Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,115

walk away from it, I’ll never shift again, if that’s what you want. If that’s what you need. I want you, too, Persephone. There are still things I need to tell you, but I promise, we don’t have to say another word about magic and shifters if that’s what makes you happy.”

My heart started beating again. He wanted me. And he would walk away from his pack for me. I didn’t want that, not at all. I shook my head against his shoulder but stayed plastered against him so I could breathe him in. “I know I freaked out. It was... a lot to take in. And it’s still a little... overwhelming, so I need this to go slowly with all the supernatural stuff and magic. But in the last few weeks, I’ve really appreciated what a pack brings into your life. The support. I kind of like that.”

He grumbled and his fingers drifted over the bare skin of my shoulder where my collar gapped. His voice held a curious tension. “But you want to join my pack, not Rafe O’Shea’s. Right?”

I smiled and nuzzled closer. “It’s just, I’ve been on my own for a long time and I’m not used to being able to rely on anyone. It’s new. Very new. But I want to try it out. See how it feels.”

Dodge rubbed his chin over my head, messing up my ponytail. He started to say something else, no doubt something unbearably sweet, but he paused. Took another deep, deep breath. Exhaled and made a curious sound. Then he pressed his nose to my hair, repeating it before moving to snuffle along my collar and against my bare skin.

My heart immediately jumped and plummeted at the same time. He must have sensed something different.

Dodge pulled back to look at me with a frown, clearly puzzled over something. I could only stare at him, my pulse pounding in my ears. Did he know? Had he guessed?

His head tilted as he leaned in again and inhaled from behind my ear, then absolutely froze. When he looked up at me, he’d gone even paler than before. I held my breath and braced for an absolute freak out.

Chapter 53

Dodge

Dodge focused all of his attention on what Persephone whispered to him, the quiet confession that she liked the idea of a pack and wanted to be with him. Victory thrilled through him. She would be his. She wanted to stay.

A faint shiver of guilt slid into his veins. He hadn’t told her about the blood transfusions in the hospital and that she now had shifter blood in her veins. Perhaps not enough to turn her, but she deserved to know. There was no telling if it would manifest in any changes. Already her scent seemed different, tickling his mind with the possibility that she’d turned. Although she didn’t smell exactly like a wolf. It was her, just... tweaked.

He pushed away the distraction as she floundered through an explanation about not being able to rely on anyone. He knew that had changed. She could rely on him always. Always. He just had to prove it to her.

His wolf side sat up in alarm as he nuzzled her hair and stirred up a hint of her natural perfume. Dodge frowned and inhaled more, trying to tease out that tantalizing scent. What did it mean? What had changed? It wasn’t artificial like soap or shampoo or a store-made perfume. And yet it coiled around his brain and his heart and entirely captivated the wolf.

He breathed in again. Her hormones and body chemistry had changed, and the slight hint of her sweat flared as she nervously wrung her hands and watched him warily. He pulled her shirt aside so he could press his nose to her skin.

And then it hit him. She smelled like... like...

The wolf knew. The wolf howled in sheer and ferocious joy. A pup.

She was pregnant. His Persephone was pregnant.

Dodge froze, unable to breathe or think, as that one thought bounced around between his ears but made no permanent impact. The world stopped turning and the rest of existence faded away. Persephone, in his arms. Carrying his baby. A surge of sheer lust roared through him, enhanced, no doubt, because he hadn’t seen or touched her in at least a month. It was all he could do not to drag her up to his room.

He still couldn’t breathe. He managed to point at her stomach, as if he could see the proof, and waited for