Page 21

21

KAT

“F inan said a feral killed your mom.”

I swear Aren has stuck a tracker on me because no matter wherever I wander, he’s there minutes later trying to give me food which I don’t want or a blanket which I don’t need.

He’s the ant that crawls under your T-shirt when you’re trying to nap in a park. You scratch and scratch and think it’s gone away, but seconds later, you feel the itch again. And eventually, you accept the little ant is not going anywhere and shut your eyes and nap.

I told Gregor this when I found him counting medical supplies in the bunkhouse—that man is always busy doing something. He laughed for so long and so hard, tears were sliding down his cheeks as he waved me away so I wouldn’t distract him anymore.

I left with a smile, and as the bunkhouse doors slammed shut behind me, there was Aren, stalking toward me before I could go for a walk.

It would have been too much effort to convince him to leave me alone or run away and hope he wouldn’t chase me, so I reluctantly let him come as long as he promised not to try to kiss me or I’d push him in the creek again.

He said he wouldn’t, but there had been a hint of… something in his gaze that warned me not to let my guard down.

He is determined.

I feel him looking at me as we wander into the forest. “That man has a bigger mouth than a Venus flytrap,” he mutters. “What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” I deny.

“He said something about me forgetting to put on my pants, didn’t he?”

Forgetting to put on his pants?

How the hell can you forget something like that?

I turn to look at him, frowning. “What?”

Is it awful that I kind of wish I’d seen that? Even if just to laugh?

He scans my face and shakes his head. “Never mind. And the answer is yes. A feral killed my mom. My dad too.”

“So you decided then that you’d kill them all?” I let him lead the way, figuring I had no real direction in mind.

“Not at first.”

His answer surprises me. I thought he would be out the next day, killing anything that moved. He seems the type to kill first and ask questions later.

After a brief glance at me, he continues. “Hunting was fun. I loved to spend hours in the forest until it was pitch black. You know?”

No. I don’t know, but the pang in my chest tells me I wish I did.

“Then it stopped being fun?”

“It was the only thing I was good at.” Another quick peek in my direction reveals a serious expression. “After I helped bury them, I started hearing about other ferals. Look around.”

I look around.

“What do you see?”

Trees. Leaves. Bushes. All are stirring from the gentle but insistent wind that comes from the east. That’s it. I shake my head. “Nature?”

“This is Burning Wood. Come fall, it is the most beautiful place in the world. Every imaginable shade of red and orange in the leaves. It’s home, but here, I don’t have the power I needed to change things everywhere. It’s why I entered the Wolf King Trials.”

I look at him, more confused than ever.

“It’s held every three years. The Wolf King can enter whatever territory he wants without starting a civil war with the Alpha, whose territory it is. He holds a council every year with all the Wolf Lords in the country and can change more things than an Alpha who likes nothing more than to hunt in his forest in the middle of nowhere. It’s why I needed to win it.”

“You sound like a hermit.”

One corner of his mouth lifts. “Finan says it’s the sole cause of my problems with communication. I converse more with the bunny or deer I’m chasing down than people.”

“That’s no excuse,” I tell him, in case he thinks that gives him a free pass from giving me the apology I deserve.

“I know.” He stops walking and turns fully to face me.

When he says nothing else, I grind my molars together because even now he still cannot say the damn words.

“And I’m guessing you won,” I say, a bite to my voice as I ask myself why I even let him come on this walk. I knew he would do or say something to antagonize me. I knew it.

“That and every single one since then. I’ll continue to win them until the shifters who are ruining humans’ lives by turning them doesn’t happen again.” He holds out a hand. “I want to show you something.”

I don’t move. “You just did.”

Surprisingly, he smiles. “Is there ever a day in your life you’re not stubborn?”

“Yes, when I’m sleeping.”

He grins at me, and it’s so handsome I understand why some women would forgive him. “I’d like to show you something, Kataleya Prairie, and I think you’ll like it.”

