Page 24 of Rejected Wolf Mate

I shook my head. “I know my directions,” I said. “It’s west, I’m positive. But I was also hungry and exhausted, so I don’t remember its exact location. I just remember it being a sort of bunker, so maybe that’s the problem. It would be hard to find.”

His brow furrowed as he considered the situation, then he nodded. “Makes sense why we haven’t found it, then,” he said. “We haven’t gone too far out yet since you said you walked most of it, but maybe you moved faster than we thought.”

I shrugged, not sure how to respond. I wasn’t sure if something I said might implicate me or make things more complicated. Thankfully, he changed the subject.

“How’re you doing?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Okayish,” I said. Then, without really thinking about it, I added, “Getting a bit stir-crazy.”

He chuckled. “Probably should have guessed as much, given that you wandered off on your own. Maybe there’s something we can do about that.” He rubbed his chin, thinking. “Klyte told me the girls are all going out tomorrow to hang out and grab some drinks. I know you’d be welcome to go along with them. I think you’d like them.”

I looked up, startled. “Oh, I don’t know…” I dithered.

“If you’re worried about them not liking you or something like that, you shouldn’t,” he said. “They’re all really nice, and if we’re being honest, you’re hard not to like.”

I tilted my head at him. “That’s rather sweet of you,” I pointed out.

He grinned. “Well, you know… when you’re not being stubborn.” He nudged me. “Come on, I think you could use some girl time. At the very least, it’ll get you out of the house.”

***

I went into the evening with the promise that I wasn’t going to get too attached or really interact with the women. After all, I wasn’t staying long, and I was always betraying them. Getting close was one of the worst things I could do.

After I met them, however, I realized that was going to be nearly impossible.

I had expected—maybe “hoped” was the better word—a group of shallow gossips who would find clever ways to make sharp jabs or something like that. Instead, what I found was several women who all welcomed me warmly, insisting they buy my drinks for the night. One of them—a petite girl with light brown hair named Iris—smelled human. They had a human here? That wasn’t something I’d really seen in a pack before. But the others didn’t seem to judge her or treat her differently.

The entire thing felt surreal, and as much as I tried to keep my distance, I found myself slipping into conversation with them easily, feeling more at home than I would have expected. No matter how hard I tried to keep myself at arm’s length, I couldn’t help but start to enjoy myself and open up.

“So, how do you like Brixton?” Andi asked, biting the olive and tugging it from the toothpick on her drink.

“It’s nice,” I said. “Quiet. Different than I would have expected.”

At the word “quiet,” the girls all started giggling.

“Wait until you’ve been here a few months,” Freya said. “Something exciting’s bound to happen. For better or worse.”

“Well, hopefully I won’t be here too much longer,” I said with more than a little regret in the words that surprised me. “I’ve got things I need to get back to.”

“Family, right? Jameson said something about a sister?” Georgia asked.

A pang of loneliness lanced through me. “Yeah,” I said. “Her name’s Thea.”

“She has to be worried about you,” Jenn said. “Why don’t you have her come here? It can’t be more than a day’s run or so from where you live. Not the most fun, but I’ve gone for longer.”

I winced, chewing on what I was going to say. “We don’t have a car,” I muttered.

The instant I said it, I knew it was the wrong move. All the women stared at me with varying expressions of bewilderment.

“She can run, though,” Freya pointed out. “That would probably be easier.”

I shifted in my seat. “She, uh… can’t.” I sighed, running my fingers through my hair. No use trying to keep it secret any longer. If they knew about Thea, it was only a matter of time before the second part came out. “She’s an absent.”

An uncomfortable quiet fell over the group. I stared at my drink. This was how it always went when I told someone. After the initial shock, the sympathy came in. And not for Thea, necessarily, which would have at least been a bit more understandable, but for me. As if helping take care of an absent shifter was the biggest burden in the world. As soon as they realized it, they started treating Thea like a non-person.

So I waited for the ‘Oh, how awful’ and ‘How do you deal with it’ that inevitably followed the admission.

“We can figure something out if we need to,” Evelyn said. “She’s more than welcome.”

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