Page 68 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

Justus shrugs. “I can’t remember. Maybe I let him come on patrol with me.”

I replace it carefully in the box, and then I return the teas, examining each more closely. I’m getting tired, and I really have to focus to read the tins—oolong, black, chai, hibiscus, Darjeeling, Earl Grey. I’m a Tetley girl exclusively, but it’s the thought that counts, and the pictures on the tins are so pretty.

“Thank you,” I say as I arrange the yarns in the box by color. I’m too shy to look at him. My face is already permanently flushed.

When he answers me, his voice is almost a rumble. “I have an oak barrel. Someone’s borrowed it, but I’ll get it back, and I can trade for another. Whatever else you need, I can get.”

Why do I need oak barrels?

All of a sudden, my nerves flare back to life. I don’t need anything. I’m not going to be here very long. I’m going home. He said so. He swore on his dam’s grave.

And thatiswhat I want.

I can’t stay here. I need my own bed and my locking doors and my friends.Mythings.

He’s never going to let you leave. He lied.

“You said you’d take me back,” I say in a rush, and it’s like I douse the moment in ice water.

He jumps to his feet. I flinch and whimper. His face darkens, but he ignores the reaction and takes over with the box, shoving the lid on and returning it to the basket.

“I swore I would. I keep my promises,” he mutters darkly as he stuffs the blankets, quilts, pants, and shirts on top of the box with complete disregard to whether the stacks are in the right direction. When he puts the lid on, it won’t close.

I want to say sorry. I didn’t want to make things weird—well,weirder—but I didn’t have a choice either. When the panic hits, seeking reassurance is a compulsion. If I don’t, I freak out, and then things get really, really weird. I wish I could explain, but he’s an angry male, so I’m not about to open my mouth.

The air around me is tainted by a slight burst of my fear. Whatever gland or chemical in my body creates it—and I definitely wasn’t paying attention that day in class—is still mostly exhausted. Justus’s nose wrinkles, though, and he freezes, his arms braced on the basket lid as he tries to force it shut enough to loop the straps over the handles to keep it closed.

He sighs and straightens, opening the basket again and taking out two quilts. The straps go over the handles easily now.

He turns and comes to me, slowly but without hesitation, and kneels. I draw my knees back to my chest.

He sets one of the quilts next to me on the pallet. “If you want to go, I’ll take you. Right now, if you want,” he says and waits.

His face isn’t angry anymore. He’s wearing that supernaturally cool expression that he wore with his pack before he lost his temper. But he didn’t reallyloseit, did he? He threwAlroy like a frisbee, and he yelled and threatened to skin them and trade their pelts to Quarry Pack, but that’s not a real threat, is it?

I’ve heard real threats before. I’ve seen packmates beaten for real.

Sightless eyes, staring at nothing. A mouth twisted in a frozen scream.

Justus wasperforming.

He’s performing right now, with me. Hiding his anger? Or something else?

I do something I don’t ever remember doing on purpose before—I seek out the bond and listen very, very carefully. It’s so weak. I have to close my eyes, focus with all my might, and weed through the bramble of fears, anxieties, regrets, and doubts that crowd my brain.

My eyes fly open.

He’s scared.

He watches me with perfectly calm, unworried brown eyes, motionless, waiting for me to decide whether I want to leave, and he’s terrified.

My heart cracks open.

Now, I’m scared, too. I grab the quilt and hug it to my chest. “I’m tired right now,” I say quietly. “Maybe tomorrow.”

He nods like his system isn’t flooded with relief, but it is—I can feel it flow into my chest. Does he know thatIknow?

Oh, crap, is he feeling my feelings, too? Does he always?

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