Page 20

20

AREN

T he new prospect is waiting for me near the bunkhouse.

I prowl toward him, subtly sniffing, trying to identify his scent from one of the many I picked up in the city.

Because I told a white lie.

Finan was not the first one to follow Kat to the city after she warned me to stay away.

I was.

I sat in the back row of Gregson College’s football stadium, hoping she wouldn’t smell or see me. I wore black wraparound glasses that concealed my eyes, slouching in my seat while I watched my mate deliver a graduation speech that earned a standing ovation.

I was so fucking proud of her.

But because she hated me—and I didn’t want to ruin one of the best days of her life—I slipped out when the ceremony was over, and I sniffed my way through the campus in search of the shifter.

I didn’t find a trace of him.

And this auburn-haired new prospect doesn’t look suspicious.

He stands taller, brown eyes wary as I approach.

Outside of hunting an out of control feral or fighting in the Wolf King Trials, I stay home in Burning Wood.

I was the youngest Alpha in shifter history, I hunt ferals after one killed my family, and I’m good at fighting. That’s about as much as most know about me.

I’m used to seeing wariness or outright fear in the eyes of the shifters who don’t know me like my pack does. If they saw the way Gregor treated me like a pup and the way I let him get away with it, it would forever dent my reputation.

“Your Alpha did not notify me you were coming.” I glare at him.

An email or a phone call is a courtesy. Dealing with a shifter dumped in my lap is not one of my favorite tasks in the world, mainly because I have to verify who they claim to be and ensure they aren’t looking to leave their last pack because they caused so many problems that they weren’t wanted. The last thing I want is to bring in a troublemaker.

He clears his throat. “Uh. No. I’m from Indiana. I just?—”

I swing around. “Finan. Find out his story. Check it out and?—”

Kat races out of the house to meet us, drawing my attention and causing me to stifle a smile.

“It’s my hunt, Aren,” she yells. “You don’t get to just take over.” Kat skids to a stop, glaring at me.

Our new prospect looks from me to her and seems to be having second thoughts about coming to north Montana.

I know why fate would match us together.

“You love the hunt as much as I do.” I grin at her.

“No, I don’t,” she denies, backing up a step. “So…” Her eyes linger on the man. “Are you from the city?”

He shakes his head. “No. I’m from Indiana.”

“Oh.” She gives him another long look. “Well, nice to meet you.” She turns to leave, then stops, eyeing him again. “Where exactly in Indiana?”

I grin at her. “He’s not our prey, Kitty cat. Finan can show the new prospect around and I’ll explain it to you?”

She hesitates. And that’s how I know how badly she wants to know more about the shifter world. Living in the city, she can’t know much.

She has a lot of gaps in her memory and I want to be the one to fill them for her because soon, her dad will return from Nebraska, probably with her entire family, and I’ll be lucky if I have ten minutes alone with her.

They’re her family. She should spend time with them. But she’s mine too, and I can’t pretend I don’t want all her time to be with me.

As Finan walks away with our new prospect, I motion to the creek. “Let’s sit beside the water.”

It hasn’t passed me by that Kat likes to spend more time there than anywhere else.

That’s another thing we have in common.

It’s one of my favorite places to relax, alone or with the pack.

“Are you in the habit of letting strangers wander into your home?” she asks, taking a seat on the grass beside me. Not as close as I’d like, but the fact that she’s sitting with me with barely an argument is, in itself, a victory.

“We have sharp eyes and ears. Someone is always watching and listening. If he were a threat, he wouldn’t have made it this close without someone stopping him.”

“You were wrong about me.”

I focus on her. “You were the exception, Kitty cat, not the rule. We do not let strangers wander into our home. This is my pack and I protect my pack.”

“But you acted like he could have been the campus killer.”

“I had an inkling it could be. I hoped it would be.”

“So that you get to go hunting?” she says with an expression on her face that I can’t quite decipher. If I had to guess, I’d say it was excitement with a touch of bloodthirstiness.

My mate likes to hunt as much as I do, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.

I look her in the eye. “So I got to tear him limb from limb and give you his head.”

She snorts. “You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I?”

We stare at each other for two beats, then she shakes her head and looks away, wrapping her arms around her raised legs.

“Shame it was just a guy from Indiana looking for a new pack. I wouldn’t have minded ripping someone’s limbs off myself.”

“Because he killed a bunch of people?”

Does she still have feelings for Doug, her dead ex? Is that why she’s determined to track down the killer?

“Because he killed a bunch of people I cared about.”

“ Cared ?” I ask quietly.

Past or present?

That’s important.

“You heard me,” she says, not looking at me.

“We don’t get new prospects often.” I turn to face the water.

I want to tell her this is one of my favorite places in the world too. Then she’d know we had that in common along with the hunting. But Kat is stubborn. I have a feeling if I were to tell her that, she’d discover a new favorite place and that would be as far away from the creek as she could get.

“Because you’re high maintenance?” she asks.

Smiling, I don’t take offense. “Some shifters have a surprising love of Starbucks, and our Wi-Fi is spotty.”

Her husky laugh surprises me.

When I look at her, she’s staring down at the ground, hiding her expression from me.

“Was that another smile?” I tease her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, sounding severe.

“It takes a lot for a shifter to want to move from their pack,” I tell her, wanting to move closer to her, but I meant what I said before about wanting to be her friend.

