Page 3 of The Wolf Prince's Mate

I grimaced, but didn’t refuse. I knew we wouldn’t find the guy’s scent anywhere, but I didn’t say that. My stalker had never been sloppy. If he’d finally figured out a way to get past the Savage brothers’ insane defenses, he hadn’t done it just to get caught because of their insane senses of smell.

“On our way.”

“Tell her to keep her distance. She’s approaching heat, and my wolf is getting antsy about it again.”

The way he always did.

I had never heard of a male wolf beingnervouswhen the female he wanted to mate with neared heat, and it seemed messed up. But, Aspen and Enzo were the only couple I really knew.

And I didn’t want or need that reminder of the hell I’d been dealing with every month since I’d met Hunter.

This would be the fourteenth time I suffered through the multiple days of agony that accompanied being a female werewolf every month.

If I spent it with a male werewolf, it was over in a few hours.

Hunter’s wolf wouldn’t accept me spending it with someone else, and he and I didn’t want to screw each other. So, I suffered.

I was starting to hate him for it, and I wasn’t sure how to stop. Wasn’t sure I should, either.

I also wasn’t sure how to end the hell that my cycle had become. Aspen and Sydney, my best friends, had been urging me to start dating for at least six months. They thought it would either make Hunter decide he actually wanted me, or give me a chance to get away from him.

I was pretty sure it would just get whoever I tried to date killed.

Syd spent her heat with her boyfriend, Fletcher, who was Aspen’s twin brother. That was awkward at first, but they got past it. Aspen spent hers with her mate—the remaining Savage brother, Enzo.

I envied their stability.

Maybe I was just too much of a mess to find that for myself. Then again, Hunter’s wolf wouldn’t let me if I tried.

Which was frustrating, because I knew with absolute certainty that I didn’t want to mate with Hunter. He didn’t want to mate with me either, but his wolf’s obsession made us each other’s only option.

It was a real shitshow.

But whatever.

I’d figure it out, or I’d eventually lose my mind to heat’s pain entirely. Both options were starting to sound equally appealing.

“How many days until it starts?” Clay asked both me and Hunter, still on the phone with his brother.

“Three,” we said at the same time.

My heat was irregular sometimes, but it was always regular for a few months before it switched up. I could feel a little tingle about a day before it hit, so it never caught me by surprise. Just annoyed me by being impossible to schedule around.

It had switched up the month before, so I knew exactly when this one was coming.

Hunter knew all of that, too.

Which was just plain uncomfortable for both of us.

Clay grimaced. “You have to find a way to make this thing work between you.”

I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Hunter said flatly.

Clay and I wove down the landscaped path that led to the parking lot. It was the middle of November, so there was a little snow on the ground, but the path was heated to keep it clear.

The Lodge that housed the Crimson Pack was gorgeous. With towering walls of artfully-crafted wood and stone, it was a rustic retreat that housed more male werewolves than any other location in our city, and a couple hundred females now, too.

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