Page 41 of Bad Wolf's Nanny

It wasn’t teasing. Not even a little bit.

She blinked. “Oh. I…I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” he said.

She looked back up. He was watching Sam too now, his expression soft. Uncertain. Like he didn’t quite trust himself to enjoy the sight too much.

“I was terrible at this at first,” he added, “didn’t know how to hold him. Couldn’t change a diaper without swearing. Felixhad to walk me through the first bath over speakerphone like I was defusing a bomb.”

She smiled faintly. “That’s hard to imagine.”

“Me panicking?”

“You needing help.”

He huffed a breath. “Believe me. I’ve needed a lot of help.”

Something about the way he said it made her chest ache.

She shifted Sam slightly and cleared her throat. “I wasn’t great with people, growing up. Still not, I guess.”

Dane’s brow lifted slightly, inviting her to go on.

“I was the quiet one. The weird one. Everyone else in my old pack wanted to shift, hunt, and spar. I wanted to read. Catalogue things. I was always left behind. Too slow, too small, too…not enough.” She gave a self-deprecating shrug, “Eventually, I just stopped trying. I kept to myself. It was easier that way.”

Dane tilted his head slightly, eyes steady on hers. “That why you ended up in academia?”

“I guess. Books are easier than people. They don’t interrupt or roll their eyes when I get excited about migration patterns or historical pack hierarchies.”

“I wouldn’t roll my eyes.”

“You raise your eyebrows.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is when you do it likethat.”

He gave her a small grin, barely there, but warm enough to make her chest squeeze.

Then, he sighed, sitting back and looking up at the ceiling. “It wasn’t like that here. Growing up, I mean. We weren’t allowed to be soft. Curiosity wasn’t something that got nurtured. Especially not in boys.”

Lola looked at him again. Really looked.

His posture was relaxed, but there was a tightness in his jaw. A slight clench in his hands. Like the memories were muscle-deep.

“You grew up under the old guard, didn’t you?” she asked softly.

He nodded.

“Before Felix took over.”

“Yeah.”

She waited, sensing there was more.

Dane exhaled, running a hand over his face. “It was brutal. Rigid. Everything was a lesson, and every lesson ended with blood. I was groomed to be one thing: a weapon. Not a thinker. Not a father. Just a soldier. A killer, if I had to be.”

“But you’re not just that.”