Page 107 of Wolf Mate

Keith leaped from the bag in a way I’d never imagined possible. She lifted into the air, as if my blood were humming and controlling her, and launched across the room onto Lucy’s chest. Lucy stood there with eyes as wide as saucers.

The cat hissed and clawed into Lucy’s EEU shirt, going for blood. The shock must have worn off because Lucy growled and smacked Keith in the head, throwing her off and into our small kitchen wall with a solidthud. The cat slid down the wall and lay limp on the floor.

Holy shit. Had she killed my cat?

“Keith!” I shouted and dropped the bag as I fell to my knees on the laminate tile floor and scooped the cat into my arms. My mouth went dry, and my blood jolted, but when I sensed the cat’s heartbeat, some of the panic ebbed.

I spun around, glaring at Lucy, and spat, “What thefuckis wrong with you?”

She blinked, taking in the cat in my arms then looking at me. “What’s wrong withme?” She pointed to her ripped shirt where a small trickle of blood dotted one spot. “You brought a cat home when you live with a wolf shifter! How did you expectthatto go?”

Cuddling Keith to my chest, I tried to steady my breathing. “You haven’t been home since Wednesday, and I’ve been struggling. I need something to ground me. Keith does that.”

Lucy sighed. “I’m sorry. Raffe asked me to give you space, and I didn’t want to argue with him after that wholething. And I thought he might be right … that maybe you wouldn’t want to be around us after Adam, Keith, and Josie pressured you two into splitting.”

Pressured. That was a nice way of putting it. They’d held our relationship hostage, threatening to out Raffe to their world. What sort of friends did that to someone they supposedly cared about?

What sort of guy let them? Although, Raffe wasn’t struggling with the decision the way I was, which was an answer in and of itself.

I stared at the floor and leaned against the wooden chair closest to me. Then I met her eyes. “You had my back, and that meant the world to me. And then you vanished, so …”

“You thought that, after the confrontation, I decided that being your friend wasn’t worth the hassle?”

I nodded. That was the usual reaction. I was the problem.

“I’m so sorry, Sky.” She groaned. “I didn’t think about it that way. I just didn’t want to make things harder for you by hanging around. Believe me, I’d rather sleep in my own bed and hang out with you instead of Josie and her roommate. Don’t get me wrong, Josie’s great, but she’s more of a girly girl than we are.”

Raffe.

My heart squeezed, and the desperate need to see and touch him almost had me insisting that Lucy take me to his apartment. But that would make everything worse.

The throbbing in my chest increased. I was damn sure that, at some point, I wouldn’t be able to fight it, and I dreaded the day that happened. “You do realize we became friendsdespiteRaffe, right? So why would we stop being friends because of him?” I wanted my friendship with Lucy back. I felt more at ease with her than anyone else … besides Raffe, but I now knew how that ended.

She laughed. “You know what? You’re right. I should’ve talked to you before vanishing. So you’re cool with me coming home?”

I smiled but then it froze. “Of course I am, but I can’t take Keith back.” I held on to her tighter. “They were going to get rid of her, and she helps keep me balanced.”

“Ugh.” Lucy leaned her head back. “Fine, but she needs to stay in your room. I don’t want to be attacked every time I come into the living room.”

Keith lifted her head, and relief flooded me. I’d been worried that I’d need to take her to the vet after that fall. “That works.” She’d been living in a cage that was three feet long and two feet wide—my room would be like a mansion to her. “Believe it or not, she’s really sweet and well-behaved.”

“Yeah, I’m not buying it.” Lucy scowled and looked at her tattered shirt. “This was one of my most comfortable shirts too.”

I winced. “I’ll buy you a new one. I didn’t realize you’d be here, and I didn’t consider how Keith would react to you being a wolf and all.”

“It’s fine.” She snorted. “Naming a female cat Keith is payment enough.”

When I rubbed Keith behind the ears, she purred, and I chuckled while replying, “I wish I could take the credit, but the shelter owner is the one who named her. Apparently, she had a boyfriend back in high school who was kind to one or two people but a complete jerk to everyone else. That’s exactly how Keith is, so she named her after her ex-boyfriend. My takeaway is that all men named Keith are dicks.”

“Maybe, but our Keith isn’t usually a dick the way he’s been to you.” Lucy shrugged. “He’s actually super loyal and protective, and when he perceives something as a threat, he eliminates it before the people he cares about get hurt.”

My body warmed with anger, but I tried to control it. Luckily, with Keith in my arms, my blood merely jolted. I had to remember that Lucy was friends with wolf-shifter Keith and that they were a pack. Of course she was loyal to him. “Maybe that’s the case, but I wasn’t a threat to anyone. None of it matters. Keith got what he wanted. Raffe’s back to his usual self and doesn’t seem to remember we ever spent any time together.”

He’d made it clear that I was nothing to him, and our time together hadn’t meant a damn thing even though it had meant everything to me, fool that I was.

“Everything isn’t what it seems, Sky.” Lucy wrung her hands and paused like she was searching for words. “But the one thing that is clear now, even to Keith, is that you aren’t a bad person. You ended things with Raffe because it was inhisbest interest. Not many people would’ve done that, especially when the person in question is a prince.”

If Keith thought of me differently, he had an awful way of showing it. Unlike Raffe, he didn’t ignore me—he threw glares and scowls at me as if I needed a reminder to stay away. “Let’s agree to disagree.” Cat Keith’s eyes opened, and I didn’t want to stand out here and wait for round two to happen between her and Lucy. “She’s waking up—I’m taking her to my room.”

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