Page 69 of The Wolf King's Mate

He shrugged. “I don’t know why you’d want to. I provide everything you need.”

“Other than freedom. And a job. And my own money. And my own bathroom supplies.”

He made a noncommittal noise. “The bathroom stuff in your cabin at Creek smelled awful. I tried to find an unscented version of the same ones, but they don’t have it. Mine works.”

“My hair feels like straw. It definitely doesn’t.”

His forehead creased, and he lifted a hand to my bun, which had many pieces falling out around my face. “Feels fine to me.”

I scowled, climbing off his lap. I stumbled on my way, and he caught me by the waist before my injured foot could crash against the wood floor.

“Easy, Princess.”

“Thanks.” I slipped his hands off my waist, and he reluctantly let me go.

My bag was on the floor next to a door that stood open. I pulled the flap up to find my clothes, and frowned when I realized they were gone. The ones I’d packed for him were still in the bag, but mine were missing.

“They’re in the closet,” Enzo said.

It seemed to be the room right in front of me, so I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Oh.

Enzo had even more clothes in his cabin than he did at the Lodge.

“I keep clothes here so I don’t have to carry them back and forth,” he said, stepping into the closet behind me. His cock was hard, tenting his sweats, but neither of us brought that up. “I used to come up every month to get away, but only manage it once a year lately.”

“How many years is lately?”

“A decade or so.”

Wow.

I had never really considered what the near-immortality of a werewolf would mean for me. I’d known a few men in the pack who had lived through losing a human mate, staying with them through the woman’s entire life, but they were all… sad.

Mentally tortured.

Scarred, inwardly.

I’d been lonely ever since my heat began and destroyed my family, but that was an entirely different kind of pain. To choose someone, have kids with them, and watch them grow old and die while you stayed the same age. To watch your daughters grow older than you.

I couldn’t do it.

And most werewolf men had no real choice. They could choose that, or they could stay alone. Forever.

He grabbed a pair of jeans off a shelf, and my eyebrows lifted.

Since when did he wear jeans?

A real t-shirt followed. And, after a moment’s pause, a pair of underwear.

Who was this man, and what had he done with the Alpha?

“Are we meeting your girlfriend or something?” I asked, skeptical.

“I don’t have a girlfriend, Princess. Just a mate.” There was a growl in his voice that told me his wolf didnotlike that suggestion.

“Then why are you dressing up?”

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