As always, I feel a wave of raw emotion wash over me at the name. Pain. Joy. It’s bittersweet that I have my name back. Maybe soon the rest of my memories will come back too.

“It’s not anything involving nudity, is it?”

His grin is boyish. “It might.”

Yeah, that isn’t happening.

“I think I’ll sit here and enjoy nature.” It’s a little boring. A run through the forest, preferably while hunting something would be more fun, but I’m not here to have fun.

“You sound like an old lady,” he tells me.

Ignoring him, I take a seat next to a tree, pull the economics book I brought with me from my canvas bag, and open it. “You are trying to provoke a reaction from me. It won’t work.”

“How about a run?”

“No, thanks.” I turn a page when I haven’t read a single word on this one. I’ll have to go back to re-read this book eventually.

He drops into a crouch in front of me. “It’s a run, Kitty cat.”

It is truly alarming to me how quickly I have gotten used to that nickname. “I said I’m good.”

“A race, then.”

“No.” I tell him firmly, looking him in the eye so he knows I mean it.

He shrugs. Then he springs to his feet, toes off his sneakers, and reaches for the hem of his T-shirt.

“What are you doing?” I tighten my hold on my book, ordering myself to keep my eyes on his face, not on the expanse of tanned skin he’s unveiling.

“Stripping. I’m going to shift, run over to that tree over there.” He nods at a gigantic oak about five feet away and tosses his shirt to the ground. “Then I would have won our race and I will crow about it to the rest of the pack.”

I scowl at him. “I don’t care about winning a race, Aren. So go ahead, race yourself if you feel the need to.”

My wolf is raging at me.

Literally raging.

She does not lose races.

She cares about whether everyone will think she’s slow.

My wolf is snarling at me to throw away the stupid, meaningless book of paper that means we lose a race we would have won.

The tips of my fingers prickle, nearly shredding my textbook as I fight back my shift.

Stop it. I snarl at her.

Aren is baiting my wolf and as baits go, this is pure fucking torture.

If I let her out, this book will be ribbons and I will be racing Aren.

“Kitty cat?”

My eyes fly upward, clashing with Aren’s amused gaze.

Does he know how badly my wolf wants to race?

Then my gaze slips and I see far more than I wanted to.

The amusement in his gaze grows. “It’s a run. Fun . And my wolf is curious about your wolf. Isn’t yours curious about me?”

Looking away, I turn another page as my wolf howls and howls at me to run. “Nope.”

“You’re a fast reader,” he says with a smile in his voice.

A taunting tone.

I lift my head to narrow my eyes at him. “Are you hinting at something?”

Like the fact that I might not be reading at all?

“What could I possibly be suggesting?” His grin all but confirms he knows I’m not reading this book at all.

My eyes narrow further.

He’s naked when he sinks into a crouch right in front of me, and I will never know how I keep my eyes up and not down.

“What are you?—”

He licks my cheek.

I drop my book and swipe at the moisture as I glare at him. “What the hell?”

“You laughed when Leo licked your cheek.”

I glare harder. “He was a wolf. A very cute wolf.”

“Ah.” He nods knowingly. “So you’d prefer it if I were a wolf when I lick you.”

This conversation has gone from mildly inappropriate to downright wrong.

I think.

Yes.

Definitely wrong.

“That’s disgusting,” I snap.

He sniffs my face and leans closer as his eyes turn hooded. “But that isn’t all you’re thinking or feeling. Now is it, Kitty cat?”

I have never been with a guy who could smell my arousal.

The idea should disturb me.

Instead, it excites me.

When his expression turns heated, I do the only thing I can to control the situation.

I lean in close.

Aren’s breathing slows as I bridge the distance between us.

Until we’re sharing the same air.

“What are you doing, Kitty cat?” He blows warm breath over me as he speaks, and his voice is low, husky, and so sexy it is almost impossible not to react to it.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

My eyes dart to his lips and I angle my head a little, lining up our mouths.

