Page 62 of The Wolf Prince's Mate

“I’m serious. We have to talk about what you said in the shower.”

“We can erase that too, if you want.” Though his voice was upbeat, there was something in his eyes that told me he was hiding how he felt about it from me.

“I don’t want to erase it. I like the idea. In literally any other situation, I would agree immediately.”

“But what?”

“But if I don’t seal a mate bond, there’s a good chance Hunter’s wolf stays obsessed with me. And I’m not going to screw you, even platonically, when I know it’s going to cause problems with your brother. What you guys have is important, and I won’t risk being the one who breaks it.”

“That should be my decision,” Clay said. He sounded calm, but there was an edge to it. A darkness.

“I have a twin sister,” I said.

He blinked. “Since when?”

“Since forever. Everyone knows werewolves are always born in multiples.”

“Where is she?”

“Gone,” I said simply.

His forehead creased.

“She was born human. I wasn’t. We looked the same. Talked the same. Thought the same. But I had a wolf, and she didn’t. Our dad was different around us because of it. He babied her. Treated her like she was special to overcompensate for my wolf. She despised me for it. When he died, we were sixteen. She ran away to live with the humans. I couldn’t go with her. My dad was one of Silas’s artists, so I knew Silas was an Alpha, and went looking for him. He realized what I was. Warned me about heat before it started, luckily.”

“And your sister…”

“Gone.” The word was quieter the second time. “She sent me a postcard once. After we turned twenty-one. I brought up Silas before she left, so she sent it to him. It was a picture of her outside a tattoo shop, with a group of other people. She looked happier than I’d ever seen her.”

“What did it say?”

“I hope you’re happy, my friend.”

Clay’s forehead creased. “Is that a quote from something?”

“Wicked. Yeah. We never saw the play. Dad was too broke, and we were too young when we lost him. But we knew all the songs by heart. I was always Elphaba, and she was always Galinda. Singing terrible duets was pretty much the only thing we shared.”

“Did you write back?”

“No. It was only two years ago, and my stalker had already started being a creep. I was worried he was watching me closely enough to follow a letter back to her.”

Clay nodded slowly. “You protected her.”

“She’s my sister,” I said simply.

“What’s her name?”

“Olive. Losing a sibling like that… it hurts, Clay. It really fucking hurts. And it never stops. You want to screw me now, but it’s not worth trading your relationship with Hunter. If it hurt me this badly to lose the sister I was never close with, I can’t imagine the pain you would feel losing Hunter. So no, you and I are not going to be friends with benefits.”

Clay let out a long breath. “Alright. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, though. And friends let each other stay with them when they don’t feel safe in their homes.”

I finally took a bite of my bacon, averting my eyes. I didn’t want to be looking at him when I admitted the truth. “I can’t stay with you. I’ll be going into heat soon. I think the doctor gave me the pills that delay it, because it should’ve happened while I was in the bush.”

“What bush?”

I flashed him a questioning look, and when he winked at me, I snorted.

Right.

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