Page 16 of Watch Me Burn (Sanctuary #1)

CHAPTER 15

MATE

C an a wolf shifter get PMS?

That’s what I’m thinking as I storm into the cottage just now. Because if they can? Conall is totally PMS-ing.

Hey. He has a cycle, right? Wolf shifters do everything by the moon. Who knows? It would definitely would explain why he’s gone back to being Mr. Grump on freaking steroids on the heels of me thinking that maybe, just maybe, we might be friends even if I can’t be his mate.

This return to the snappish, glaring wolf I first met a couple of weeks started a couple of days ago. And I wish I could blame Conall completely for his shitty attitude, but that’s not fair. It’s just mostly his fault.

Since the stars on the map proved utterly useless, we’ve given up following the guide that the bus driver passed off to me. We use Conall’s nose and his wolf’s sense of direction to search as many as we can for some sign of the fire opal without any luck so far.

That’s where I accept some of the blame for pissing him off. I didn’t mean to, but I did, and I can’t change it now. It’s just… I’m so frustrated that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, or that I might’ve walked right by it without knowing I did. I keep thinking that I’ll stumble upon some shiny orange rocks, but now that it’s been two weeks of looking, I have to accept it’s not gonna be that easy.

And that’s assuming Celeste Montvale was right in the first place and there even is fire opal in the underground caves…

So, yeah. I’m frustrated. I try not to take it out on my wolfy guide because I do honestly appreciate everything he’s done for me. The other shifters might’ve thought they were funny, implying that Conall might actually be treating me as a prospective mate all because we ate dinner together, but I don’t get that vibe at all. He’s just doing his duty as the protector for his own cobbled-together pack of supernatural misfits.

But when I innocently ask if there’s a chance he might be accidentally leading me toward caves where he knew we wouldn’t find anything… not accusing him, but only asking out of frustration… I see the return of good ol’ Mr. Grump.

It doesn’t help that the sporadic snowfalls led to a fierce blizzard earlier this week. Dyea got sixteen inches over two days, and if I ever wanted to blow my cover and use my fire magic in front of the other supes in the village, it was then. Due to the weather, Conall put his big wolf paw down, refusing to even entertain the idea of heading toward the caves. I hated how much he wasn’t even a little wrong, and holed up in the cottage with Elise, barely paying attention to the latest show we started.

Like Buffy, True Blood is about vampires, and it’s another one of Elise’s choice. She seems to prefer it. Me? When I pick Alcide as my favorite character all because he’s a werewolf, I know I’m in trouble.

I didn’t see Conall for those two days, though when the snow finally stopped, there were quite a few boot tracks going from our cottage down toward his, plus a frozen snow hare he must’ve hunted that I passed over to Elise without a word.

He tried to feed me again, even without us being able to hit the canteen. What the hell did that mean?

I don’t know, and maybe if I didn’t offend him earlier today—the first time we’ve been back at the caves since the snowstorm—I could’ve asked.

Instead, Conall cut our exploration short. I was annoyed, but when my hand started sparking every time he rumbled something else at me, it was probably a good idea that we headed back to Dyea.

Surprise, surprise: Elise is gone. Based on how I caught her staring out the back door during the snowstorm, staring wistfully out into the woods, I’m starting to think that I’m not the only one who is pushing the borders of the sanctuary town. Only when I left, Conall chased after me; as always, he’s the protector. But Elise? I’m pretty sure she’s sneaking out when I’m in the caves with Conall because he’s not here to stop her.

Where is she going? I still don’t know, but if Elise needs something to do while I’m busy underground, who am I to poke my nose into her business? If she wants me to know, she’ll tell me. I have to remember that Elise is seventy-freaking-two. She might have a babyface. She’s still more than twice my age, and I have to trust her to take care of herself.

And who the hell am I kidding? Maybe Conall and I have more in common than I thought because I have a bit of a protector streak, too. Which is why, once I notice that Elise is missing from the cottage again, I decide to take a walk around Dyea in case I run into her.

I don’t know why. All of my instincts tell me she’s out in the woods somewhere, but if I go searching for her there, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll turn around and a big grey-and-white wolf will be right behind me.

Is that crazy? I feel like it’s crazy.

Conall Hunt makes me crazy.

I don’t know where he took off to after we walked in silence back to the settlement. Mumbling that he needed to run, I went in search of Elise—and I’m still looking for her.

And, okay, maybe I wouldn’t be opposed to bumping into Conall and…

And what? Apologize? Make him apologize?

Kiss him?

Wait— kiss him? Where the hell did that idea come from?

I shake my head. Shoving my hands in the back of my jeans pocket, I bite down and walk toward the commissary.

