Page 17

17

AREN

I don’t take my eyes off Kat as she walks into the bedroom and past the new bed that Tagge helped me build without pausing, placing her duffel on the floor.

She didn’t notice.

I glance at the bed I made up with new green sheets and a comforter. The old sheets were blue. The entire bed looks nothing like the one I had before, and that was intentional. I wanted Kat to know that it was different.

But she didn’t notice.

So what do I do?

If I mention it, she’ll think I’ll want something in return.

And I do. Her forgiveness. Just without me having to say it.

My wolf doesn’t know or understand women. He knows about female wolves.

A female wolf respects power and the ability to hunt well and provide for the pack.

An image of a dead deer flashes into my mind.

We are not hunting a deer and dragging it into the room for Kat; I tell my wolf.

He doesn’t understand subtlety and why I’m not just telling her about the new bed. For him, if you do something impressive, you show it off so everyone can admire you. Like a dead deer showing off your hunting prowess.

I’m getting ready to ask her if she’s noticed anything different about the room when she pulls out a T-shirt and a pair of shorts from the duffel and walks over to the bathroom. “You didn’t have to buy a new bed.”

I stare at her back. “What?”

She glances at me, then at the bed. “You heard me.”

Then she steps into the bathroom and closes the door behind her, leaving me more confused than I’ve been in my life.

What does that mean?

Am I forgiven?

Should I follow her into the bathroom and kiss her?

Why do I suddenly have no idea how to deal with a woman?

And the answer hits me at once.

I’m not dealing with a woman.

I’m dealing with my mate .

I’ve fucked things up so epically between us already that I’m sitting at minus five out of ten. One more fuckup and she’ll walk.

She’s walking already, if I can believe her talk of going back to her job in the city. But she won’t just walk. She’ll run.

So I can’t mess up again.

My wolf reminds me of the dead deer.

“A dead deer will not impress her,” I snap as the bathroom door swings open.

Kat stands in the doorway, wearing a wrinkly baggy T-shirt that doesn’t show as much of her curves as I’d like, and a pair of shorts so long that they hit her knees.

She stares at me, and I stare at her.

“Did you say something about a dead deer?” she asks.

“No,” I lie.

She blinks. “Right.”

She’s in wrinkled cotton, everything a size or two too big for her, face slightly pink from her having scrubbed it clean, and her hair is in an uneven braid, yet I can’t take my eyes off her.

“You keep staring at me,” she says.

“Have you finished with the bathroom?”

She nods.

I walk toward her and step around her, taking advantage of the closeness to inhale her fragrance.

Finan would have things to say about me sneaking into her apartment, riffling through her drawers, and now sniffing her hair.

Probably his suggestion would be for me to stop acting like an obsessed stalker.

And he would be right.

She walks to her duffle, and stuffs the clothes she was wearing into it.

I open my mouth to tell her to take the bed, and I’ll take the floor. Then I shut my mouth because I know myself.

The second she gets into that bed—my bed—there’s no way in hell I’m choosing the floor over setting in beside her, even if it means I wake up with her claws in my chest. I should offer to take the floor because that’s what a gentleman would do.

But she’s my mate.

I have never strained so hard to listen through a door and wall as I use the bathroom, then brush my teeth and wash my face.

Kat is silent in the bedroom. I know she’s in there. I definitely would have heard the door creaking open and her footsteps on the stairs if she were leaving.

So what’s she doing?

Sleeping on the floor like before?

Or is she in my bed?

I’m leaving the bathroom when I stop, pull my T-shirt off, because she’s attracted to me. So, if this gets her to look, then she looks.

I push open the door.

She’s sitting up in bed, on the wall side, knees raised under the sheets, her brown braid hanging over her shoulder, and a book in her hands.

She has her head down and doesn’t glance up even once.

“How’s the bed?” I linger by the bathroom door.

“It’s okay.” She turns a page in her book.

Maybe my wolf was onto something when he suggested hunting a deer to impress her.

I flick off the lights and cross the room. At no point does Kat so much as glance at me as I climb into the bed on the other side.

I look down at my chest. Women like my chest. They like me .

I give Kat a rapid glance, and fail to catch her subtly looking at me.

“What are you reading?” I ask her.

“An economics book.”

“To help you fall asleep?”

She shakes her head. “To help me with my job.”

