Page 20 of Predator

I give him a small smile. “Would you rather I call you ‘puppy’?”

“Mon chiot,” he whispers huskily.

“Mon chiot,” I agree.

My puppy.

That was Jolie’s pet name for him. It won’t be mine—that just rubs me the wrong way—but if he needs the occasional reminder that I’ve always been meant for him, I can give him that.

Especially since, despite my best efforts to shove her out of my head, that’s probably going to be impossible.

Take my opal. From the beginning, both Marie and Lucas seemed drawn to it. My first night in Winter Creek, she complimented the gemstone, while Lucas was fixated on it both shortly after I met him that fateful night in the woods, then whenever it’s bouncing between my boobs as he fucks me.

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to explain how I got it. A gift from my mother—from Adrienne Witt—for my thirteenth birthday, I’d worn it every single day since she gave it to me.

But now… dipping my fingers beneath my tank top, I rub the polished stone and can’t shake the newfound certainty that it was a mating gift that part of me has treasured for decades.

I blink.

Decades…

Not a month or two. Isn’t that how long Jolie had it? But decades, because it’s been hers—ours—for seventy years.

I take a deep breath. “I told you, babe. I just need to know. I’ll walk over there and check if the blood ward’s still there.”

“Does it matter if it is?” he asks me. “If you promised yourself to me… if you promised to stay… does it matter if something else is keeping you with me?”

Not really. When I mated Lucas, I was doing just that: promising myself to him. Shit, I did that the first time we mated and he got even more wild when I told him I was his.

I’m yours…

But just because I don’t plan on leaving right away, that doesn’t mean that I like the idea of being under Marie Bordeaux’s thumbs.

I have to know if the blood ward is still there.

He doesn’t wait for my answer. He simply nods. “I understand. Go on, Fallon. I’m right behind you.”

CHAPTER 7

WINTER CREEK

Taking the lead, I walk to the halfway point of the rope bridge, waiting for the telltale warning of a zap to keep me from walking into it and being blasted back.

It never happens.

At my soft murmur, Lucas hangs back a little, watching over me like the protector he is. I inch a little further, still waiting for something to stop me. When I’ve moved close to three-quarters of the way toward the platform in front of me, I have to admit that it’s gone.

Thank fucking God.

I just needed it to be. I needed to know that it’s my own free will that’s choosing to stay with Lucas and the pack, that it isn’t Marie’s magic that’s keeping me prisoner. And now that I have, there’s no need for me to put Lucas through this anymore.

Poor guy. He’s doing a good job of reining in his emotions, but I get the feeling that, if I try to step foot on the train platform, that might be too much for my wolf. I can just see him bounding behind me, scooping me up, and running back to the pack house with me in his arms.

Hmm… you know what? That’s not such a bad idea…

Bad Fallon. Down, girl. You can fantasize over your mate later—and, look at me, Lucas Guidy is mine and I get to do that without being a perv now—when he doesn’t look like he’s damn near vibrating in place at the distance between you two.

Turning around, grabbing the rope bridge to steady me as I move at a quicker clip back to him, I nod. “No more blood ward. Looks like the curse really did break when we bonded.”

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