She shakes her head. “Dad insists I have to be eighteen before he’ll let me.” Still flipping her dagger, she rolls her eyes at me. “Not sure what a few months' difference will do if I rip a guy’s throat out now rather than four months from now.”
“I think he’s trying to protect you.”
“I can protect myself.”
“It’s kind of his job being Alpha and Dad.”
She looks at me, poised to argue, then stops flipping her dagger and tucks it into the back of her jeans. “Andyou’retrying to protecthim.”
“I didn’t have him to watch my back, but you do. You’re lucky.”
I remember all the times I’d lock my door in foster care, yet still hear someone trying to force the lock. Back then, I’d have killed to have a night where I didn’t have to block my door with a dresser or wake myself up periodically to check no one had gotten in.
Robert changed that, but there were a lot of predators before I lucked out on a foster dad like Robert. I never had to lock my door at night. I could have left the thing wide open, and he still would knock loudly on the doorframe and ask if it was all right to come in.
It’s been years since he died, and it still fucking hurts when I think of him.
“Kat?”
I shake my head, refocusing on Carlie. “You don’t know how lucky you are. Go easy on him, okay? He means well.”
“Maybe I won’t push so hard,” she eventually says.
She doesn’t ask about foster care or what happened to me. She did before, but Dad told her not to. I can only imagine he made her promise because she looks like she’s dying of curiosity.
“Why’d you sleep with him if you ran away from him and hid in the forest as a wolf?”
I blink at her.
“What? I can smell him on you, and I saw you sneak in the house before.”
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. Sex was something I fought against before, but this time, I couldn’t. I want him too badly. The running away is the biggest source of my confusion, and it’s why I ditched breakfast to be alone. If someone asked, I wouldn’t know what to tell them because I can barely make sense of my feelings to myself. “I like him, but there are times I also want to kill him.”
She grins at me. “Sounds like fun.”
“It’s not fun. Trust me. Hope you never meet your mate, Carlie. He will drive you crazy.” I look at the creek, congratulating myself for only peering into the forest opposite once instead of the multiple times I did last night.
Sleeping with Aren wasn’t a good idea.
I knew he might think I wanted him in my life, but I’d been weak, and I don’t regret it for a second. It had been everything I needed and wanted, and so I closed my eyes to the utter stupidity of my actions.
And the shower.
I should have elbowed him in the gut the second he followed me inside, but I hadn’t done that either.
If Finan hadn’t appeared when he had, I would have slept with Aren again, and it would have kept on happening until someone interrupted us.
“Or hope he has a beer belly,” I mutter.
“A what?”
I look at my sister. “If you meet your mate, hope that he has a beer belly. And that he’s ugly. Maybe then you won’t sleep with him even after he does something that pisses you off.”
She laughs. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”
“It is.” I sigh, toying with a blade of grass. “It absolutely is.”
“Is Aren the reason you didn’t come home before?”
