Fighting

When Nick was a wolf, he relied heavily on emotions and intuition. If he felt like doing something, he'd do it.

His thoughts were limited to satisfying his most basic needs - anger and excitement were the two feelings he found himself switching between the most.

The entire experience was a lot like being on drugs, actually, and when he turned back again, the feeling could be compared to coming back down from a really wild trip.

He remembered what happened afterwards, but everything was in a weird haze, like he was dreaming, and the events often blurred together.

When Nick came to and bumped his head on the table, he knew it was over.

He was human again.

Crawling out from under the counter, careful not to hit his head again, he quickly sifted through his memories, trying to recall the events of the last fifteen minutes.

Ignoring the unimportant ones, like the unparalleled joy he'd experienced over eating a piece of dried meat, he concentrated on the conversation between Kate and Perez.

Nick remembered growling at Kate. Perez calming him down. He'd been so angry and Perez had somehow managed to get through to him.

In that moment, Nick had instinctively known that Perez was an Alpha. He'd been this close to laying down on his back and exposing his belly to him.

That was something he was definitely going to have to ask Perez about later.

Along with about a million other things.

But, back to the task at hand.

He remembered Perez talking to Kate about.. parrots?

No, that couldn't be right. Except it was. Oh god, Perez had made up the most ridiculous and unbelievable cover story ever.

The last thing he recalled was feeling tired, so tired, and he had let his eyes flutter closed for a moment.

And now, here he was.

He knew they were looking for him out there. The fact that Kate cared about him that much had Nick smiling as he was standing in the kitchen.

He forced himself to stop, though. Of course she was going to search for her partner. She was a police officer, after all. That was totally normal.

This situation was not, however.

Nick ran his hand through his hair, trying to fix it because it had to be a mess right now, then he sprinted out of the kitchen and into the garden.

His senses didn't need to be heightened for him to be able to smell Perez and he followed the stench to a row of parrot cages in the far corner of the garden, partly hidden by a big tree.

Kate was in the middle of arguing with Perez when she abruptly stopped talking.

She whirled around to find Nick standing there, smiling awkwardly.

Kate blinked, then opened her mouth to say something, but Nick beat her to it by blurting out: "Sorry!"

Putting her hands on her hips, she regarded him, lips pressed together in a thin line.

She actually looked worried, not angry.

Okay, maybe a little bit angry.

Perez cleared his throat. "Well, I still have stuff to do. Feel free to come back anytime, though."

With a last glance towards Nick, he left Kate and him with the chirping parrots.

Nick's wolf was basically salivating. He tried his best to ignore its questionable food preferences, but the urge to just open the cage and sink his teeth into one of those irritating birds put all his other thoughts on hold.

"Ew!" he exclaimed, quickly moving away from the parrots.

Kate looked at him like he was crazy.

Maybe he was. His wolf was impatient, which was making him impatient, but it seemed to calm down a bit as Nick admired the beautiful woman in front of him.

A couple minutes ago, his wolf had been growling at Kate and now it was happy to see her. It really should make up its mind.

"That wasn't directed at you, I was addressing the-"

"I don't care about the parrots, Nick! You can't just leave like that! I was about to call Stevens and tell him that you were missing!"

"I'm sorry," he said again.

When Kate didn't reply, he elaborated:" I had- I had a parrot to catch."

Kate scoffed. "You don't even believe that."

"Yes, I do. I went back inside after I caught it, but I couldn't find you."

"Because we were here?"

"Exactly. This was all a big misunderstanding."

"Bullshit."

With a smothering glare aimed at Nick, she walked past him towards her car.

"If you don't want to work this case anymore, that's fine. I'm perfectly content with investigating this on my own."

"No, Kate, that's not what this is about, I swear!"

Nick ran after her, catching her arm to prevent her from walking away from him. She turned around, eyes narrowed.

This felt like when they'd first met, except the roles were reversed, because *he* was holding *her* back, this time.

His wolf stirred, Nick's sudden concern and uneasiness causing the animal to become worried, too.

Had he actually messed it up with Kate?

No, it wasn't him who had messed everything up. It was his wolf.

But weren't they one and the same?

"Kate, my behaviour was inexcusable. It won't happen again. I- this case is really important to me. Please don't shut me out."

Kate stared at him for a long time. When she finally talked, her voice held a dangerous edge: "I don't like it when I'm being lied to, Nick."

She looked pointedly at the spot where he was still gripping her arm. He let go at once. Kate turned around, got to her car and slammed the door shut. Then she drove away.

Nick didn't move for a long while.

When he trotted to his own car, he noticed his vision becoming clearer and he knew that he'd let his feelings overwhelm him, causing his eyes to change colour.

****

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Do you think Kate's reaction is justified?

In the next chapter, Stevens will have a serious talk with Nick..