Discarded Housewife, Chosen by Her Protector novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Claws

At Ronan's pack house Iris wakes at three with claws for the first time, Ronan steadies her wrist, and he smells something bitter in the vitamin Ansel has handed her every morning for six years.

Redfern's pack house stood in the trees above Hood River, a long timber building with every window lit.

It was past midnight when Ronan parked, and a gray-haired man in slippers was already waiting on the porch.

"This is my Beta," Ronan said. "He'll talk your ear off, so tell him when to stop."

"I won't," the Beta said, and shook my hand with both of his. "Guest room's made up. There's soup, there's a robe, and nobody in this house is going to ask you a single question tonight."

"Thank you," I said, and my voice cracked on it.

"Don't cry on my porch," he said. "You'll warp the boards."

I laughed, a wet, surprised laugh, and he looked pleased with himself.

The guest room had a quilt on the bed and a window full of pine trees.

Ronan stood in the doorway without coming in.

"Tell me one thing," I said. "Why did you come over to me at the coat check?"

"I was across the room when your husband started talking," he said. "I watched you stand there and take it."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the one I'll give you tonight."

He did not say fated or mate, though I knew he had smelled it too.

I had also smelled it, pine smoke and a warm kind of rain, and it hit a place under my ribs that Ansel had never reached in six years.

"My mother told me never to claim a mate," I said. "I don't want a mate tonight."

"Good," Ronan said. "Tonight I'm a man with a spare room."

He said it plainly, and something in my chest loosened a little.

"Goodnight, Iris."

He closed the door softly.

I lay in the borrowed robe and stared at the ceiling.

I thought of Joey asleep with the rocket light on, and of June, who would wake up and ask where I was.

Lorna would tell them something kind.

That was the worst part.

I fell asleep with my fists clenched.

At three in the morning I woke with a pain in both hands.

My fingers were curling, and the tips were hard and dark.

Claws.

I had never grown claws in my life.

I pushed my hands under the quilt and bit down on a sob, and Sable moved inside me, restless and strong.

The door opened.

Ronan stood there in a gray shirt, barefoot, with his hair mussed.

"I heard you," he said. "Can I come in?"

"Don't look at me."

"Iris, I'm not afraid of a wolf's hands. May I?"

I nodded once.

He sat on the edge of the bed and held out his palm, open, near my wrist but not on it.

"Your wolf is trying to come up," he said. "Let me hold the wrist. Say no and I'll stop."

"Yes," I whispered.

His hand closed around my wrist, warm and rough.

The pain eased and the claws sank back into my fingers one by one.

My breathing slowed.

"That's it," he said. "Breathe out. She isn't hurting you. She's tired of being held down."

"I've never shifted," I said. "Not once. I thought I was just late."

His thumb stopped moving on my pulse.

"Never," he said. "At twenty-nine."

"Sable used to tell me to wait," I said. "She's very sensible. Tonight she told me something else."

"What did she say?"

I looked away.

"I'm not saying it to you," I said.

His mouth twitched, almost a smile, the first I had seen from him.

He let go of my wrist slowly, and I felt the loss of it at once.

"Is there anything else different today?" he asked. "Anything you ate or took?"

"The same thing I take every morning," I said. "My vitamin."

I reached for my purse on the nightstand and pulled out the small travel bottle Ansel had given me.

Inside were a dozen amber capsules, enough for two weeks.

Ronan took the bottle from my hand, opened it and held it to his nose.

He went very still.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Don't take another one," he said.

"They're only vitamins. My husband's company makes them."

"Your husband gives them to you himself?"

"Every morning," I said. "For six years."

Ronan screwed the cap back on, and his voice was low and even.

"Iris, there's something bitter under the sweet. I've smelled it before, and it wasn't in a vitamin."

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