Somebody’s Watching Me

somebody’s watching me

L ucas and I fell asleep on the couch watching crime shows, which made me stupidly happy. I have a weakness for human detective shit and though it’s clearly never been something he was interested in, my new mate dove in with his typical enthusiasm. He decided we should watch all my favorite shows, which will be lengthy. I’m pretty serious about my addiction to mysteries, both British, and American versions, and I’ve got an entire arsenal of shows to enjoy watching him experience for the first time.

When I woke up, I threw together a quick breakfast with what I had on hand and yet again, realized I have to leave campus to stock the kitchen with more than junk food and empty take-out containers. I don’t want him to be alone, though, and I’m also not taking Channing away from her job cleaning house at my office. The emails she sent me confirming the staffing changes and reorganization of duties were spot on—I’d even missed some gaps in coverage in certain areas of the Dean’s purview.

So once we finish eating, I turn to him, trying to assess on sight whether he’s strong enough to join me on a quick trip to the superstore. His color is decent and his appetite was good, so I think he’d be okay as long as we take breaks if he gets tired. In fact, I’m pretty certain that?—

“Why are you eying me like you’re fitting a coffin, Morgana?”

His casual quip makes my heart jump into my throat and I smack his knee in retaliation. “Don’t say that!”

“Okay, okay!” Lucas laughs, giving me a sheepish look. “Bad choice of words; I get it. But you are staring at me like I’m a bug under a microscope. What gives?”

Rolling my eyes, I sigh. “Making breakfast showed me I need to hit the store for actual food, especially with a hulking monster staying here. We both have big appetites and shouldn’t eat takeout all week.”

Blinking, he looks thoughtful, then nods. “I agree. We need more food and we should make healthier shit, so I don’t fuck up my training diet. I’m always bulky and muscular because of my bear, but I need to out-skate smaller dudes. I can’t pack it on during the season.”

“I don’t want to take you out if you’re not well. You look like you’re doing okay now, but that seems to change on a dime. I don’t want to hurt you further,” I explain. “So yeah, I was kind of examining you.”

His lips curve, and he reaches out to stroke his fingertips along my jaw. “I think I can handle a quick trip to Wally World, Morgana. If I get tired, I’ll tell you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

I roll to my feet, holding my hand out to him. “You’ll have to prove it by making it up the stairs to the shower. We’re ripe and we cannot go out in public without showering. Think you can handle it still?” My eyes dance as I wait for him.

The giant hockey player takes a deep breath and hefts himself out of my cushy couch, standing for a moment to make sure he’s solid. “As long as you’re willing to wash my back, I think I’ll manage.”

Gee, I can’t imagine why he’d say that.

“Get your tight ass upstairs first and we’ll see about that.” Winking, I turn on my heel and head for the stairs. I want to see him make it on his own without keeling over before I even consider taking him in public. Between the two of us, infamy is our middle name, and I don’t want people posting shit about us online if we cause a scene.

“If I do well, can we go get a coffee at Slade’s shop afterwards?” His eyes are pleading and I snort. Lucas is hooked on sugary coffee concoctions—one thing I’ve learned during the time we’ve had to talk in the past two days.

“Fine. But I’m not helping you up the stairs!” I call behind me as I climb them and head for the main bedroom of doom.

Surprisingly, my poisoned bear got himself up the stairs and through the shower without toppling. We didn’t fool around—much—under the hot spray, so we’re out and dressing in a few minutes.

I definitely looked at every inch of him, though.

Once we’re comfortable and ready to rock, I let him take the lead as we go downstairs to grab our phones and shit. Lucas looks a little better after the clean-up and though I know it won’t last, it makes my chest loosen a bit. I know he’s drifting in and out of his symptoms randomly and it’s hard not to let that make me worry he won’t recover from this shit.

Stop, Morgana. Iggy is on this.

Speaking of the errant professor, I follow Lucas out to the driveway as I text Iggy to see if he’s got a hold of Professor Nakamura. He doesn’t answer, so I fire off another text to Slade, hoping he’s heard something. We need to get into that greenhouse and if they can’t swing it, I’ll have to pull rank. I really don’t want to do it, especially since I’m already stepping on a lot of toes since I arrived. But if it means we can cure Lucas, I’ll piss off every single person on this damn campus.

“Babe? You okay?”

The casual moniker makes me turn bright red, and I get flustered. “No. Yes. I mean, I’m okay, but I can’t get Ignatius to answer about his little quest today. So I’m annoyed.”

“Give me your keys and I’ll drive,” he says with a grin. “Then you can be mad at your phone all you want.”

I gape at him. “Absolutely not! You’re doing fine now, but you’ve nearly passed out several times in a matter of days. You are not suited for driving yet, Lucas Wolfberg. We aren’t adding vehicular manslaughter to your pending charges list.”

Pouting, he rolls his eyes and walks to the passenger side in a huff. “Fine, be that way.”

If he does that too often, I’m going to have a bitch of a time saying ‘no.’