“You know, you don’t have to work. I can provide for you.” We’re rich. And not because I worked hard for it. Our pack sits in a mineral area. Years ago, my dad leased a portion of that land to a mining company.

It’s the reason we have nearly two million dollars earning us more money in investments and interest. Other than the quarterly check-in with my financial advisor, I leave him to do what he does best—manage those investments—while I do what I do best, lead the pack.

She turns another page, distracted. “No, thanks.”

I’m sharing a bed with my mate and she would rather read an economics book than talk to me.

Or notice me.

I sit there, running through a list of things to say.

Flirting won’t work. Not with her. I feel it in my bones.

And I… I got nothing.

She yawns and closes her book, setting it on the bedside table before lying down and pulling the sheet over her.

I lie down, but I don’t close my eyes.

Who the fuck can fall asleep with their beautiful mate sharing a bed with them?

“Why did you think a dead deer would impress me?” she asks.

I look over at her.

Her eyes are closed.

I angle my head to face her. “My wolf thinks it would impress your wolf.”

She opens her eyes. “And did your wolf also tell you that if you kept flexing your pecs, I would also be impressed?”

“You were looking.” I move toward her, grinning.

She lifts a finger. “You were making strange shadows on the pages of my book. Don’t you dare try to kiss me, Wolf King.”

Fuck. When she calls me that I want to pin her to the nearest flat surface and never let her up again. “And if I do?” My voice is husky as I flick my gaze to her lips.

The finger elongates, becoming a razor-sharp wolf claw.

I knew she had to be an alpha wolf. Definitely not a beta wolf. Seeing her level of control means she’s far too dominant to be anything less than an alpha.

“Human-wolf,” she says.

And I can’t help but grin.

We all learn the three forms in the schoolroom.

It’s easier for the pups to understand things in simpler terms when they’re young. And all pups know human-wolf is a human with wolf claws. It’s a partial shift that only an alpha or beta, the most dominant shifters can do because of the level of control it requires to keep your body human but change only a small part of you.

“Lessons with Gregor are always fun.”

“I took notes and everything.”

Her expression is serious, though her tone dry. I like my mate’s sense of humor.

"You said you would not forgive me, even if I begged. Does that still hold true, mate?" My eyes dip to her lips.

"It is. Good night, Wolf King." She pauses. "And I sleep with one eye open should you even think about stealing a kiss."

My amusement fades when I recall standing with my back to the kitchen wall earlier this evening, head tilted to the side as I eavesdropped on a conversation no shifter would ever want to hear.

Their mate asking if there was a way to break the bond between them.

She hadn’t known I was listening.

One of the kitchen staff had walked out, nearly right into me. I’d lifted one finger to my lips in a sign to keep quiet when they’d started to talk to me.

And I continued to listen to Marisa tell Kat about mates, about the mate bond being unbreakable and only death that could sever it.

Then I returned to the dining room when Kat started heading my way, and I’d pretended I’d been talking to Finan all that time.

I’d been surprised Kat would have come to our room after what I heard.

“You look surprisingly serious,” she says, sounding suspicious. “You’re not planning anything to do with me, are you?”

“Tell me about Doug.”

She blinks. “ Doug ?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you want to know about my ex-boyfriend?”

So I know what you saw in him.

So I can understand how else I’m failing you and fix it.

“So we can help figure out why someone would kill him,” I say.

“We know why.”

“You dated in junior year, right? But you just graduated, so you were a senior. That’s a year ago. If you’d broken up, why would someone feel the need to kill him now?”

When she turns to lie on her back, a churn starts in my belly.

“Kitty cat?”

“I’m not a cat,” she says.

“Why’d someone want to kill him if you’d broken up?” I repeat, sensing I know what the answer is going to be.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “He wanted to get back together. Before someone killed him, he said he’d hung around outside the library when I usually study late.”

“So, someone saw him, figured out what he intended and killed him so you wouldn’t get back together?”

“Looks like.”

“And if someone hadn’t killed him, would you have gotten back together with him?”

She rolls away from me and pulls the covers up. “Goodnight, Aren.”

Her using my name is a positive, I tell myself. But not in this case. Not when I think she was in love with her ex and if someone hadn’t killed him, I’d have stood no chance with her.

Even if we’re mates.

Is it crazy to be jealous about a dead guy? Because I think I might be.