I peer at her face, wondering how I missed the tiny freckle on the bridge of her nose. I want to kiss it, and I will. Later. “Why not?”
“He said he was alone. It’s why he wanted to bite me, I think.”
I frown at her as I think.
“So why did he wait?” I ask myself. “The moment you arrived on campus, he would have known what you were. Why did he wait to kill your exes and try to bite you?”
“Fear,” Emilio says simply.
We all look at him.
Emilio was once a new prospect, like Jasper. He traveled around a bit after leaving his pack in South America at eighteen. He fell for Joy when he flirted with her, and she threatened to kill him. They’ve been together for nine years now and are expecting their first pup.
“Fear?” I arch my eyebrow.
He takes Joy’s hand, threading their fingers together. “When I first came here, I knew I wanted Joy. There was no one else for me. She ismi vida.”
Joy isn’t the only one smiling at Emilio’s Spanish endearment for her.
His life.
I used to scoff at the endearment. I thought he was whipped, and the nickname was ridiculous. Now that I’ve found Kat, I get it.
“He pretended he wanted to be my friend,” Joy says, rolling her eyes at Kat.
“But I always wanted her.” Emilio tugs his mate under his arm. “And the need I had for her was almost as bad as the fear she would reject me. If Cristofer believed he was alone, he would not want to mess things up with Kat by moving too fast. He would want to take his time, gain her trust, and then make his move.”
I nod as I study him. That doesn’t just sound right. It feels right.
“Maybe,” Kat says slowly. “Before my memories started to come back, I thought I was the only werewolf. I lost my memories, but if someone bit him, maybe he thought he was the only one alone as well?”
“Did he ask you anything about shifters in college?” Wes asks Kat.
Kat shakes her head. “After my ex-boyfriend made my senior year hell, I wasn’t interested in boys. That might have been why he tried to be my friend first.”
“He was trying to worm his way into your life, but someone else always kept getting between you,” Finan says thoughtfully.
“Until finally, he stopped trying to worm his way in and instead just wiped out the competition,” Silas adds.
“So, what do we do now?” Troy keeps his eyes on me. He wants to look at Kat, but after the last time he called Kat beautiful and I nearly drowned him in my breakfast, he knows not to let me catch him staring.
Kat is mine.
“We patrol, we watch, and we prepare. Hewilltry again. We will get him before he can get to us,” I say.
“And Kat?” Finan asks softly, eyes on me.
If Cristofer bites Kat, it will permanently tie them together. I have no idea what it would mean for Kat and me as a fated mated pair. Would it break our mate bond?
If I bite Kat, Cristofer could never have her. He would have no reason to take her. She would be mine utterly and completely, which would make her safe from another abduction.
But that isn’t what Kat wants or needs.
Biting her when she’s not ready for it would be another form of caging her. I can’t do that to her. A bite would keep her physically safe, but it would destroy us.
“Meetings over,” I say, pulling my gaze from his.
If I bite Kat before she’s ready, she will never forgive me.