I don’t make it. Halfway to the store, I get flagged down by one of the shifters I’ve met at the canteen. James. I know two things about him: he turns into a rat, and he works as the dishwasher at the canteen.

I’ve talked to him a couple of times, usually when I was eating alone. Since I’ve been sitting with Conall for my meals, the notably skittish James stays on the other side of the canteen.

He’s tall and willowy. I’d even say he might have an inch or two on Conall, though James’s seems so much smaller when I compare him to Conall’s broad shoulders and toned body. Like Conall, James has a lighter shade of brown hair, though his eyes are kinda beady and black instead of Conall’s pretty gold… and, there you go again, Bridge, comparing everyone you see with Conall.

I have got to stop doing that.

Is that why I don’t pretend that I didn’t see James’s wave? It’s possible, just like it’s possible I might’ve glanced around real quick, checking to see if I can pick out a scowling wolf shifter watching me from a distance… but when I don’t notice Conall anywhere in sight, I sigh, then work up a smile to offer to James.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing really,” he says, and if I imagine it sounds like a squeak, I’m not being fair. “I just saw you walking by, though I’d say ‘hi’.”

Okay, then. “Well, hi.”

“Hi.”

Shoot me.

He grins down at me. It’s a lot more genuine than that one I gave him, and that makes me feel worse.

I rock back on my boots. “So, um, I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. It’s just… I was thinking…”

I wait.

He lifts his hand, ruffling the back of his hair. “Y’know, I was just thinking, if you’d like to maybe eat with me tonight, that would be nice. Everyone knows your vampire doesn’t go down to the canteen. I’ll feed you, Bridget. So, y’know, you can feed her.”

I guess that’s a nice gesture. Weird, but nice. “Maybe,” I say. It’s the best I can do. I might be annoyed with Conall right now, but it would be a fucked up thing to do, ditching him at mealtimes just because we butt heads earlier today.

“Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Maybe’s good.” James lowers his hand, but instead of letting it hang at his side, he hesitates for a moment before letting it settle on my shoulder.

It’s another nice gesture. Also weird, but he’s being friendly.

So why do I want to burn his hand so that he stops touching me?

“Get away from my mate!” snarls a very familiar, very angry voice.

Conall .

I don’t know where he came from, but there he is. He’s changed. Though he always wears flannel, this one has green and blue in the design while the one he had on earlier was blue and orange… and, holy shit, I am paying way too much attention to the wolf.

The new flannel tells me that he must’ve stripped down to shift, gone for his run as his wolf, and changed when he came back to… to…

Confront one of his fellow shifters with such a ferocious expression, I’m not surprised when the rat shifter hurriedly snatches his hand away from me.

Even if I’m not sure why. I mean, it’s not like I ’m Conall’s mate…

Even so, James’s beady eyes go impossibly wide. A pair of whiskers sprout out of his face, and I don’t mean whiskers like a mustache or a beard. They’re legitimate whiskers like you’d find on a cat or a mouse.

Or, you know, a rat.

Duh.

He holds up his hands, warding Conall off. “I didn’t know. She’s not marked, and I thought…”

“You thought you might proposition Bridget to choose you . But you can’t. Because she’s mine .”

Hang on. Is that what James was doing? I thought he was just being friendly, that he saw Conall treating me like a valuable member of the community and decided not to ignore another one of the ‘humans’ anymore.

Of course not. Why would he when he was trying to get laid instead?

Men. Whether they’re human guys or shifter males, they’re all the same. And maybe that’s partly my fault since I’ve spent so much time searching for the fire opal instead of integrating into the supernatural sanctuary, I still don’t know all of the nuances of shifter and vampire cultures. Just like how I thought Conall helping me and trying to feed me was his way of making up for his earlier dickish attitude. Then Paola explained what it really meant—and Elise confirmed it for me—but it’s not like Conall’s made a move or anything like that on me since then.

Until now.

I’ve never seen him look so furious. If he was in his wolf form, I’d think he’d need a muzzle. From the way he’s baring his teeth at the smaller shifter to how his body’s gone tight as though he’s only just managing to hold himself back from attacking James, Conall is pissed—and he’s pissed at the other male.

Because of me?

Is this reaction because of me ?

Considering James slants his eyes toward me before bolstering his nerve, it just might be.

“But,” and poor James’s voice is closer to a high-pitched chitter even as he is brave enough not to back down before Conall’s more dominant wolf, “she doesn’t have your bite on her.”

“Doesn’t matter,” is his flat response.

“It does,” insists the rat shifter. “Until she’s been marked and mated, she can choose any male to bond with.”

“No she can’t,” and that time, Conall snarls again. “She can’t because she’s not just my prospective mate, Jim. She’s my fated mate.”

What ?