This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,63
mine after all.
“I’m going to clean up,” he says. “There’s food in the fridge. Help yourself to anything you want.”
He strides away from me, leaving me with a sense of confusion.
At some point, I’m sure he’s going to have to test my ability to control my scent and my power, but apparently, not right now. As he walks away to the enormous-looking bedroom on the right, he reminds me of the first night I saw him, every muscle of his human body in perfect harmony with his wolf as he prowls into the next room.
Through the windows on the left, the sun is setting and the city lights are starting to shine like gems. Tristan flips the lights on as he leaves the room, illuminating the living area around me as well as the bedroom he’s entering. Through the open door, I can see a mammoth bed covered in tangled sheets, the door to a bathroom on the left, and discarded clothes on the floor. The living area is neat and tidy, but his bedroom is messy.
Moments later, the shower turns on.
Left in relative silence, I slip off my boots and place them neatly beside the elevator before I test the down button. Of course, nothing happens. The scanner below the button indicates I need the security key to make the elevator work.
I take in the positives. The carpet is amazing. I can sink my toes into it. The view—also amazing. Threat to personal safety? Seems low right now, but I guess I’ll wait and see.
Placing my duffel bag on the large leather lounge that looks like the best candidate for my bed, I cross to the kitchen to verify Tristan’s claim that it contains food.
It does. Along with half a bottle of red wine, a quarter of a mud cake, and a packet of strawberries. There’s even ice cream in the freezer, although the whole tub is untouched.
I’m confused. This is not the food of a bachelor. I’m suddenly a little worried that a woman is going to appear from some corner of the penthouse and ask me what the hell I’m doing here.
When nobody does, I forage around in the kitchen cupboards for a wine glass and pour myself a glass, the first alcohol I’ve touched in months, but I think a drink is called for. I take a chance and pour Tristan one too. I also cut two pieces of cake—one for me and one for him—before I grab a cushion from the lounge and find a spot on the floor beside the windows to curl up with my glass of wine and my slice of cake.
Watching the cars pass by below, I raise my focus to the horizon and imagine that I can see Hidden House from here.
I sense Tristan’s arrival in the lounge room before he speaks.
His presence is once again overwhelming. But at least my senses aren’t going haywire from all the sensory input that I would experience around other shifters.
“It looks peaceful from up here, doesn’t it?” Tristan asks, lowering himself onto the arm of the nearest lounge chair. He stretches out his legs. He’s once again naked from the waist up, wearing a clean pair of jeans. Droplets of water follow the chiseled lines of his muscular chest to his waist.
He seems even calmer than before and I wonder if being in his home environment relaxes him as much as being at Hidden House relaxed me.
“You’re trying to warn me that it’s not peaceful at all,” I say.
Tristan points. “Two blocks over that way is where Baxter and Dawson attacked. Right outside the library. In broad daylight. They dragged the girls into a van. Made sure the humans didn’t see anything.”
I chew on my lip as I process the violence of the attack. “How did you know it was happening?”
Tristan taps his thigh, the first sign of tension. “I have guards posted around the city. They call me if something’s wrong—but I don’t have enough pack members to cover every block.” His gaze lowers to mine. “In this case, I sensed Carly’s fear.”
I’m surprised. “You sensed she was in trouble?”
“I’m her alpha. I know when anyone in my pack is in danger. But knowing and acting are two different things. I was all the way north near the Fremont Bridge. I couldn’t get back here fast enough.”
The muscle in his jaw tenses. A shadow passes across his face, as if he’s reliving the moment when he sensed the danger—the girls’ pain and