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The racket went on and on, chairs scraping on the floor, hands and arms flying as they argued, none of them paying attention to me. None of them listening to me. I covered my ears, the yelling almost as bad as the swirling emotions that filled the room with harsh, musky scents.
It was the perfect time to sneak away, but I was still exhausted from my fights, from being mostly dead, and from being surrounded by strangers. And for all I knew, I’d cause some inter-pack incident by leaving. So I curled up into a ball on my chair cushion, rocking slightly. No one noticed.
And then I was surrounded by a smell I knew. Rich caramel and fire. A scent that said quiet and calm.
“Luke?” I asked, opening my eyes. Where had he come from?
Before I could ask, he had picked me up and carried me into the hall. The others started to follow, but he shut the door gently in their faces. He took a few more steps and stumbled, his hands tightening on me. I pulled myself free and quickly stood, tucking my arm around his waist to support him.
“Luke! You’re still hurt.” I peered at his abdomen, the spot I’d stabbed. I could smell fresh blood.
“I’m fine.”
I tasted the lie at the back of my throat, like chewing aluminum foil.“I’m so sorry.” I never thought I’d apologize to him, or any of the Southern Enforcers. But I had hurt him, and he had still defended me, challenged and defeated the Alpha to save me.
“Never,” he said in his soft voice, lifting my chin with his hand so I stared into his icy blue eyes. “Never apologize to me. There’s nothing I will ever be able to do to earn your forgiveness, though I’ll never stop trying. My heart, I will never deserve a rank equal to yours.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. I leaned into it. “You need sleep.”
“Yes.” I sure as heck did, if I was dreaming Luke Callaway was calling me his heart.
“Follow me.” He led me to a room that had always been locked, then pulled a key out of his pocket. “I’m the only one who has this key. And now it’s yours.” He pressed it into my hand.
His room? His caramel scent filled the space. It was furnished only with a bed, two chairs, and a desk. Not much more than my own dorm room. The blankets looked warm, though, and smelled fresh like the laundry line, and like him. I turned to thank him, but he was already gone.
I fell onto the bed and was asleep before I could call out my thanks.
30
Luke’s Story
GLEN
Ilay next to Finnick on the floor of a guest bedroom, listening to my parents arguing. They’d been at it for over an hour. They were quiet, but with shifter hearing and shoddy construction like the Southern Pack House boasted, there was no such thing as quiet enough.
After Luke had collapsed in the hallway in front of his bedroom, where he’d placed a sleeping Flor, Mom had gone into organizer mode. She’d assigned one room for me and Finnick, but we were too wired up to sleep, and a feeling of dread and expectation hovered over the Pack House. Shifting to wolf form had made it impossible to talk, though I was pretty sure neither of us wanted to. But we listened.
Mom’s voice rose. “Of course I saw what happened with Brand—we all did. And yes, there’s something with Luke and Glen as well. But she might reject them all at this rate, Bradley. She’s panicking.”
Finnick’s dark gray ears perked up, his eyes narrowed. My wolf whined.
“Does she not feel a mate bond with any of them?”
“She’s been fighting for her life, literally for years.” A pause. “Do you know what she told me, when I was doing her makeup? I asked what she did for fun around here. She said she’s never had time for fun, that she’s been working for years. Working and hiding. And the other shifters here… Well, have you seen or heard any of them asking about her? Even the unranked ones are only just civil.”
“No friends in a pack this size? That seems unlikely.”
“When would she have time to make friends? And it wasn’t only that she was forced to work. From dusk to midnight, every day for years, as soon as her work was done, she was hunted. Hunted by the young males. Sometimes not only the young ones.”
I forced down a snarl.
“Glen said something about a Hunt. What would happen if they caught her?”
“If they caught her, Calvin decreed she would be forcibly mated to them.”
My wolf snapped at empty air, looking for a throat to tear out. Finnick growled low.
“Forcibly?” Dad shouted.
“Yes, and that’s why we need to wait. She’s never thought of mating as anything but a punishment. As sanctioned rape. Of a child. It’s what this wretched pack taught her.” Something glass shattered, followed by a longer pause. “Brad, you know if any shifter understands the importance of carrying on a line, of a strong female like her accepting a true bond with one of our own, it’s me. Darling, I don’t think she should be encouraged to choose a mate right now. She says she won’t ever, but I think she’s terrified of ending up with a shifter like those in her pack.”
