Page 59 of Mate

“And what are you gonna do?” I demanded.

“Do what I’m told,” she monotoned.

“Damn fucking right. Now, I’m—” I was about to spell out for her what her life was going to look like for the time being. She was going to learn how to be obedient and we were going to reward her for the effort. We were going to work as a team, here. We were all going to stay alive.

And then I heard a howl.

That was a very unfamiliar howl, and I didn’t approve of it. My face darkened, and I went to the window. The sun was setting now, shadows were getting long, and goosebumps went up my neck.

I didn’t like the sensation.

“What?” she asked, pulling herself up from the bed.

I put my hand up. “Stay in bed. I’m calling a couple of sitters. Caelum and I are going to be scarce for a bit, babygirl,” I told her, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “Gotta go hunting.”

“Pity,” she said sarcastically.

I snorted. “Yeah, you’ll pull through. I’m gonna have Yael—he runs the computer lab—put a tracker on your phone and all the numbers in the pack. You’re gonna call Caelum and I if shit getsscary, but if anything happens where we can’t pick up, you call any member of the pack.”

“You’re leaving me alone?” she asked, sounding like an eight-year-old who thought a trip to the ice cream parlor was on the table.

“Fuck no,” I snorted, putting the phone to my ear. “I was just saying it’s imperative that you stay alive. So, let’s all work together on that.” When Yael picked up the phone, I ordered him to drop whatever he was sticking his dick in and get to the house pronto.

I heard my mate grumble. Apparently, she didn’t like having babysitters. She didn’t like being watched and tracked and everything else we were going to have to do, but I didn’t give a shit. She was the one that made this problem for herself, so now she was going to have to put on her big-girl panties and deal with the consequences.

“We’ll be in touch. You give my pack any trouble, you know what’s going to happen to that cute little ass, right?” I felt like I needed to say it.

“Probably something troglodytes did to women?” she guessed.

I wasn’t about to get shamed out of applying discipline and boundaries for my female. She was going to have to go along to get along with that one. “Goddamn right. Worked for them, works for us.”

She glared at me, and I walked over. I brushed my thumb across her cheek, mostly staring at her blue eyes, and I was surprised she didn’t wince away from my touch. If anything, she seemed just a little bit calmer.

“We’re trying to keep you safe, you know?” I said. I hated that there was an apology in my voice, but there it was. Somewhere in my brain, there was a voice reminding me that she was a modern girl.

She looked up at me. Most fucking gorgeous eyes on the planet. When they were open and wide, I felt fucking hypnotized.

“We’re not done arguing about everything that’s happened to me the last few days,” she assured me firmly.

“Done arguing?” I grinned. I needed to find the rogues so I could come back and face off with my female. It was going to be a wild ride. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

CHAPTER 21

Kaci

This was not my week.

Normally Friday washappening. And it still was—for other people… There were four parties on campus that I’d been invited to, but I couldn’t go to any fucking one of them, because I was being babysat like a suicidal toddler.

I wasn’t even getting fucked because Caelum and Ry were AWOL as far as I was concerned. Yeah, I know that was supposedly what I wanted, but now that I wasn’t sore anymore, I sort of wanted to go on their carnival rides again…

Even the pack was now arguing like a group of schoolboys about who was going to get stuck with the chore of watching me. On five o’clock on a Friday, I watched a strange sight in front of the campus’ most popular coffee shop: eleven men drawing straws—literally—trying to decide who got the honor of my company.

“Can’t it just go to whoever doesn’t have a date already?” Hunter grunted at the others, shoving his hands in his pockets likesomeone who assumed they were the unluckiest man on the planet.

“Look, there’re eleven straws here. We all have an equal shot at getting shit duty. Except Beau, because he’s apparently an asshole who can’t say ‘no’,” Rog replied as he tried to flatten down the tops of the straws in his hand. “If it makes everyone feel any better, he has been doing literally nothing except cleaning every toilet on campus for the last three days.”

That did seem to make all the Lycans feel better, but only slightly. These were men who liked to fuck. They liked it a lot. They liked it once on Friday, once on Saturday, and then they liked to edge themselves for the rest of the week.