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bullshit. Little kids aren’t threatening. You couldn’t have even hit puberty yet.”
    “They liked to get rid of boys before they were threatening.”
    “Like I said, that’s bullshit.”
    “You don’t think I’m threatening?”
    “I…” She let the words trail off, and looked at him as best she could in the dark. The ruggedly handsome face, with his long, solidly built body. She caught a mental flash of his wolf stalking her, backing her away from some chasm—warning her off with bared fangs and a forbidding growl.
    Had that happened?
    She couldn’t remember a thing about her run as a wolf, but the familiarity of his face and form settled into her. The pieces came together bit by bit the longer she stared at his unreadable expression.
    He’d followed her the whole time, but had given her space to run and explore. Sometimes, he’d run ahead to redirect her. More than once, he’d let her jump on him and nip annoyingly at his fur because she didn’t want to be stalked, and he’d just take it until she got bored and skittered on to the next thing.
    He was like his wolf. Calm, but powerful. Watchful.
    Those dark eyes had seen so much, and she’d seen them countless times before. Her dreams had been haunted by them. They’d belonged to the silent wolf who just watched…who waited to be rejected, just like her.
    How could I reject him?
    “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “You didn’t bite back. You didn’t fight me off when I was a wolf.”
    “You remember that?”
    “I do now. Any other wolf would have knocked me away and been frustrated with me.”
    His energy clung to her a bit more experimentally, it seemed, and she wanted to hold onto it. It said everything his words didn’t. It said he was trying, and that meant so much, because it was easier for wolves to cling to the status quo.
    “I’m not that kind of wolf,” he said.
    She was starting to see that.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Darius had been eight the last time he let a woman pick out his clothes, and had no particular desire to revert to that stage of dependence, but Stephanie insisted. With it being zero-dark-thirty in the morning, he didn’t have the fight in him to argue. Besides that, letting her dress him seemed to be an easy way to please her, and he needed all the easy he could get, because the hard shit kept knocking him on his stupid ass. He still wasn’t certain he’d made adequate amends for offending her yet.
    She pawed through the contents of his closet, held up this shirt to his chest and then that shirt, muttering all the while about the lack of options available.
    He didn’t need many options. He spent most of his time coated in a sheen of desert dust, and occasionally, someone else’s blood. Fancy clothes would have been a waste.
    Still wearing a towel tucked around her delectable body, and with her wet hair dripping over her shoulders, she notched her fists onto her hips and pouted at him.
    Oh, hell. What’d I fuck up this time? He gulped. “What?”
    “I don’t imagine there’ll be any stores open at this time of morning?”
    “Nope. Thank the gods.” Shopping was a kind of or else venture for him. He did it only when he had no choice, and as quickly as possible.
    She squinted at him.
    He’d probably said the wrong thing again. He was better off just saying nothing, but she didn’t seem to like it when he was quiet, either.
    “Can you pull some strings and get a shopkeeper to roll out of his bed?”
    “Me?” He pointed to himself for emphasis, just in case something was being lost in translation.
    “Yes, you . Can you?”
    Hell no. “Why?”
    “Because I’d like my mate to be in a suit on his wedding day, or at least a shirt that doesn’t have suspicious stains on it.” She held out a frayed button-up that had some motor oil splatter on one of the sleeves.
    “I doubt any of the other guys are going to be dressed up.”
    “I’m marrying you, not them. They can wear whatever they want and I’ll pay