Page 19 of Wolf Mate

“Hey, are you okay?” Raffe asked way more gently than any other time he’d talked to me. “You seem like you’ve been through a lot.”

“A lot?” My mind fuzzed, sort of like the sensation you had when you knew something had happened but you couldn’t quiteput your finger on what. I rubbed my hands together and felt hints of stickiness. I stilled and glanced at my hand to find a few dots of dried blood on my fingertips, my skin wet as if someone had washed it.

Raffe nodded and mashed his lips together. “Did you fall and hit your head?”

I bit my lip, trying to recall, and my head pounded. Something was there. I remembered feeling terror, but the reason was just out of reach. “Uh …” I shook my head to clear it and rubbed my neck. Blurry memories sprang into my head.

The people involved were out of focus, but I remembered what had happened. I wrapped an arm around my middle and scanned the area for a faceless attacker and wolves.

The chill in my bones didn’t budge. A smart person would have kept her mouth shut. In fact, under normal circumstances, I would have, not wanting to be targeted as a freak, and the guy who’d bitten me had wanted me to forget about the attack, but when I touched my neck, I remembered how his bite had felt.

I frantically looked for the attacker, my chest clenching so tightly I feared a heart attack was imminent. “This guy was drinking blood from a woman not far from here. They both looked like students, and when I stumbled upon them, he attacked me. Then three wolves came and fought him off, but—” They were nowhere to be seen, nor was my attacker.

Had I dreamed it? The memory was foggy, but I was in the woods, in the same spot I remembered it all happening. It had to be real, but I doubted any of them would believe me.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Raffe ran a hand through his hair and glanced at the nameless guy in the center. “You need to make her forget.”

Red flags were appearing all around me. “Wait. Youbelieveme?”

“I don’t understand.” The ruggedly sexy, thirtysomething man blew out a breath. His light-brown hair was gelled back to perfection, and his strong jaw tensed, giving his cheekbones more dimension. “He should’ve accounted for that before he bit her. He put all of us in danger by not following the law.”

I laughed, surprising myself as well as everyone else, and scooted away from them. “You all knew he was out here biting people?” What sort of sick place was this? One I needed to get the hell away from.

“Lafayette,” Raffe growled. “Fix this. She’s about to have a full-blown panic attack.”

Wait. Lafayette. As in the housing administrator? Surely not, but that name wasn’t super common.

Keith and Adam shoved Lafayette closer to me.

“Dammit, mutts,” Lafayette hissed, two of his teeth extending past his bottom lip like my attacker’s teeth had. “Don’t manhandle me. You aren’t my leaders, and I don’t have to submit to any of you three.”

My attacker’s face came back into clear vision, and my heart pounded. Worse, Raffe, Keith, and Adam didn’t even flinch when Lafayette grew fangs.

What had I gotten myself into? I’d come here of my own free will to be the victim of vampires.

Vampires.

My blood jolted again as if it finally remembered how to work.

If I went home now, my parents woulddefinitelyput me in a psych ward.

“Maybe, but one of your own was reckless. Not only was he too close to the damn campus to feed, but he attackedher.”Raffe glanced at me, his face softening. “And she’s petrified.” He turned back to Lafayette, his ice-blue eyes glowing. “Either fixit now, or we’ll punish you along with him since you’re ignoring the issue.”

Raffe’s eyes were just like the wolf’s. That was why the wolf’s eyes had seemed so familiar—they had to be his. But accepting that made me question everything about this world.

“It’s about him not wiping her memories, right?” Keith’s tone held an edge as he glared at Raffe. “Not about him attacking her?”

What the hell? My blood jolted.

Raffe’s jaw clenched. “Of course.” The two of them engaged in some sort of stare-off.

Lafayette’s mouth pressed into a thin line though his two canine teeth still hung out. “You really do push boundaries,Prince Wright.”

Prince?

This night kept getting wilder, and I wished I hadn’t come out here at all.

How selfish was that, given a girl had beeneaten… drunk from …whateverthese weirdos called it? My blood increased a notch to a fizz.

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