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KAT

“Y ou need a hand, Kat?” Rachel, my roommate, calls out as I walk out of my room and head toward the staircase.

“I’m good.” Strange to think I’m carrying almost everything I own in a box I can barely see over the top.

Four years of college and it’s finally over.

I’m a graduate.

In two weeks, I’ll be starting my dream junior accountancy job with the best firm in the city. It doesn’t give me long to get myself settled into my big girl apartment before I’m working in an office from nine to five.

I’ve worked so hard to reach this point, and now, it’s finally here.

There won’t be anyone booting the foster kid from home to home anymore.

No more social workers or being looked down on.

So why am I already dreading the end of my two weeks of freedom?

“At least let me get the door for you,” Rachel mutters, yanking it open before I can reach for it. “Miss Independent woman who disappears for a week and reappears just in time to give a graduation speech that gets a standing ovation. Then she carries a box bigger than I am down three flights of stairs.”

“It’s only two flights, and it’s mostly bedding,” I say with a grin.

And plates, books, a heavy ornament and a few more things that a girl my size should not be able to carry so easily.

Rolling her eyes, she holds the door open for me. “Whatever.”

Outside, on a beautiful late spring day, other seniors are busy emptying the wheeled carts they pull from their dorm rooms. Their parents help them pack trucks, cars, and pickups with their belongings. As a foster kid who aged out of the system, I don’t have any help.

Rachel would have given me a hand, but she’s busy packing up her room, and she has a ton more stuff than I do. I can do it on my own.

After my disappearance right before graduation, everyone thought the Gregson Campus killer had gotten me.

I’d stupidly gone hunting under the bleachers, encountering two men who could change into a wolf, when I’d always believed I was the only one who could.

The men had kidnapped me, dragging me to northern Montana, where I was the prisoner of the Wolf King, a man who makes me grind my teeth every time I think of him.

Rachel went to the cops thinking I was dead, and while I’ve never appreciated her loud sex and screaming arguments with her boyfriend, it’s nice to know someone gave a shit when I suddenly disappeared.

I’m not sure if the cops believed me when I told them that, between the murders on campus, hurting from my ex-boyfriend Doug’s death, and stress about graduation, I was too overwhelmed to tell anyone that I had a personal emergency I had to deal with.

The cops gave me a stern look and told me to be better about not worrying my friends.

Luckily, they didn’t search under the bleachers because they would have found the sneakers I’d removed before I’d been kidnapped, and they would have known my disappearance wasn’t as innocent as I’d led them to believe.

They will never know that I spent the last few days locked in a silver cage by a shifter who calls himself the Wolf King.

My mate.

I still don’t know how to feel about that or even what to feel. I've had little time to think between the graduation ceremony and getting ready to move off campus. Just pack, sign the lease for my new apartment, and get ready to move.

Halfway to the parking lot, I spot a tall, sandy-haired man with light green eyes leaning against the back of my car.

Finan.

Cursing under my breath, I slow to a crawl. If I weren’t carrying this massive box, I’d have run for it. But this is my stuff. I can’t just leave it. I’m debating turning around and walking back to my dorm when Finan looks right at me.

The Wolf King’s beta is here, three days after I stole his boss’s Jeep, dumped it on the side of the road, helped myself to a camper’s clothes, and trekked back into campus, probably looking like I went to a hippy festival where I lost my clothes.

Releasing a sigh of annoyance, I stalk toward him, ready to do battle.

“I don’t have his car,” I say, dumping my box on the ground. I don’t even wince when something rattles and cracks inside as I fish my keys out of my pocket. “If that’s why he sent you, then you’re wasting your time.”

“He doesn’t care about his car,” Finan says. “And I volunteered to come because Aren?—”

“Refuses to apologize, so he hoped you would do it for him?”

He clears his throat. “Not exactly.”

I arch my eyebrow at him. Something tells me it’s exactly like that. “Is this like good cop, bad cop?” I start searching the parking lot for signs of the man who claims we’re mates.

Finan was one of the few who seemed to recognize that I wasn’t a feral. He smells like warm amber and clean lemon, and I’d liked him. Well, as much as you can like a person who was partly responsible for imprisoning you in a silver cage.

“He’s not here.”

Thank fuck.

I unlock the trunk of my car. “So I assume you found his car.”

“He doesn’t care about it. Neither do I. A car is just a thing, and things are replaceable. He wants you.”

“Well, I don’t want him.” I yank open my trunk and pick up my box, speaking quietly so no one can eavesdrop. The nearest students are feet away, but I don’t want anyone to even accidentally hear our conversation. “I thought he wanted me dead,” I hiss.

“He never wanted you dead,” Finan says just as quietly. “He was just slower at realizing what he wanted than he should have been.”

I recall the Wolf King’s words in his throne room. It was there that I woke after being abducted by the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life. He looked like a Viking in a band shirt, and had promptly threatened to have his beta take my legs off if I didn’t stay on the ground, where I belonged, according to him.

“You need to leave,” I say.

Something else cracks when I thump my box in the trunk of my car. In my room, I literally spent thirty minutes carefully wrapping everything to ensure all my stuff would survive the drive to my new apartment in one piece.

Now, I remember what it was like to be caged like an animal at a zoo, have my wolf nearly die because of the silver the cage was made of, and I don’t give a shit about crockery.

