Mate Marked(25)

“Oh, we could build you that, easy,” Roman said without thinking, which earned him an odd look from Chelsea.

“Anyway,” he said, struggling to regroup, “other than the fact that you can’t arrest me, how are you liking Silver Peak so far?”

“Other than that, I’m loving it. The pack members are really nice, although that’s probably partly because they feel guilty about tricking me into taking the job. They keep bringing me ‘welcome to the pack’ gifts and stuff. Which is exceptionally generous given how much the town is struggling financially.”

“It’s not just guilt,” Roman said. “They are a pretty nice bunch, as far as I can tell.”

“What was your pack like?” Chelsea asked.

Ugly memories welled up and sweat beaded on his forehead. The funerals on a grey, rainy day… The angry pack members arguing about who was going to have to take him in… The accusing eyes that followed him everywhere he went… He felt a dark flash of anger shoot through him. “What part of ‘no talking about the past’ do you not understand?” he snapped.

There was dead silence for a moment, and he felt the temperature around them drop to sub-zero.

Chelsea stood abruptly. “Quite right. Totally forgot that having a normal conversation with you is off-limits. I’m going to go hang out in the party tent.” That was where they all hung out on nights when the weather was bad.

She got up and walked away.

It took about five minutes of Roman feeling like a horrible asshole and desperately craving Chelsea’s cheerful warmth before he got up and hurried over to the tent. He was about to do something he’d never done before—apologize.

She was inside with her back to him, sweeping the clean floor. He cleared his throat, but she ignored him and kept sweeping.

“The guys already did that earlier,” he said. “To impress you, I think. They like you.”

“I like them too,” she said, her tone wooden and unwelcoming.

But not me. Not anymore.

“Listen,” he said. “There’s a reason we don’t talk about our pasts. For anyone to want to join a pack like mine, they have to have come from a situation that was pretty bad.”

“I figured.” Was her tone softening a little?

“My father drank himself to death when I was twelve,” he blurted out suddenly, then braced himself for a smothering bout of self-pity. It never came.

“That must have sucked,” she said, continuing to sweep the clean floor.

He shrugged. “Not exactly a Norman Rockwell childhood, no.”

“Well, Norman Rockwell didn’t paint shifters, that I know of anyway.” Her tone was lighter now.

“I’m really sorry I snapped at you. My past was an ugly, dark place, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

His father hadn’t just drunk himself to death after the death of Roman’s mother, he’d taken others with him, and the pack had taken it out on Roman. For years and years, until he was fifteen and ran away from the pack. He’d spent years hiding from the law, traveling from one gypsy pack to another, until he turned eighteen and started to form his own pack. Long years of hunger and loneliness and anger. But he wasn’t going to burden her with that.

“Come outside with me again?”

“Why?” She glanced up at him.

“When you’re not drugging me, tazing me or handcuffing me, I actually kinda enjoy your company.”

She leaned her broom against the wall. “Maybe,” she conceded. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You find me the ingredients for some s’mores.”

“Some…what?”

“You know—s’mores? It’s a classic camping thing. Well, more for humans, but we lived near some humans who taught us how to make them. You’ve never heard of them?”

He shook his head.

“They’re awesome. You put marshmallows on a stick and set them on fire, then you make a sandwich out of chocolate and graham crackers— Stop looking at me like that! They’re the best thing since sliced bread!”

The way her eyes lit up when she was talking about s’mores…he wanted her to look at him like that.

“Well, if I can’t find any of those ingredients, will you come sit outside with me anyway?”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I dunno. I just set my terms and you failed to meet them.”

“But I’ll be lonely. And I had a terrible cubhood. You should pity me.”

“Oh, now you want to talk about your past?”

He flashed her a big, white-toothed grin. “If it gets me the pleasure of your company, I do.”