knowing who he was.
Fine. Amos should take her. This wasn’t his circus, and they certainly weren’t his monkeys. It was moving day and he was busy. But just as he went to shut the door, Amos introduced himself and said, “I’m single.”
Nuke caught the door inches from closing. Shhhhhit. He rolled his eyes heavenward and prayed for patience not to light this entire trailer park on fire today. “I’ll take you,” he growled out in irritation.
He hopped from the door three feet down to the ground.
“Why don’t you have stairs on your trailer?” the woman asked.
“Because it keeps idiots out,” he grumbled, tossing Amos a look.
The splinter lurched forward like he would hit Nuke, but Nuke was ready for it. He offered Amos an eye roll and strode for the woman’s car.
“You left your door open,” she said softly behind him.
“Maybe the mice will take the hint and leave.”
“But…what if someone steals your stuff?”
He shrugged without turning around. “I don’t have anything worth stealing.”
“Komodo Dragon,” Amos called from behind him.
Nuke lifted a middle finger into the air, and then opened the woman’s door for her.
“Oh, thank you,” she whispered. Mouse. She was a submissive mouse. And probably human. She didn’t smell like fur and her eyes were a soft and utterly human green color. “Sorry my car is messy. It’s…” She gestured to the full back seat. It was full of black trash bags. “It’s all I own.”
Nuke rested his hands on his hips and sighed as he studied her full car. Even the passenger seat was full. “Are you running from something?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Mostly from life.”
Well, he knew all about that.
She began to struggle the small suitcase from her front seat into the back, but he stopped her. “I’ll walk, don’t bother with that. Just follow me.”
“Oh. Okay. Sorry.”
Mouse, mouse, mouse. “Don’t apologize anymore. You aren’t doing anything wrong.” Nuke didn’t mean for his tone to come out so harsh, but he hated that. Hated when people apologized for nothing. It was a filler, not a real apology.
“S-sorry.” She shook her head hard, and whispered it again, as if she was glitching.
He studied the woman more closely. Something was wrong with her. She felt…sad? Scared? Too submissive for her own good, absolutely, but there were more layers.
She had medium brown hair with some blonde highlights that had grown out a few inches. Her dark lashes were so long, they brushed her cheeks when she blinked. Her cheeks were red with a blush, and her green eyes were rimmed with that red that told him she’d been upset before she’d come knocking on his door. She wore a light gray hoodie with a darker gray glittery logo on it, and leggings that hugged her hourglass figure. A pair of flip-flops showed off an old pedicure where her white toenail polish was chipping. When she looked up at him, she looked like she was about to cry. Because of the apology-glitch?
“It’s been a really long few weeks,” she whispered.
Okay. Okay. She was probably going to Ren for some help, so okay. His stone heart cracked a little, just on the edge.
“Everything will be all right,” he told her, because when a person was at the end of their rope, those five words were the only anchor that mattered. He’d figured that out a long time ago.
And then he shut her door for her, and without looking back, he strode down the dirt road that would lead the woman to Ren.
Chapter Two
Nuke.
She’d heard rumors about a Nuke. Was he the same one?
Trina eased her foot onto the gas and compared the man in front of her to the legend. Nights by a campfire, two glasses of wine deep, she’d heard tales of a shifter who felt bigger than any other. Who growled like nothing anyone had ever heard, and was stronger in his human form than Paul Bunyan himself. They said there was an evil in him the likes of which no one had seen.
Nuke strode smoothly up the dirt road ahead of her, eating up distance with a predator’s stride. Too graceful, too powerful, too sure-footed to be human. His medium brown hair was long enough to brush the neck of his gray cotton shirt. The tan skin of his arms glistened with a thin sheen of sweat, but that was probably from working in the abnormally warm morning. She’d noticed all the moving boxes. He seemed about halfway done unloading the red old Highboy pickup truck parked in the gravel space in front of his single-wide.