Page 65 of Tempting Fate

Flynn frowns. “Are you all right?”

I sigh and sag back into the cushions. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Do you think you might have—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Surely it’s a good thing?”

“I don’t really know how to deal with it. What it means.”

“What do you think it means?”

I look at him for a long moment. “What would you do if your mate were a man? Fuck, what would I do if mine were a woman? It’s like that.”

“Is it?”

“Feels that way. I think.”

“Huh.”

We’re both quiet for a while. The TV drones on. I’m not watching it. I don’t think either of us is.

“You know,” Flynn says after a while, “it’s not like you don’t know someone who could… help.”

“Help? How?”

“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters, like I’m not supposed to hear him. I smile. “Go talk to those wolves in your would-be pack.”

“Would-be?”

Flynn levels me with the most serious look he’s worn since he moved in. “You think we don’t all know what’s coming? Where Dax goes, you go. I’m surprised you’ve held out this long.”

“I’m not planning on leaving.”

“You might not be, but your wolf is.”

It still takes me another few hours to work up the courage to head over to Alpha Kieran’s pack house. It’s dark now, and despite my misstep with Drew the other day, the wards still let me through. I guess he didn’t tell Sam about it.

The issue isn’t just about whether Em is truly my mate or whether it’s the two of them. That’s one large part of it, of course. The main part.

The issue also is how to break all this to a human without having them understandably freak out and want nothing to do with me. If that happens with Em, I think it will break me.

I let myself into the building and jog up to the first floor. Voices rumble on the other side of the door I know leads to Alpha Kieran’s flat, but I walk past that. Perhaps I should present myself to the alpha, seeing as I’m firmly inside his territory, but I’ll apologise later. If I don’t go straight to the source, I’m going to lose my nerve.

I take a breath to steel myself before I knock on the door.

Adam opens it. His eyes widen when he sees me standing there, eyebrows flying up, and then his expression settles into something decidedly neutral. He doesn’t open the door wide enough to let me in, or even to look past him, being as he’s almost as tall as I am.

“Um. Is Drew in? I’d like to talk to him.”

Adam purses his lips like he’s thinking. “No.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” He narrows his eyes, tilting his head to one side, and I swallow hard. I don’t know him all that well, but he’s always struck me as friendly, perhaps a little goofy or overenthusiastic, the way Dax can be.

Now I’m staring into a predator’s face. I’ve pissed him off.