Declan looked at me, his body relaxing slowly by degrees. His eyes held such relief when he finally slouched into my touch. Yup, I definitely wanted to murder the person who’d hurt him. Which made Bay right—Declan was my boy, whether that meant friend or more, and I would do what I could protect him. Simple as that.

Something must have showed on my face because Declan’s eyes narrowed. The muscles under my hand stiffened back up. “What are you doing?”

I paused, but kept my hand on his back. “Not magic. I promise.”

His gaze was heavy on mine, trying to assess if I was being truthful. He gave a slight nod before turning back to the screen. “Your brother took a chance hiring me. I don’t want to let him down.” His hands hovered over the keyboard. “I don’t want to let any of them down.”

Now, that was a feeling I completely understood. I gave his shoulder a final pat. “You’ll be fine. Bay knows you’re still learning.” I checked the time on the wall clock. I was due back at the house to watch Savannah so Juliet could get some studying done. I waved at everyone on my way out, smiling at Declan when he waved back. We may have had a rocky start, but we were on the right track. I just knew it.

Declan

Sometimes I was reminded how different shifters were from humans. It made it difficult to interpret their actions. The look on Lou’s face when she rubbed my back had been fierce. There had been a very clear I am alpha and you are mine to protect vibe going. Except she wasn’t a shifter or my alpha—she wasn’t even my pack.

Was she?

I held the cooling paper cup in my hand. She had brought me tea. Lou knew I liked chamomile. She’d specifically ordered that with me in mind. But humans did stuff like that all the time, friendly gestures that weren’t meant to be a big deal. If she’d been another shifter, it would have different meaning.

The pack alpha made sure everyone was fed. Even my dad got that one right.

It wasn’t the same with humans. I was probably overthinking or making too much of it, but I couldn’t ignore that it had taken one offhand gesture and a back pat to practically undo me at the seams. Was I so desperate for affection that the barest crumbs brought me to my knees, or did the gesture mean more?

I rubbed my face, suddenly very tired. I didn’t have the mental capacity right now to untangle our interaction. Despite hopping between the two jobs and the learning curve at both as well as daily runs, I wasn’t sleeping. My nightmares were back, and it didn’t take someone like Juliet to tell me why. Living with an animal mage was dredging up a lot of things for me.

I closed my eyes for a second, breathing in my chamomile tea. Unfortunately, I also got in a good whiff of Lou as well, which sort of negated the calming effect of the tea. Her scent was more…exciting. It was her day off, so the animal scents were muted, bringing out the usually buried traces of cedar and sandalwood from her soap and shampoo, along with her own natural base note.