Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

“Try,” she said softly. “And if you don’t, we’ll try again later.”

“Okay.”

When Jeffrey left the building, his hair was a floppy, sweaty mess. It stuck out all over, like he’d been running his hands through it the entire time he was inside. He grinned and waved, flashing a flirty wink at the people he passed on his way to the car, shining brighter than the sun above.

Even from a distance, he smelled like other people and Lysol. His hands had the acrid scent of hand sanitizer clinging to them as he pulled open the driver’s side door and slid into his seat.

As soon as the door shut, Jeffrey leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, his hands flexing. He gripped it tight enough the leather squeaked, and then he just…sagged. Like all the energy in his body had been completely drained.

He reminded me of a deer I’d found in the woods last spring. She’d been shot in the leg and limping—for God knows how long. I’d caught her scent combined with copper-blood from a mile away and chased her down. It took a good hour to find her, as she had kept moving, and by the time I finally did, I’d expected to find a corpse.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I watched as the deer continued to limp. She was in a meadow, dappled wildflowers crushed beneath her unsteady gait. She pushed through the woods and the pain, moving forward, away, away, away from the danger that had hurt her, even though there was no way she could survive her wounds on her own.

Resilient.

Stubborn.

She collapsed as I approached, and I shifted to my humanskin so that I could bring her home where I could get her help. As I’d carried her through the forest, past my favorite set of boulders and the main hall where my concrete prison sat beneath the dirt—I’d prayed to the moon mother to give her strength.

She survived.

Somehow.

And that was how I knew Jeffrey would too.

Jeffrey was limping and injured. He’d been hurt badly. He was bleeding from a wound I couldn’t see. But the drive to survive still flickered in his eyes. Like the deer, he pushed forward—bleeding but stubborn.

Stubborn, pretty man.

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

For a second, I didn’t know what to do.

Didn’t know if he needed space or if I should approach like I had with the deer, careful and quiet, and gentle. Like I had that night that I’d found him in the alley, wounded and lost, his eyes full of demons.

I knew he couldn’t smell my scent, but I exuded as much strength-love-calm as I could anyway, an alpha rumble bubbling up inside my chest to soothe him.

His scent was sad-lonely-tired.

He was shaking again, minute little tremors. His knuckles had healed, though for weeks the skin had been broken and brittle.

I wished the doctor had asked about them. I hadn’t known how to—but I desperately wanted to understand why a man like him, all sunshine, would hurt himself. Did new pain distract him from the wound that wouldn’t heal?

I wished I was in my humanskin, because while the question was invasive and would more than likely be awkward coming from me and my disjointed communication—I still wanted to understand.

To know him.

To love him as he was, broken bits and all.

I hope I get this right.

Taking a leap of faith, I crossed the seat, my paws digging into the fabric, and pressed my head against Jeffrey’s bowed shoulder. He sucked in another quaking breath and the action was somehow more devastating up close. I could hear his lungs wheeze. Hear the stutter of his throat, see the tremor in his body, like he was barely holding himself together, even now.

I woofed softly.

Jeffrey’s head tipped to the side, one lovely brown eye peeping at me as he held incredibly still. There was no trace of tears on his speckled cheeks, but that didn’t make the way he shook any less devastating.