Page 86 of Beginning Fate

“I’m sorry. I saw Kylie drinking and swaying a bit, and I just lost it. She’s vulnerable enough without being drunk, too.”

Jett snorted. “She’s tougher than you give her credit for, Lauren.”

“Yeah, there was another asshole hitting on her earlier. Before we could intervene, she kneed him in the groin and he took off crying,” Mark explained.

“She did?” Lauren asked.

“Yeah. She knows how to handle herself,” Oscar agreed. “But we were still watching her anyway.”

Several of the others nodded.

“Thanks, guys. Lauren just worries,” I told them.

“I’ve never had help like this before. It’s all sort of new to me. No one ever looks after her but me.”

“The DOGs stick together,” Braxton told her. “We’re family. That makes you and Kylie family now, too.”

My heart swelled with pride. My boys would watch after my girl and her sister even without being asked to.

“Well, the party is officially over,” Kevin informed us. “I told everyone to go home.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, feeling bad about how I’d reacted.

“Don’t sweat it. I was ready to leave anyway. Ember just texted me that she got back in town from visiting her parents. And we all know the party would have ended when I left anyway,” Chad teased.

I nodded my thanks to him for trying to take some of the heat off of me.

“We can stay and help clean up,” one of the freshmen offered.

“I’ll show you the cleaning supplies,” Caleb said. “If you guys are going to stick around here and rush, you might as well get used to it. We aren’t your stereotypical frat house. We like things clean.”

I didn’t miss the was Oscar’s face cringed, but he stuck around and helped anyway. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

“He likes things cleaned,” Tyler corrected. “This place used to smell awful down here.”

“We’ve evolved,” Caleb insisted. “If you want to live in a barnyard, go join Lambda Beta Pi with the farm animal shifters.”

Lauren helped me up, apologizing again.

I clung to her, needing her touch to soothe my wolf some more .

We left the guys in the basement and walked upstairs to my room. I kept my head down, not wanting to speak to anyone left who might have witnessed my moment of insanity.

Even back in my room, the sudden turn of events had me too shaken to relax. I just dressed and tried to calm myself down.

“What can I do?” Lauren asked. She hadn’t left my side since.

“Just be near me, okay? I’m still a bit on edge.”

“I know. I can feel it.”

“How about a walk? Sometimes nature helps relax my wolf when she tries to freak out.”

I appreciated her attempt to help.

“Yeah, okay. That sounds nice.”

Lauren

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