Savage Urges (The Phoenix Pack, #5)(25)

“One of the enforcers in my old pack taught me when I was a kid.”

“A kid?”

“I spent a lot of time with the enforcers.” At first it had been because his mother frequently dumped him on them—wanting his father, who was a trainee, to care for him. Ryan hadn’t minded. He’d been fascinated by it. So they had given him the same training, taught him to fight, to hunt, and—later—to kill. Those enforcers had given him the skills and confidence he had today as well as a talent he could take pride in. At home, he’d felt like an inconvenience and a burden. Being around the enforcers had given him a sense of belonging, made him feel useful and worth something.

“Do you like being one?”

“Yes.” It was all he’d ever wanted to do.

Zac scoffed down a few pieces of popcorn. “What’s it like?”

“Hard. Grueling. Rewarding. Long hours.” Although, to be fair, he worked longer hours than most. “This morning, I was up at six a.m.—”

“Seriously? Dude, I don’t even know what six a.m. looks like.”

Makenna smiled as Zac listened avidly to Ryan’s bullet-point description of a typical day for an enforcer. She couldn’t help but notice that Ryan didn’t include any of his feelings on his position or the responsibilities. It didn’t even seem he was being evasive or bottling his emotions. It was as if it didn’t occur to him that people would care to hear about his feelings on matters.

She wondered if it had anything to do with his parents. When she’d researched Zac’s family, looking for potential guardians, she’d learned about Ryan’s parents. His mother was a selfish, chronic complainer and his father was a retired enforcer who had a big fondness for whiskey.

Growing up around such emotionally absent, self-absorbed parents would certainly lead a kid to believe that their feelings simply weren’t relevant. The thought of a small Ryan being overlooked and emotionally isolated made her ache. Her wolf growled, protective of Ryan. Makenna could admit that she, too, felt a little protective of the surly male. She didn’t bother questioning why—her thoughts often made no sense. Besides, she didn’t have time to think on it any further, because the stadium announcer’s voice suddenly blasted through the speakers.

Although Makenna wasn’t necessarily a big fan of football, she found herself enraptured by what was happening. The game was pretty intense. Like most of the crowd, Zac cheered, gasped, cursed, yelled advice, and complained about penalties. Ryan remained as reserved as always. Sometimes he would grunt or shake his head, and his eyes would twinkle whenever a touchdown was scored.

Zac spat a particularly loud curse when the ball went wide, zooming in the air toward the crowd, and—

She winced as it bounced off Ryan’s head, almost making his neck snap back. Damn, that had to have hurt. “Wow, are you okay?”

His scowl harsher than usual, he grunted before throwing the ball down to the field. By the time the game ended and they were leaving the stadium, he had a goose egg on his f*cking head.

Riding shotgun, Makenna simply couldn’t resist pointing out, “You know . . . if you hadn’t sat in that seat—”

“Don’t say it.”

“—the ball would never have hit you.”

Ryan flexed his grip on the steering wheel. He’d known this was coming. “It hit me because the player hurled it in my direction, it had nothing at all to do with the number of my seat. If the ball had sailed just a bit in your direction, it could have hit you.”

“No, it couldn’t have. I have my rabbit’s foot on my keychain.”

He did a double take. “What?”

“It wards off bad luck.”

“You really believe that part of a dead animal’s limb protects you?”

“Obviously, jeez. Don’t you know anything?”

“Tell me you’re kidding.” Because he didn’t want her to be beyond help.

“It’s common knowledge.”

“It’s not knowledge, it’s superstition—otherwise known as utter bullshit.”

She huffed. “You can be so irrational sometimes.”

“I’m irrational? I don’t have part of a dead animal on my keychain!”

“Maybe if you did, the ball wouldn’t have hit you!”

Struggling with a response, Ryan shook his head. “I can’t do this. I just can’t have this totally illogical conversation.”

A deep laugh burst out of the teenager behind them, who was struggling to sit upright. “You two are funny.”

Ryan exchanged a look with Makenna before frowning at Zac in the rearview mirror. “I’m never funny.” He sincerely doubted that the word had ever before been—and would ever again be—used to describe him.

“You are when you lose it with Makenna.”

Ryan’s frown deepened. “I never lose it.”

The kid held his hands up, smirking. “My mistake.”

But it wasn’t a mistake, Ryan begrudgingly admitted to himself. She had a way of getting under his skin. Yet, he still wanted nothing more than to take her home and f*ck her to sleep. That just increased his frustration.

Ordinarily, Ryan was impervious to external distractions. But Makenna Wray was a walking, talking, and completely illogical distraction that drew him. Technically, she shouldn’t. She was whimsical and unpredictable, she asked unusual nonsensical questions, believed her rabbit’s foot charm warded away danger, and she seemed to genuinely enjoy provoking him. He was very good at analyzing people, but it was impossible to read someone who didn’t react normally.