Page 20 of Cleo

Our wolves were having a great time together, but it was early days to admit they were ours forever. We were only onour second date, and I was fairly sure my father was out there somewhere hunting for me. If he’d even come back from his run yet. Maybe he was willing to just forget about me? He hadn’t had any trouble impregnating other women until he got a child he actually wanted to rear. And supposedly he’d loved my mom, whatever that meant to him because that feeling certainly hadn’t extended to me. Not if love required showing affection.

Shoving these thoughts aside, I followed Miles’ wolf up a hill and stood next to him with the others around us. We overlooked the heart of the city here with all its lights and activity, yet we were all alone in nature. The sounds of cars and other urban noise was muted, frogs and crickets louder.

I loved it. Nature hadn’t been warm and green and sweet smelling in the compound, too icy and cold all the time. I could have stayed here forever with these males, their fur thick and full, their eyes glowing in the semidarkness. It was magical, but it was also time to go back. So we turned and ran the way we’d come, and I took it all in because part of me could not believe it wouldn’t end, but the rest hoped against hope for a happy future. And try though I might not to get attached, not to dream that Fate would be so kind, I wanted that future with these kind, sexy, smart, funny, wonderful males.

We stopped for burgers on the way back, starving from all the running, and got back a bit after midnight. Because it was the weekend, we still should have been fine, but a white envelope with the Werewolf Academy logo on it taped to my door caught my attention. “Maybe we are late?” I reached for it and slit the side open, dumped out the single sheet of paper inside. And everything—the evening, the whole semester so far—faded into obscurity at the message.

“What is it?” Pax took the paper from my hand. “From your expression, it’s not a good thing?”

“No, it’s very very bad.”

Chapter Twenty

Cleo,

Your father will be here tomorrow morning. The office is closed on Sunday, but he will meet you in the foyer around ten.

Admin.

“Why is it bad that your father is coming to see you?” Pax looked at me with confusion in his eyes. “Do you not get along?”

Oh my goodness. My sisters and I had spoken and so, presumably, their mates knew the story, but I had not shared my story with these men who I felt such a strong connection to. “How much time do you have?”

“All night.” Miles studied me with concern. “However long it takes. We want to know everything about you.”

“Then would you like to come in?” I wasn’t sure what the rules were for who could be in whose room at what time, but I did not want to have this conversation in the hallway. Father might well have spies here. He’d had plenty of them at the compound. “To talk.”

It wasn’t until I unlocked my door and led the way into my tiny dorm that I realized my mistake. I didn’t exactly have a conversation pit. I had a desk with a chair. And a closet with drawers along one side, like a dresser. And a bed. I could offer the desk chair to one person, but the other three were going to end up on the bed.

“Cleo, would you rather we not be here?” Jude’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Are we making you uncomfortable?”

All three of them were standing just inside my doorway, appearing less than confident in themselves for the first time since I’d met them. And I hated that I made it happen. But I had to tell them the whole story at this point, no more pretending to be just one more new student at school. I’d been worried they’dfind out about my special ability, but I’d considered my father an adversary for so long, I hadn’t even considered that other people might not know that. I tried to think if I’d said anything at all to them, but if I had, I didn’t remember.

“I’m fine. Well, not fine, but I for sure don’t want you to go. As long as you’re ready to listen to the whole sordid thing, I’m ready to tell you.”

Miles broke ranks and came to take my hand. “I find it hard to believe there’s anything sordid about your life, at least nothing that might be your fault. And I think I speak for all of us when I say we want to hear everything about you. Cleo, our wolves are calling you mate, and we feel the same way. But we need to know your feelings.”

I freed my hand, the connection too electric to be able to speak clearly or even think. “Okay. You three sit on the bed, and I will stay way over here on the desk chair and tell you what you need to know. Afterward, if you want to flee, I won’t judge.”

“That isn’t how mating works,” Jude asserted. “Whatever is going on that you need help with, we’re here for you.”

“Sit, guys, and don’t make promises you may not want to keep. Being with me is dangerous.” I waited until they all sat in a row facing me then took my chair and began. “I’m sure most people here at the Werewolf Academy know my sisters and I don’t have the same moms?”

They all nodded.

“But what you may not know is I was the only one raised by or who has even met our father.”

“We heard some of this when you spoke to your sisters that day,” Miles said. “We weren’t eavesdropping but we were reeling because our mate was sitting right there.”

“Maybe then, since you did overhear that conversation, you should just ask me questions about what you don’t know?”

“No, I think we’d rather hear the whole story from you, and then fill in the blanks? Cleo, everything about you is interesting to us.”

So, I launched into the tale of my life, growing up in the compound with only Angie as my companion and my poor education, loneliness, and feeling confined…yearning for anything more than what I lived.

And my escape.

“So you ran away?” Jude confirmed.

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