When he swallows, I track the motion in his bobbing Adam’s apple. I feel his hand graze the ends of my hair. “I think you’re playing a game with me.”

“And what game would that be?”

I try not to breathe in the scent of his skin. But it’s so intoxicating, I’m drowning in it.

His fist tightens in my hair and my scalp tingles. “A dangerous one.”

Stop this.

You’re controlling this.

Play around with him. Shove him on his back and get up laughing. Prove to him that he means nothing to you.

“Had any interesting dreams yet?” he asks softly as a pulse in his neck throbs.

I startle in response, and my mind flashes back to my apartment. To that hot, sticky night when I had to peel off the sheets clinging to my sweat dampened body.

But even awake, those vivid images of the things he was doing to me in my dreams were running rampant in my mind.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Dragging my eyes from him, I put an end to this stupid, dangerous game.

I get up.

Don’t make it.

I’m on my back, pinned beneath a powerful chest, one hand cupping the nape of my neck before I realized he moved. We fit so perfectly together I hate that I will miss his touch when I remember my rage and shove him off me.

He looms over me.

Just like in that damn wet dream I had of him.

“Mine was just like this. You under me. I came all over my sheets.” His eyes burn.

And I… did things with my fingers when I woke that I should not have done wishing it was him.

He works the hard ridge of his cock between my thighs, and it takes every sinew in my body not to rock back.

“I can shred these jeans you love so much and be inside you in under five seconds. Tell me yes.”

I shake my head. “Never.”

He rolls his hips and I bite my lip as reality and that dream slam into each other.

In my dream, I’m naked. He is too. Our skin sticks and slides and we grind together. Everything I do makes him growl my name and everything he does makes me moan.

“A dream like that is fate's way of telling you to open your eyes,” he whispers husky words against my lips. “Are your eyes open, Kitty cat?”

I try to get up.

He uses his hips to keep me down.

“You are mine and I am yours. Tell me about your dream.”

“No.”

“Then show me.” One hand cradles my hip as he adjusts his weight over me, this muscled thigh rubbing along my pussy.

I bite off a moan as my insides go liquid with need.

“Show me what I was doing to you and I will do all those things to you right now. I swear it.” A promise burns in his eyes.

Maybe if we weren’t doing this where we are, feet from a cabin where I nearly died, I might not have been strong enough to look him in the eye and say, “Get off me. Now.”

One long stare and he releases me, rising to his feet in one smooth motion and taking two seps back. “Whatever you want, Kat. I will never hurt you.”

“You already have hurt me.” I push myself to my feet, less graceful than he did, angry at him, but most of all at myself for letting things get as far as they did.

“I know.”

“And I hate you.” I get up into his face to snarl it. “You nearly killed me.”

“I know.” His voice is softer.

“And you just…” I surprise myself with a good long list of curses. “And I hate your hair. It’s too long.”

I don’t, but it feels like an easy thing to hate.

He doesn’t crack a smile. “I could do with a haircut.”

I’m still in his face and his hand is fisting my hair when we lunge at each other. Teeth clashing, his fingers delving into my back, gripping my ass and hauling me into his chest, slanting his mouth to deepen our violent kiss.

And his kiss…

That kiss is everything I needed a kiss to be.

He growls, wrapping his arms so tight around me as if he never intends to let me go.

I’m falling and I want to keep falling forever.

We’re on the ground, fighting with our clothes when my hip bumps against something hard.

My book.

My economics book, a tangible reminder of my future.

I grip it and slam it into the side of his neck.

He breaks the kiss with a growl, and I kick out. Both feet planted on his rock-hard abs. He slams into the ground feet away, and I’m up on my feet a split second later.

“Kat…”

Like the coward I know I’m not, I run away from a man I can’t kill, no matter how much I wish I could, as I scrub my hand across my mouth to wipe all traces of that kiss away.

I run from my feelings.

But those stupid, idiotic things he awakened in me follow.

“You can’t run from what we have, Kitty cat!” he yells after me.