Page 10 of Claimed By the Feral Wolves

“Could have fooled me,” she says, reaching up and picking a piece of fuzz from my collar.

It makes my breath catch in my throat, that light touch. The simple act of her caring for me like that, caring about my pack enough to think about something as unexpected as a grant to help us.When was the last time someone did something like that?I think of Katie, and for some reason, I can’t remember if that was something she did. Which is weird.Are my memories of her getting duller?

“You two looked like you’d done that a thousand times before,” she tells me, still smiling.

“Not a fashion show exactly,” I say, glad to be distracted from my thoughts about Katie, “but lots of similar things.”

I think about Cayson and I growing up, thick as thieves, always getting into trouble and causing problems. Nothing crazy, just normal kid stuff, around my duties to my pack. But when I turned thirteen, things changed. My father sat me down and had a talk with me about maturity, being what the pack needs, having a sense of honor. I realized then that my youth as I knew it was over. I was onto a new phase in my life.

After that, Cayson was off without me, getting into trouble and causing problems. He fell in with a bad crowd, making worse decisions and being even less responsible, with me only occasionally joining him for the more PG stuff. It was as if he decided to become exactly what his father always accused him of being.

I like to think before that point I balanced him out, made him rethink some of the riskier choices.We were good for each other.

But that change in responsibility wasn’t the only thing that dulled my spirit. I think of Katie—of that one night that changed everything—and my chest tightens.

I hold onto the feeling, waiting for the flood of grief and guilt to take me, but for the first time since it happened, that complete overwhelm of emotion I expected doesn’t come. I stand there, breathing okay, and thinking of Katie without gasping for air. Some part of me feels like the sharp edges of remembering her are smoothing, the memory less like shattered glass and more like just a normal memory.

“What kinds of things did you guys do together?” Her voice pulls me from the past. “I’m trying to picture the two of you, stern Ezra and goofy Cayson, as kids.”

I clear my throat, thinking about how best to explain this. “Cayson and I used to do crazy stuff all the time, growing up. Like, we once found an old boat on the river, we packed supplies, and we took the boat as far as it would take us. We were gone for three days, and boy, you should’ve seen our dads’ faces when they caught up with us downstream.” I’m grinning at just the memory. “And there was another time that Cayson found his pack’s stock of plastic wrap. That night, we plastic wrapped just about everything in town.”

She laughs, and the sound is magical. “So, what happened? How did you get so serious?” She seems to be genuinely curious.

I don’t know what to say. “I just… I suppose I just stopped having fun.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, studying my face. “Since when?”

I open my mouth, but the words stick. It’s there on my tongue, the truth of it… Katie being the reason I forgot how to have fun. I struggled so much with living without her that I missed out on a lot of happy moments around me. I didn’t want to be happy without Katie.

But it was more than that.

I wanted everyone around me to see how miserable I was without her. To prove that she was my mate, my life partner, and without her, there was no romance, no sparkle, left for my life, even though most of the people around me doubted we were mates. They dismissed it as just a teenage romance, a passing phase, and that hurt. Like me losing her didn’t matter unless she was my true mate. Like it was just expected that when we came to The Selection, we’d find our mates, and our childish romance would be over.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

Her expression says she knows there’s more.

“I can’t…” I say, and I can’t. I’m not ready yet.

“Oh,” Faye says, stepping up on her tiptoes, “your makeup is running.”

I let out a sigh of relief. She isn’t going to make me keep talking. I don’t have to bare this wound just yet. Instead, her soft fingers run over my face, and I have to bite back a groan at her touch. My blood runs hot through my veins, and I take deep breaths to stay in control.

“You look like a girl after the walk of shame,” she says, laughing and reaching into her pocket, pulling out a makeup removal wipe.

She came prepared, and weirdly, something about that turns me on even more.

“I look like a girl after thewhat?” I tease her.

“Oh, please,” she says, laughing. “Don’t act like you haven’t sent out plenty of girls after a night of fun.”

“I would never,” I assure her, and when our gazes meet, it’s like there’s a tug between us, some sort of undeniable gravity pulling her into my orbit, and me into hers.

I can’t stop my face from moving, bending down, nearing hers. Her eyes are a mix of fear and determination, anxiety and want, and it’s almost enough to stop me, but then, in a momentthat surprises me, Faye tips her chin up and meets my lips with hers.

It’s a slow, exploratory kiss. Like neither of us has completely accepted that we’re kissing. She tastes sweet,of courseshe tastes just like she smells. Like something good enough to eat. I bring my hands up, thumbs grazing the delicate curve of her jawline as I cup her face gently, feeling as a shiver runs up her back at the feathery touch.

“Uh, excuse me!” Cayson says, his tone low as he sidles up behind Faye and reaches his arms around her, sandwiching her in the middle of us.

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