“Get in and be good, so we can get coffee on the way home.” His eyes widen and he grins, ducking into the car quickly.

As it turns out, men are just grown-up toddlers.

The sprawling mega-mart is busy as hell when we arrive. I’ve never considered what a hardship this kind of mess would be on humans with disabilities, much less a supernatural who looks perfectly normal on the outside. Lucas grabs my hand as we walk up the crowded lane of the packed parking lot and though I know he’s doing well now, I know he’ll be straining by the time we finish. Luckily, we can get a cart at the front and he can mask his weariness by pushing it when it finally hits him.

“You’re on cart duty,” I murmur as we approach the automatic doors. “I want you to lean on something if you get tired without drawing attention. You look too damn young and hot to be falling over without someone assuming you’ve got a plague.”

Lucas smirks at me, arching a brow. “I have a plague, remember?”

“Don’t be obtuse,” I growl softly. “You’ve been poisoned; you don’t have a disease. Humans are fidgety as fuck since that big virus and if you look healthy but keel over, I’ll have to call in reinforcements. Do you want to explain to your Nana why they have you locked in a hazmat area in a human hospital?”

That makes him pause, and he wrinkles his nose, but complies by grabbing a cart to push. “You win again, Dean Hardass.”

I mean, I turn to stone; he’s not wrong.

“Thank you. Now let’s stock up on enough food to get us through two shifter appetites for a week or so, so I can have coffee and you can lie down at home.” I pull out my phone, flicking through the list to remind myself of the things I’d had him put on the list while we drove.

A hand clamps on mine and I look up from my screen to find him giving me a shy smile. “Home, huh?”

My chest squeezes, but I give him an annoyed look. “No time for sappy shit. We’re on borrowed time, Wolfberg.”

His chuckle is deep and rumbling, but he lets go and starts walking. “Where do we go first?”

I haven’t been to one of these places before. The warehouse-like store’s size and the number of people are astounding. “Uh, I honestly don’t know.”

“Morgana, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were intimidated by a Wally World.” The amusement on his face makes me blush, but he tilts his head at the spacious aisle full of displays and people. “Follow along with me on the magical journey through American big box stores.”

Narrowing my eyes, I follow along as he navigates us through the towering shelves full of myriad brands of every kind of foodstuff imaginable. I’m not excited by the produce section, which makes him roll his eyes, but we tick off item by item of the non-perishables. I laugh when he shoves a massive amount of snacks, both healthy and decidedly not healthy, into the basket with zeal. Before we leave the freezer aisle, he’s put tons of ice cream and other treats as well.

How does he stay so damned cut if he eats like this? Genetics suck.

“I can feel you brooding,” he says. “I don’t eat junk all the time, if that’s why you look ready to murder me. But until I get this shit out of my system, I feel entitled to some bad behavior.”

I whip my head around. “How did you know?”

He shrugs and gives me a smug smile. “Because I grew up around enough women who were pushed to hate their bodies to know when food is making them feel inadequate. The standards for the girls in our circles are rough—it’s not surprising many of them take it out on others once they fit in. They’re often hungry, under enormous pressure, and miserable.”

“Yeah, refusing to eat is definitely an excuse to treat people the way I’ve watched rich girls in the elite groups do in the past.” I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at him to convey my sarcasm. It’s hard for guys to understand that it’s not simply being overweight that draws the venom of mean girls; it’s anything that makes you different, whether it’s physical, mental, or even psychological.

Lucas holds his hands up, his eyes wide as he scrambles to walk it back. “I’m not making excuses, Morgana. I know they cause a lot of damage to others. And I know it’s not something that goes away when you grow up, either. My mother is a prime example of someone who got pushed in that direction and, clearly, she’s never once tried to atone for the sins of her youth. Hell, she didn’t even bother to do more than pop me out.”

I frown, looking at him for a moment. “Your parents really abandoned you, didn’t they? You aren’t exaggerating.”

Despite their antics in the news, I sort of believed he was just pulling the ‘poor little rich kid’ act to get me to feel sympathetic.

“Babe, if I see my parents outside of media coverage more than once a year, it’s because one of them landed in rehab again. That’s the way it’s always been. I wasn’t joking when I said Nana raised me.”

The sadness in his brilliant blue eyes makes my heart hurt, and I step closer, wrapping my arms around his waist. Laying my head on his chest, I murmur softly, “I’m sorry, Lucas. My parents aren’t perfect, but they would never abandon me. They stayed away from the trial because I asked them to, not because they believed I was wrong.”

A rumble under my cheek starts up, and I close my eyes when he hugs me tightly. For a few moments. I lose focus on the busy hustling around me and just soak in the feel of someone who is connected to me on a level I’ve never felt before. We don’t know everything about one another yet, but the zing of the mate bond lets me know it’s going to be okay once we do.

“Isn’t this interesting? And I’d heard you were a frigid bitch. How surprised Magnus would be—that is, if you hadn’t murdered him in cold blood. ”