“You’re mates,” Finan says quietly. “You’re going to start to feel?—”

I slam the trunk lid down so hard the car shakes, and heads swing my way.

While I would love nothing better than to empty a container of gas over his boss and set the guy on fire, my wolf has other ideas. She’s picking up the Wolf King’s faded scent on Finan’s clothes, and she would like to smell more of it.

His wild forest and frost scent is not comforting or nice like Finan’s is.

His scent is a temptation I neither need nor want.

Is that what it means to have a mate? You start having a ridiculous obsession with another person’s scent?

I mentally snort, wanting nothing to do with the man or his delicious scent.

I glare at Finan. “He nearly killed me. The only time I ever want to see him again is when I’m in hell.”

He cocks his head, the corners of his eyes creasing in curiosity. “Why hell?”

“Because I would have put him there.” I sigh again and scrub a hand over my face. “Look, you don’t seem to be as much of a tool as him, and it can’t be easy with a guy like that as your boss, but I want nothing to do with him.”

He smiles. “He’s not all bad.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He studies me for a beat, then sticks his hand in his pocket, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen. I watch him, curious, as he scrawls a message on the paper and hands it to me.

“Where to find us if you ever need us, and my number, in case you need help.”

I study the scrap of paper.

Directions and a cell phone number.

I frown. “He said the place was Burning Wood. Why is it called that?”

As much as I hate the Wolf King, my curiosity about the strange name for their home keeps sneaking up on me. No matter how many times I tell myself to stop being curious, I can’t help it.

“I believe Aren wants to be the one to tell you that.”

He walks away.

He did it on purpose. I should have buried my curiosity, then maybe he might have answered a question that has been itching at my brain instead of hinting that I need to follow him to northern Montana and get my answers from a certain blond-haired and amber-eyed man.

Not happening.

I’ll just have to stay curious.

Screwing the paper into a ball, I’m getting ready to toss it into the nearest trash when, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a familiar sneezing figure headed this way.

Cristofer.

He’s holding a tissue as his metal wire-rim glasses slide down his long nose. As usual, the library technician is in blue jeans and a sweatshirt with sneakers. Like me. And like almost every student packing up their cars in the parking lot.

He looks concerned as his watery gray eyes bounce from me to Finan. “Everything okay? You looked upset.”

I smile. “Hi, Cris. Just someone I hadn’t wanted to see. I’m fine now.”

“Should I call security?” He sneezes.

“No need. He’s gone and won’t be back.” I edge back a half step to get away from his nose twitching herbal remedies. “Allergies still bad?”

I’m struggling to identify the overpowering floral scent he’s using this time. Must be a mix of different herbs. One is bad enough, but a combo? I edge further away as my wolf sneezes and grumbles at me to swipe at him so he keeps his distance.

“Uh, huh.” He blows his nose and stuffs the tissue back into his pants pocket. “Are you sure you’re okay?” His eyes linger on Finan, who glances our way as he gets into a black Ford Mustang.

A tiny frown forms between Finan’s light green eyes as he hesitates.

I glare at him. If he even thinks of coming over here to warn Cris away, believing he’s doing his boss a favor, I won’t be responsible for my actions.

Finan smiles slightly at me, probably reading my intent, and slides into his car. But he doesn’t immediately drive away. He lifts a phone to his ear, and I bet I know exactly who he’s calling.

Not everyone believed my disappearance was innocent. Cris is the library technician whom I sometimes chat with. Worried about me, he went with Rachel to report me missing.

He sneezes five times in succession.

Geez. This guy’s allergies are no joke.

“That must be some kind of record,” I say, smiling, relieved that I never get colds or flu.

Along with fast healing, it’s another benefit of being able to change into a wolf. It has long been a mystery to me how I came to be what I am, but I’m glad to have a wolf in my head. I don’t know that I’d have survived foster care without the ability to fight back against guys who were bigger and stronger than me.

Without my wolf, I’d have been truly on my own.

“Surprisingly, it’s not. The beginning of spring is the worst.”

I eye him with concern and pity. “Maybe try going back to proper medication. I don’t think the herbal remedies are helping.”

They’re certainly making me want to always keep five feet between us.

“Maybe you’re right.” He roots around in his pocket for another tissue. “I can't wait for spring to be over. There’s no pollen in summer. I can breathe in summer.”

I turn to leave. “Well, I better get back to packing.”

He takes a step forward, and I smother the need to sneeze. “I, uh, wanted to ask you something else.”

I turn back, curious. “Yeah?”

He looks down, cheeks pink as he shuffles from foot to foot. “Uh, maybe you wanted to get coffee sometime.”

I breathe out a sigh. “I can’t.”

And not only because he’s only ever been a friend, and I have no interest in having a relationship with anyone. Someone on campus has killed all the guys I’ve shown even the slightest bit of interest in, and that killer is still out there.

The Wolf King accused me of being an out-of-control feral killing students. But it wasn’t me. Whoever it was killed Doug, my ex-boyfriend, a guy I’d loved, and who didn’t deserve to be dragged into a bush and have his throat ripped out.

I will find that killer.

“With my new job and the move, it’s not a good time. But thanks,” I add softly.

“We can still be friends?” he says, taking it better than I thought he would.

“Sure. Are you going to Doug’s wake in a couple of days?” I wish I could skip it, but it’s a last chance to say a final goodbye to Doug, his friends, and his family. I can’t miss that.

He nods. “I’ll be there. You?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”