“He was on patrol,” Eva answered for him.
Zackary glanced at him, then back to his sister. “Well, I gotta dash. I’ve got training this morning. Catcha later, sis. John.”
Pausing, Eva stared after her brother, her expression sad.
“Are you all right?” John murmured.
She shook her head as if dislodging her thoughts. “Yeah… he just seems too happy.”
They began walking again. “Being happy is bad?”
“No. Of course not. I want my brother to be happy. He just seems overly so, as if he’s hiding what’s really beneath.” She rubbed her face. “Ignore me. It’s probably just lack of sleep and the fact I can’t seem to not worry about him. After Mom died, my father was so sad there was only me left to watch out for Zac. He took her death hard, and I threw myself into looking after him.”
John listened to her quiet, sad words, understanding why she didn’t sleep and look after herself properly. Eva never had time to mourn her mother; instead, she’d filled the space her mother left behind, and now that things had changed, she wasn’t sure how to get herself out of the role.
“We’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he’s coping all right,” John promised. The boy was pack, and they watched out for their own.
Together walking through the trees, they came to the open area for parked cars. John checked the roster to be sure he wasn’t taking a vehicle assigned to an outside watch, before guiding Eva to a black SUV and nodding for her to get in.
He had three hours spare to spend with her. Painting a house probably wasn’t the most romantic move, but with war looming on the horizon and a lockdown on everything but essential travel, John was working with what he had. With any luck, they’d have the house to themselves. Either way, John was just pleased to be spending time with her at last. He’d put so much effort into blocking out his pull toward her and keeping his emotions in check that now he was acknowledging they existed, it felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
And though things were uncertain, and a battle needed to be won, John was excited about the future, and the possibilities his and Eva’s bonding could bring.
Chapter 6
Eva
Eva was instantly jealous of Logan and Mia from the moment she walked into the house. She could feel the echoes of history throughout the rooms, the old-world charm calling to her heart. This was the type of home she wanted. Set back seemingly in the middle of nowhere with a big porch to sit out on in the summer evenings, and creaky wooden floors battered but polished, the whole place just made her want to sigh.
John watched her as she wandered around the rooms. Even without looking at him, she could sense his gaze studying her. It was as if he wanted to see into her mind and sift through the thoughts trapped in there. Ignoring him as best as she could, Eva finished exploring and returned to the main room where dust cloths covered the floors and furniture, and tubs of paint sat ready for someone to use.
She picked up a roller, handed it to him, then collected her own. The house was empty apart from them, and Eva was keen to get straight to work instead of lingering with the unspoken questions John kept locked inside.
She was thankful Katalina had warned her about John; otherwise, she might have found the way he silently watched her more unnerving than it already was. Shifters were a strange mixture of human and animal traits. It had taken her a week to really notice, or maybe they’d taken a week to feel comfortable enough to be natural with her. Whichever it was, the longer she spent with the wolves, the more she wondered how anyone could look at them and think they were ordinary. Even the way they moved screamed supernatural with the effortless grace and the predatorlike way they prowled across the room. Every male she’d encountered entered a room as if he thought he was the deadliest creature there, and he probably was, but it wasn’t just the males who acted that way. There were just as many females as deadly or deadlier than the males. She’d watch them training only once and walked away half in awe and half terrified. It was hard not to feel inferior watching men and women sparring each other as if they were all trained lethal assassins.
She’d been painting for an hour when her shoulder gave a painful stab, which she could no longer ignore. When she’d first set out for a run this morning, her entire body had screamed at her to stop, but she’d pushed through anyway. Kept putting one foot in front of the other no matter how much it hurt physically or mentally. If she’d stopped, everything she’d been avoiding since her mother had been buried would come crashing over her in a wave of suffocating emotion.
“You’re in pain,” John said. He closed the two steps between them and took the roller from her hand. “Take a break.”
“I’m fine,” she said. The statement so often fell from her lips it didn’t feel like a lie anymore.
He growled. The sound was nothing human, and accompanied by the flicker of human to wolf eyes, Eva took a startled step back, her heart leaping to life.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his eyes closing for a moment too long. When they opened again, she saw the gray-blue eyes of the man, not the yellow-gold of his wolf. “I’m not used to keeping myself in check. It just slipped out. But, Eva, it’s clear you’re in pain, most likely from the attack yesterday. If it hurts, rest. Don’t damage yourself further.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “I’ll rest
