“I wouldn’t want you to lose sleep over turning me into a werewolf,” he snapped the word, uncharacteristically baiting her.
The newly turned Harry was riding the crest of an enormous hormonal wave, according to Marty’s retelling of her accidental change. Mara tried to take that into consideration. She also tried to take into consideration the fact that her serum had been infused with more female hormones than a menopausal midlifer, and Harry was in for the ride of his male life if they mimicked a real pregnancy.
She stopped all thought. It was too horrific to consider.
Nina put her hand on Mara’s shoulder, using her as leverage to lean over Mara’s head and jam her face in Harry’s angry one. “Dude, you’re just a little too fucking aggressive for my taste. If you don’t play nice and at least entertain Short-Shot’s attempts to make her own kinda nice, your world’s gonna get hinkier. And fast.”
Harry gave Nina an “oh, yeah?” glance, one that was very unlike him. “I will not be intimidated by your threats, Crypt Keeper. She did this to me. Not the other way around. I have every right to be upset.”
Mara patted Nina’s hand and nodded some more. Astrid always said she was a great yes-man. “That’s absolutely the truth, and now I’m trying to fix it—or make it better. I just want to help you, Harry. All sorts of crazy things are going to happen to your body, your emotions, and you need someone who knows what’s going to happen to you to help you through it.”
Harry played statue.
The loud blaring of the TV from just beyond his front door brought up another point—a valid one—one that might appeal to him on a more sentimental level. “And your niece and nephew, Harry . . . What about them? What if what happened to you in the lab happens again and there’s no one here to shield the children from seeing it? You don’t want that, do you? We can help, if you’ll just let us,” Mara pleaded with him, desperate to keep his children unaffected.
Harry waffled, his eyes changing from hard, shiny slivers of blue to softer hues at the mention of his wards. It was only a little, but she sensed it. Smelled it. Saw it physically affect his entire demeanor. He rolled up the sleeves of his green and black flannel shirt, rumpled and buttoned incorrectly, and repeated, “I’m fine.”
Mara held up her hands as a sign of peace. “I know we’ve freaked you out, and I get it. But I swear to you, if you’ll just use your new sense of smell, you’ll be able to tell we’d never hurt you.”
Now he went all skeptical, his tone incredulous. “My nose . . .”
“Yeah,” Nina groused. “You’re officially an ass-sniffer now, which means you can smell danger.” She used her hand to push at the air under her neck, shooing it in Harry’s direction. “Sniff me.”
Harry almost did as he was told, rocking forward on the heels of his feet, but then he caught himself and stepped squarely back as though there were no way he was going to be caught falling for Nina’s joke. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, no! It’s true!” Mara infused as much sincerity as she could into her reassurance. “Look, even if you can’t smell that we’re not dangerous, where’s your sense of reason, Harry? How long have you worked for Pack now?”
Harry’s eyes narrowed again, but he was still wavering. If he couldn’t smell his own uncertainty about not trusting them, Mara could, and she was going to take that and run with it. “Long enough.”
Now that she had a point to make, Mara was all business. If they were talking logical conclusions, she wasn’t the timid wallflower she became when she put on her man-eater underwear. “And in that period of time, has anyone ever hurt you, Harry? Caused you to fear for your physical well-being? Ever?”
Again, more waffling, but he was stubbornly hanging on by a thread. “Not unless you count today. Today, I’d say my well-being was wholeheartedly and carelessly abused.”
Fair. “Today was an accident, Harry. I swear it. I was careless. I thought everyone had gone home and I was alone in the lab. It was stupid and reckless of me to put something so untested and dangerous in an empty bottle of vitaminwater. But all of us, at Pack or those who are part of our werewolf pack, respect humans. Humans do work at Pack, Harry you are—were—one of them. We’ve had human employees retire from Pack without a hair on their heads harmed. Don’t you remember Garvin Smithfield?”
“He had no hair,” he said it like werewolves had ripped it from his very scalp.
Mara rolled her eyes, tucking her chin into her coat. “That wasn’t because of us. Do you remember his retirement party? You were there. As I recall, you ate a lot of Missy Harver’s taco dip. You joked about it. Said you’d be feeling it for at least a week. Garvin was a human.”