Page 4 of Claimed By the Feral Wolves

“No, Faye,” Cayson says, his smile falling off his face to be replaced with an expression of mock horror. “Don’t make me wear it. Please.”

“I get to pick!” I sing, tossing the suit at him. “I’m the omega. And besides, this is payback for earlier at breakfast.”

“Oh, come on,Jelly Bean,” Ezra says, his voice low and even as he looks at me. “You loved it.”

Cayson cackles and I level my gaze at Ezra. “Oh, you’re getting punished, too. You’re supposed to be the one with a good head on your shoulders.”

“Can’t I be the good looking oneandthe clever one?” Ezra says, raising an eyebrow and putting a hand to his head dramatically. “Why must everyone pigeonhole me?”

I laugh, then catch a flurry of movement to the left. Cayson is putting on the purple suit, and I avert my eyes, my face flushing a deep scarlet. I want to put the backs of my hands to my cheeks to try and cool them down, but that might be too obvious.

“You can look, Faye,” Cayson sings. “We’re together, remember?”

Yeah, right. We’re the kind of “together” that doesn’t involve seeing each other half-naked, and he knows it.

“What makes you think I want to seethat?” I ask, hating how flustered I sound.

It’s obvious I want to look. Anyone who claimed to not want to see Cayson without his shirt would be a liar. Except, both of them are staring right at me, so I can hardly do it subtly.

“Ezra,” Cayson says, as he steps into the purple pants. “Tell Faye she doesn’t have to be shy around us. We’re her co-conspirators. Her partners-in-crime.”

“Tell Cayson that I don’t need to know what his underwear looks like,” I shoot back as Ezra’s phone beeps, and he pulls it out of his pocket.

Cayson starts strutting around the room half-dressed. “Come on, you know you want a peek at this.”

He’s shirtless. Ridiculous. Hot. Sexy.Wait, no, crazy. Crazy is what I meant.

“Go get dressed!” I tell him, laughing. “Ezra, tell him he needs a shirt on.”

“What?” Ezra says, looking up from his phone. His brow is wrinkled, and as I look at him, I feel his worry almost like it’s my own.

I put a hand to my chest. “What’s wrong?”

“What?” he says, tilting his head at me, as though wondering how I could tell something was bothering him. “Oh—it’s just some stuff at home, with the pack.”

I motion for Cayson to finish getting dressed and sit, then I pull out some makeup I borrowed from Addilyn for the event. Her being her, the makeup bag is full of glitter and bright, bold colors. I decide to go for it and create a makeup look that matches the purple suit.

“Tell me about it,” I say. “Cayson can’t talk right now because he’s holding still for the makeup.”

“I don’t see why I need makeup,” he mutters, falling into the chair in front of me. “I’m perfectly gorgeous as I am.”

“Shh,” I say to Cayson, and then, glancing over my shoulder at Ezra, “Talking about stuff makes it easier to deal with.”

Although me of all people understands how he’s feeling.

Giving Ezra some space, I turn and focus on Cayson’s makeup, trying to avoid Cayson’s eye contact this close.The man really is gorgeous.I start with dark purple on the inside of his eye, then work into a softer pastel near the edges. I’m reaching for the glitter when Ezra speaks up.

“There are some issues back home, with the crops,” he says with a sigh. “For the past two years, we’ve been dealing with a pest problem. They’re destroying the crops, and it just keeps getting worse. Our stores are running low. If this year doesn’t go well, we may have to purchase rations from other packs, or even humans, which isn’t going to win us any favors.”

“Oh,” I say, sticking my tongue out a bit as I concentrate on drawing tiny stars around Cayson’s eyes. “Do you have equipment for pesticides? Shouldn’t you be able to just treat the plants at the start of the season?”

“We have equipment—” Ezra sounds exhausted, “—but it’s the same junk the pack had when my father was my age. It takes ages to do a single row of crops, let alone spray an entire field.”

“Maybe this seems like an obvious solution, but couldn’t you just get new equipment?”

“Our pack funds are kind of tight right now, unless we want to tap into our reserves, which we try never to do,” he says. “We have a large class moving into college, and we pay for all their educational fees, since they’ll be contributing to the pack with their knowledge. There are quite a few who are going into medicine—which is great for the pack, but means we have to make sure we set the money aside for them. All of that to say there’s just no money for new farming stuff, as helpful as it would be.”

“Have you applied for any grants?” I ask, and when Ezra doesn’t say anything, I glance back at him to make sure he heard me.

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