He rubbed his finger down the slope of her nose, memorizing the features of her face. “You said you didn’t know what my company did. I thought you should. Now, tell me again why you thought you couldn’t go to culinary school?”
“Well, besides the small detail of not having a high school diploma since I was educated at home? I don’t think my parents ever took care of that officially.”
Another check-minus for her family. He ground his teeth together. Were there manuals for dealing with horrendous in-laws? How did human males deal with this? How long did they wait before they threw them off cliffs?
“Other than that? Your educational background can be handled.” Or forged if need be.
“Why should I bother? I’m never going to get to work in a restaurant, am I? I mean, all of your people work at your company.”
Cyrus let go of her and took a few steps away. She had no idea how closely this resembled a conversation he’d had with Lake weeks earlier. His sister was desperate to work in a human hospital since she was now educated to the point of being a nurse practitioner.
“You are fortunate in that you will never know what it is to live here, in New York, under the rule of Shepherd. We used to have much higher numbers than we do now. The pack was under constant attack both by other werewolves and from snooping humans. It is a lot trickier than you might imagine to arrange a life as a werewolf out there in the human world. Can you disappear from a normal job every full moon? Can you explain to your bosses why you have to? People start to ask questions.”
“Listen, I get it, I’m not arguing with you. I just became a werewolf. I’m going to have to let some of my human dreams go.” She shrugged. “You do the dishes. I’m going to go get ready to see what today has in store for me. Oh wait, I can’t.” She turned back to him. “I don’t have any clothes.”
“That’s taken care of. I sent two of the females to the brownstone to collect your clothing. It’s all put away in the second closet in my room. Also, you have a set of drawers in there too, next to mine.”
She shook her head. “Do you always think of everything?”
With a spin of her heel, she turned and headed back toward the bathroom. If he thought of everything, he’d have remembered to tell her where her clothes were before then. Of course, forgetting had granted him the gift of seeing her in one his college T-shirts.
He cleared his plate and carried it to the sink. When was the last time he’d cleaned a dish? Never eating at home meant never having to clean up after himself. He scrubbed at the dishes before going after the pan. She’d never cooked the bacon so he put that and the biscuits away. His mother would be so proud that he still remembered how to do the things she’d made him do when he was a child. It had been so many years since he’d done ‘chores.’
Always need to be able to take care of yourself…Her voice sounded in his mind, and he smiled at the memory. He almost never thought of his parents anymore. The memory of them simply didn’t fit into his daily life. Nothing about his life now resembled anything about his time with them.
Well, maybe now it did.
He turned off the water and took a deep breath. Giving up her dreams. He hated the thought of that. As soon as the Nathan problem was settled, he wanted her as blissfully happy as she could be. And then when she wasn’t, he’d kiss her back to happiness.
There really wasn’t anything he could do about her dilemma short of purchasing a restaurant for her to work in. But then he’d have to buy Lake a hospital, and he suspected that his handing them careers was not what either lady had in mind. Although that wasn’t much different than what he did at the company.
Cyrus shook his head. He wasn’t going to solve the world’s problems standing over a sink. He had to get dressed and get to the office. Alexei would be bound, by the end of the day, by a blood oath to not invade Cyrus’ territory, or there would be hell to pay. Then they would move on to Montana.
Some things he could be sure of. Cyrus had always known how to get things done.
****
Nathan quivered in the cage like a shaking leaf. Cyrus hadn’t even spoken to the pathetic excuse for a man yet, and the human was about two seconds from pissing himself out of fear.
Cyrus glanced at Jensen, who leaned up against the back wall. The other werewolf only pretended to be at ease. He could smell the tangy taste of Jensen’s vigilance across the room.
“Join me,” he called out to Jensen, and his pack mate walked over immediately.
“Yes, my Alpha?” Jensen held eye contact for a second before he looked slightly down. It was the appropriate behavior to show respect, although Cyrus had no doubt that, given the provocation, Jensen could easily meet his gaze for extended periods of time.