Page 59 of Property of Prowler
Long and loud and victorious.
They had a mate to claim.
He kissed his daughter on the cheek and jogged—no, ran—across the street.
She didn’t answer the door. He stalked around back and hopped over the wall. No sign of her. He sniffed around.
Her scent wasn’t fresh. She wasn’t home.
Using the gate, he exited the proper way and pulled his phone from his pocket. His call to Taylor was rejected. She’d fucking blocked him.
“I’ll just sit out front and wait her out,” he muttered to himself.
That’s when he noticed her garbage cans were out.
Trash wasn’t for five days, and she was anal about her cans. Both timing and placement, so he could only draw one conclusion.
She wasn’t coming back for at least a week.
“Fuck.”
TEN
TAYLOR
After putting her trash out, she packed a bag and left for her rental house. It was small and sterile, but it would do for the respite she needed.
The wound that was Prowler was too raw. Her hope was, with time, she could spend all her time at the house that she loved and the pain of seeing Prowler with another woman wouldn’t be as sharp.
If only she were his mate, like in fiction, and everything could’ve been unicorns and daisies. He wouldn’t ever cheat if she were.
Rationally, she knew that if Prowler found his mate, the kind of love that was in her favorite shifter novels, she could eventually move on. She wanted that for him. Hell, she wanted it for herself too.
It just couldn’t be Allie. That she couldn’t stomach. She told herself she was a one-time thing for whatever reason because the thought of that vile woman with him was too much to bear. And poor Cass, she was not a fan of her mother. She especially hated the idea of her parents together.
No, if it was Allie, she would definitely sell her dream house and move.
She’d lose both Prowler and Cass, and that would suck.
The first thing she did after getting settled into her rental was text Cass to see how she was feeling. Taylor didn’t discuss the things that had happened or tell her she wasn’t staying at her house. Cass didn’t need to be in the middle of what was going on between her and Prowler.
As much as she wanted to ask about Prowler, she didn’t, even when Cass had indicated that he was in wolf form. That made her question if her lie was worth it after all. Would he have come after her if he could have?
The answer was deep in her bones.
No.
Prowler was not the type to accept that another man had been in her bed. That’s why she let him think the worst of her.
She was still wrapping her head around Prowler being a wolf and that shifters were real, but it made sense. She’d thought over the last few months how animalistic some things he did were. The way he stalked instead of walked. The way he used certain words. How he rubbed his cum onto her skin to mark her.
Humans were ridiculously naïve if they thought they were the most superior species in their vast universe. Hell, Taylor had no problem believing that aliens were out there, just not little green men. Personally, her fingers were crossed for blue men from a very cold planet.
But humans certainly were not alone, and if that could be true, then why not shifters? The legends had to start somewhere. That was the only reason the whole thing didn’t freak her out more than it had, because on some level she’d always believed in things like that.
After getting cleaned up, she donned her uniform and headed for work. She’d gone in a few hours early, hoping to catch Claire before she left. Taylor was thinking of taking the next few days off, to sit around the rental and feed her broken heartinto submission. She hoped Claire would be down to cover a few shifts.
With that handled, she fixed her face and stepped out onto the casino floor.
