Page 35 of What a Wolf Demands

“That’s good,” she said. Something in her voice made him pause and look up. Her eyes were wide, her expression slightly arrested. “I don’t think I can eat all that,” she said weakly.

He set the plate in front of her, then busied himself filling his own. “That’s all right. I’ll finish whatever’s left over.”

She watched him for a second, then lifted her knife and fork and cut into the chicken. “My mother would hold you to that,” she murmured. “She hated seeing food go to waste.”

That made a smile rise in his mind as he dug into his food. “Mine never had to worry about it. Not with Remy around.”

“Remy Arsenault?”

He stopped, his fork halfway to his mouth. “You know him?”

The blush in her cheeks—always at the ready—deepened. She looked uncomfortable, as if she hadn’t intended to blurt that out. “Not personally. I know of him. He’s, um . . .”

“He’s got a reputation,” Dom finished. An understatement if ever there was one.

She gave him a smile that was half relief, half amusement. “You could say that, yeah. In high school, he was all the girls could talk about. I think just about every female in Bon Rêve wanted to marry him.”

What about you? The question surged into his brain, along with a rush of unexpected anger. He stabbed his fork into a pile of green beans. “They’ll have to find someone else to talk about. He got mated eight months ago.” He took a healthy bite and chewed so he wouldn’t say anything else.

She tilted her head. “Yes, I know. Word takes a while to reach the bayou, but matings and births are always big news.”

He focused on his plate and started shoveling food into his mouth. If he was chewing, he couldn’t ask if she counted herself among the girls who’d fantasized about marrying Remy Arsenault.

Not that her revelation surprised him. Before he met Sophie, Remy had made quite a name for himself as a player. He wasn’t a womanizer in a negative sense. He’d never used or mistreated women. On the contrary, he loved females. And they loved him. His charm and gentleness were two of the reasons the opposite sex flocked to him. For years, he’d hopped in and out of beds with joyful abandon, never lingering long enough to form any real attachments. Then Sophie had come along and knocked him right on his ass.

It was almost worth putting up with their unrestrained public displays of affection to see Remy brought to his knees at last.

Lily’s voice jerked him out of his musings. “Did you grow up with Remy?”

He froze in the act of stuffing a roll in his mouth. As he chewed, his wolf rose to the surface. It paced, irritated by her interest in another male. She met his gaze, a polite smile on her face.

He swallowed. “Why would you ask that?”

Her smile faltered. “I . . .” She dropped her eyes to her plate, a little frown between her brows as she fussed with her food. “I don’t know. You mentioned your mother not worrying about leftovers. I thought maybe . . .”

As she trailed off, regret tugged at him. She’d just been trying to make conversation. It wasn’t her fault he sucked at it—or that his wolf didn’t like her asking about other males.

He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then took a deep breath in a bid to quiet his wolf. “He fostered with my family once his Gift manifested.”

She looked up, her eyebrows raised. “That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? In Bon Rêve, only orphans foster.”

“It’s the same in New York.” Unfortunately, the lux catena made it so. The mate bond didn’t allow for widows or widowers. If one spouse died, the other wouldn’t be far behind. When a mated pair had a child, one of the first things they did was name a guardian to foster their son or daughter if something happened to them. Double funerals were the norm in shifter society.

But Lily knew that. Of course she did. The file Remy had prepared on her said her parents had died of natural causes when she was eighteen. So not a foster—she’d been too old for that—but an orphan all the same.

No wonder she seemed so vulnerable.

Deep in his mind, the wolf grew agitated. Protect. The command echoed through his skull, pushing at him to . . . what? Gather her in his arms? Lock her away in a tower where no enemy could reach her? What, exactly, did the beast want?

“Are you okay?” Lily was staring at him again, the wariness back in her gaze.

If he wasn’t careful, he was going to spook her enough that she’d try to escape. She wouldn’t be successful, but he was too damn tired to deal with a struggle.

And with her in that robe . . .

He set his cutlery down. “Remy’s parents are Healers. It’s a common Gift in his bloodline. It was a shock for them to find out he’s a Telepath.”

Anger made her cheeks flush a darker pink. “So they kicked him out?”

---