I tell myself to be satisfied with what I have now. Just us, sitting on the grass, talking. It won’t be enough for long. My wolf wants more. So does the man. But for now, this is more than I thought I would have with Kat after the way I treated her.

I can’t look at the cabin that houses the silver cage without seeing her in it—nearly dying in it. If she ever forgives me for what I did, I never will. And Finan… if he hadn’t pushed me to open my eyes as much as he did, I would have killed her. The only reason I still have a mate at all is because of him.

She deserves a mate who would give her the world.

I can’t give her up. I can only try to be the mate she deserves and not hurt her again.

And I will kill anything that hurts her or threatens to.

Maybe that will be enough to convince her to stay with me.

“Pack is our family—our bedrock. The thing that ground us from childhood. We grow up knowing we have safety and security because of our pack. Pack is everything.”

She looks at me. “So why would a shifter want to leave his and join another?”

I shrug. “A couple of reasons. Sometimes they want to start over, find love, change something they aren’t happy with. The same reason a regular human would want to move.”

“What about bitten humans? Or are all of them ferals?” she turns to ask me.

“Not all of them are ferals.” I choose my words carefully. We’re entering a topic I didn’t expect her to want to discuss. "Perhaps around two out of every ten bitten humans. However, this is just an estimate. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how many humans get bitten.”

Her eyes widen. “Just two?”

I hold her gaze, serious. “But those two have the potential to cause a bloodbath if we don’t stop them.”

“So if there had been a feral in my college campus…”

“Is something I try not to think about,” I tell her softly.

If a feral got into a dorm, dozens could have died.

After a long moment, she looks away. “Do you take in the bitten humans as well?”

“If I think they will fit in the pack. Not all Alphas would.”

“Why not?”

"Educating a newly bitten human is a significant responsibility. Not everyone is willing to invest the effort, just as not everyone possesses the skills to be a teacher.”

“Could you?”

I shake my head. “Patience isn’t one of my strengths. Gregor, however…”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. What happens if a bitten human tries to join a pack, and no pack wants them?”

Shit. I hoped she wouldn’t ask me that.

At my pause, she turns to look at me.

“Aren?”

“They become lone wolves.”

Her face is blank. “So… they just deal with it on their own?”

“It’s not ideal.”

“So, if I came here and asked for help and you didn’t want to help me, you’d just order me to leave.”

“But that didn’t happen.”

She looks at me for a beat. “But it could have happened to others.”

“Yes.”

When she gets up and walks away, I don’t stop her or call her back. It’s the shifter way, and I refuse to lie or make excuses. A pack is family, and every Alpha is cautious about who he allows into his pack.

* * *

“She’s not forgiving me, Finan,” I grumble, scrubbing a hand over my face, frustrated.

It’s the day after our conversation beside the creek, and Kat is actively avoiding me.

“Have you apologized?”

“I don’t apologize,” I snarl. “And I’m showing her that I’m sorry. Why isn’t that enough?”

He meets my gaze steadily. “She is your mate . You nearly killed her. Some circumstances require an actual apology. This is one of them.”

I stare at him, knowing he’s right but hating how he’s always so rational. “I hate you.”

He nods. “Of course you do.”

“Did you apologize to her?” Finan was the one who knocked her out after Wes and Cruz brought her to Burning Wood. It was at my order, but still.

My wolf hadn’t been happy about it, snarling at Finan, which had been the first clue this was no ordinary feral I had my enforcers scoop up.

He nods again. “I did.”

“And did she forgive you?” He opens his mouth and I shake my head. “Don’t tell me.”

Finan is diplomatic. He knows how to talk to people, including me, when I’m being stubborn about listening.

She forgave him.

I throw myself against the wall, head tipped back as I stare up at the blue sky with its tufts of white clouds.

I know exactly what’s happening here.

It isn’t just the fact that she’s my mate.

She’s beautiful, and she protects my pack.

She makes me smile.

The first thing I do when I wake up is check to see where she is.

I struggle to get through a day without wondering what she’s doing, who she’s with, and if she’s happy. If there’s anything I can do to make her smile.

And I have this terror growing in my chest that she will leave me, and I can’t face a future without her in my life. She has to be here. She has to be close enough to touch.

And I…

“Oh God. I love her.” I put my face in my hands. “I locked her in my cage and I treated her like a feral, but I love her.”

Tagge steps from the house, where he must have been eavesdropping all along. The fucking shit.

He snorts. “You are a brilliant warrior. Quick and intuitive in battle. Feared by most and respected by your pack. But in some cases, you are an idiot. Tell. Her. You. Are. Sorry. And pray she forgives you. I’d castrate you myself, but I think she’s more forgiving than I would be.”

I glare at him. “And what do you know about women?”

For once, he’s not smiling. “I know we do not get as many chances as we would like to say the things we need to say. Or even have a second chance. Don’t waste yours.” He turns back to the house, calling for his enforcers. “We’re going home now.”

His sister must have left at some point, but I didn’t notice. I guess it was around the time that Tagge realized I wasn’t lying about Kat being my mate.

I watch him curiously as he walks away and climbs into his car. “Why were you trying to mate me with your sister?”

“Because you’re a neighbor and I trust you.”

“But why ?”

He smiles. “See you at the council meeting, Aren. And Kataleya too. That’s if you haven’t fucked things up so badly she stabbed you in the night. She would make an interesting Wolf Queen, I think.”