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Nate

I flinched. “What do you mean?”

“You heard me,” she said miserably.

“I heard you say I don’t deserve you, but I don’t get what you mean by that. Are you saying I don’t deserve to be around you, or are you saying I’m not good enough for you?”

Her eyes snapped up to meet mine. “What? No.” She put her hands to the sides of her head as if trying to keep her skull from exploding.

“Fuck! None of this is coming out right. I didn’t mean that.

Of course you’re good enough. I mean, you shouldn’t have to stay here and deal with all my bullshit.

Even with the feral dead, God only knows what will happen with Rick. That’s what I mean.”

“Well, I think I’ll be the one to decide that,” I said, feeling anger and bitterness well up deep inside. My inner wolf growled inside my mind. He wasn’t angry at Cameron, though. He was mad at the whole situation.

She gazed down at the corpse and shook her head. “It’s too much, Nate. Maybe this thing between us shouldn’t have happened. You’re leaving when all this is over, anyway, right?”

That was what we’d talked about the night before, wasn’t it? It’s why we fought. It had seemed like the only real possibility. I was a lone wolf and had no place in her soon-to-be pack. There was no life she could have with me. None. At least not one worth living.

“Well… yeah, that was the plan,” I said, confusion lacing my words. “We’ve already discussed this.”

“After last night… I thought you might have changed your mind,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness and hesitancy.

I heaved a sigh, trying to figure out how this had gone bad so quickly.

“This is my life, Cameron. I don’t know what else to say.

” I shrugged helplessly. “I’m getting mixed signals here.

I can’t tell if you want me to go or stay.

Either way, I don’t think that you really get it.

I can’t stay. I don’t belong to this pack.

If…” I trailed off, thinking hard about my next words.

“If we did stay together, then there’d be no way we could stay here.

You’d have to leave with me.” I let out a humorless laugh.

“You talk about me being miserable with you? Well, after a year or two bouncing around, I think you’d end up miserable with me. I’m not sure that you want that.”

She let out a heavy huff of breath, shaking her head as she did.

“I’m not sure, either. I don’t want your life to be miserable, but…

” She glanced at me, an almost shy look on her face.

“I don’t want you to go. It’s all so fucked up in my head.

What if you asked to be part of the pack? Is that something you could do?”

This was not going to be simple. I’d lived my life on the road.

Ollie had tried for years to get me membership, but I’d always declined.

On the surface, I’d told him to forget about it because I didn’t want to be a member.

Deep down? I’d told him no because I was afraid of yet another rejection.

Of another person saying I wasn’t good enough, the same way my parents had.

A deep and subconscious part of me still craved that belonging, but I didn’t know how to stay somewhere. As badly as I wanted that kind of life, I didn’t know if I was cut out for it.

“I’ll need time to think about that, okay?” I said, the words surprising me even as I said them.

Cameron wiped at the tears on her face, nodding. “Right.” She smiled weakly at me. “A little time sounds good. Let’s handle this—” she gestured to the dead feral—“then we can talk more, I guess.”

Turning from me, Cameron headed toward the body.

A strange yet pervasive anxiety filled me.

Had I really just said I’d think about trying to join the pack?

How crazy of an idea was that? Ollie always talked about what a good and just alpha this JC guy was, but who in his right mind would ask a lone wolf to join their pack?

As I walked over to join her, I threw a glance over my shoulder, making sure none of the campground staff or campers were out and about. So far, it was all clear. Off in the distance, I thought I could hear the faint hiss and crackle of tires on gravel. Ollie? Maybe.

“I don’t recognize him,” Cameron said, staring at the feral. “This is the first time I’ve been able to get a really good look at his face.”

“You thought you might know him?” The idea that he was someone from her life hadn’t really occurred to me. The guy was most likely a drifter who’d gone feral and made his way into Toronto.

“Wasn’t sure. Might have been someone I recognized.” She began patting down his pockets.

“Jesus, Cameron, come on. We can have Ollie do that when he gets here.”

“Just a second,” she said, and she dug two fingers into the front pocket of his jeans.

Regardless of where our relationship may or may not be heading, there was one thing I couldn’t deny. Cameron was tough as hell. How many people wouldn’t bat an eye at searching a dead man? A dead man who’d just tried to kill her, no less.

A moment later, she extracted what looked like a wrinkled business card. She flipped it over. “Keeble and Jax Construction,” she read.

“Never heard of it,” I grunted.

Cameron stared at the card for several long seconds, her brow furrowed. “I know this name. I’ve read it somewhere.”

I could almost hear a clock ticking in my head.

Any second, someone was going to walk by.

Better if only I was found with the dead body.

She needed to get the hell out of here, back inside and away from the crime scene.

Her innate reporter instincts seemed to have removed all worry about anything that didn’t pertain to the story and the mystery surrounding it.

“What the fuck, guys?”

I spun, ready to fight, adrenaline surging through my chest. Ollie stood near the cabin, gaping down at the corpse on the ground.

He lifted his eyes from it and looked at me. “Care to explain what the hell is going on here?”