Page 39 of Fated to the Feral Wolf

“This is a beautiful cabin.Thank you so much for your help, Marge.” Brielle played diplomat while I hauled Leigh to the kitchen, and poured her a glass of water. She was still green around the gills, but she’d kept the entire can of soda down so far.

Baby steps.

“You don’t have to coddle me, Shay, I’m fine.” Leigh took thewater with a sullen expression, but drank it down greedily nonetheless.

“I don’t have to, but if I don’t, who will you let do it? Certainly not the brooding alpha-hole who just walked off.” I leveled atry melook at her, but she ignored it.

Leigh was top-level delusional when it suited her.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but Gael certainly wants nothing else to do with me.”

“Right, right. So we’re going full ignorance campaign? Got it. I’ll tell Bri.”

Leigh snorted, hiding her grin behind the rim of the water glass and taking another sip.

“There’s nothing ignorant about acknowledging a one-night stand for what it was.”

“So, the ginger ale? That was nothing?” I leaned back against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest.

“A concerned pack mate. He probably was worried I’d vomit onhimat the rate I was going.”

“Right. I don’t have the most sexual experience of the three of us, as you well know—” Dirge growled at my side, but I nudged him with my knee to get him to shut up. “But even I know that one-night stands don’t bring you things when you’re sick, hover, and worry about your safety.”

“Okay, nowyou’regoing full ignorance. The man despises me! Okay? Des-pi-ses. We shared a hot night between the sheets, and then the next morning, I—” She stopped midstream and slammed the water glass down so hard on the counter, I worried it would crack. “One can of soda doesn’t equal caring. Just… never mind. I need a shower and a bed. Stat.”

I watched in shock as Leigh stormed out of the kitchen, just as Brielle was coming in.

“Umm, everything okay in here?” Brielle asked, concerntilting her eyebrows down, making the little frown line appear between them.

“I have no idea. She’s really sensitive about the Gael topic.”

Bri popped her hip out and leaned against the island, mirroring my pose. “He’s standing guard on the porch. You never did fill me in on the details, but should we follow her first?”

I sighed and mindlessly tangled my fingertips in Dirge’s fur. He’d become my touchstone so quickly, it was scary.

But also right.

“I don’t reallyknowthe details. They spent the night together after your bonding ceremony. She was dancing with another pack mate, he got jealous, a fight turned into making out, and then they left. I woke up with her at my bedside after the whole…” I waved at my side, where the bullet wound had been. “She won’t talk about it, claims it was a one-time thing, and that he was good. That’s all she was willing to say. But I get the feelingsomethinghappened, good or bad, between them. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, debating whether or not to take this moment alone to tell her therestof my suspicions.

Brielle crossed her arms over her chest. “Out with it, Shay.” She used her best doctor voice on me, and then, more softly, “This might be our only chance to talk for a while.”

I blew out a hesitant breath.

“She can’t be pregnant, right? From a fling with someone who’s not her mate?”

Brielle’s eyebrows nearly flew off her face, they jumped up so quickly.

“I’m sorry, why would we think that, exactly?”

I shrugged, already regretting mentioning it. “I don’t know, just little things. She had a fever the night of your bonding ceremony. By the time I came to, she seemed perfectly fine. Butif you’d seen her on that dance floor… she wasn’t herself. And then she went off and had a one-night stand with Gael, who she usually can’t stand. Not like her at all. She’s a serial monogamist, and you know as well as I do that evenbrieflymessing with two guys on the dance floor is weird for her.”

Brielle sighed and rubbed her forehead a few times before shrugging.

“I mean, anything ispossible. But based on my studies, it’s far more likely that she went through a false heat. You can think of it almost like a practice heat. All the emotional”—she used her hands to make a roller-coaster motion—“with none of the results. True heats don’t start until you’re closer to a hundred, a hundred fifty if you haven’t found your fated mate. We’re a long-lived species, and while we reach maturity relatively quickly like humans, we lack the rush to procreate before our fertility dries up.”

Relief washed over me. “Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I won’t bring it up to her again, since it’s upsetting. And, honestly, for the best. Whatever is between them, if she doesn’t want it to continue, I don’t want it for her.”

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