Page 88 of The Wolf Prince's Mate

Clay was still stiff beside me. He didn’t pick up his fork. “I couldn’t take a mate even if I wanted to, so I should be able to manage avoiding falling for you.”

“Those seem like two completely different concepts.”

He grunted.

The sound reminded me of his brothers so much that I had to bite my cheek to stop myself from snorting.

Clay usually seemed like the most civilized of the three of them. I liked seeing him lose control of his mask.

“Say we go through with this and you eventually develop feelings,” I said. “Six months or five years down the road. Where would we go from there?”

He finally grabbed a strip of bacon and took a bite.

I waited.

He swallowed, then answered. “It would depend on how you felt. I’d probably ask you to move in with me.”

“What if I told you I wanted to end the arrangement instead and choose a mate?”

He snarled.

When I looked over at him, I found his wolf looking through his eyes again. The beast was furious at the thought of me walking away.

Clay coughed a few times. The wolf didn’t disappear, but the man eventually cleared his throat. “Sorry. Yeah, I’d accept that. Of course.”

I couldn’t even sort of believe him.

It was almost humorous how much Ididn’tbelieve him.

“What if your wolf claims me?” I asked.

“That’s not going to happen. He doesn’t care about anything except killing.”

I was looking at the beast’s eyes, and could tell that Clay was wrong.

Really wrong.

He cared about at least one other thing.

Me.

“Right,” I said.

Clay was too disconnected from the beast to accept the truth. So… I was going to have to figure out a way to make him understand it.

Because I’d seen the look in Hunter’s wolf’s eyes when he decided I was his. And Clay’s wolf looked far more serious than Hunter’s ever had.

Clay’s wolfhadclaimed me.

His human just hadn’t realized it yet.

Which put me in a real predicament. Because I couldn’t see Clay’s wolf ever being convinced to just let me go the way Hunter’s was. I hadn’t met the beast, but with the way everyone talked about him, it seemed safe to assume he wasn’t very reasonable.

But hey, at least his claim meant he wouldn’t kill me.

“You don’t sound convinced. Are you having second thoughts about the agreement?” Clay asked. I could tell he was forcing himself to sound positive, and wasn’t sure what to think about that.

“Nah.”

---