Page 9 of Wolf Roulette

Sascha’s patience and support were incredible, but I wasn’t about to beat myself up for using logic over my heart. Practical decisions had kept me alive during my childhood. Trusting emotion wasn’t an easy thing. “Did Sascha ask you to speak with me?”

“No—”

“So you took it upon yourself?”

Her cheeks tinged pink, but the tattooed blonde drew herself taller. “He deserved someone to speak for him.”

No one else had interfered so far. Was this a delta thing or a Mandy thing? I’d only learned a little about the differences between wolf statuses so far. “You decided that person should be you. Why?”

She’d struck me as playful and intelligent in the past. Not inquisitive. She definitely cared about pack losses and took them hard. Did she like to fix other’s problems?

Her lip curled. “No one else wants to stick up for him.”

I took a stab in the dark. “If the mating call between me and Sascha doesn’t work out, it’s not your fault. That’s just life. Nothing you do will change the outcome.”

Her eyes darkened. “He deserves more than someone who only ever hurts him.”

Nature had ensured that unless I movedtowardSascha, anything else would hurt him—and me—by default.

I dipped my head. “Noted. Anything else?”

“Sascha sent me to tell you that he’d left for his grid runs. The meeting ran over.”

Which explained why he wasn’t in here shutting her the hell up. “Sure.”

After a withering look, Mandy left.

Shaking my head, I grabbed the T-shirt, mini, and underwear, and entered the open-ceiling shower adjourning the bedroom.

Cool water from the stream flowed over my head, and I shivered. Luthers ran hotter than humans, and my showers since first shifting had dropped from hot to lukewarm, but the straight-up cold shower was hard to grow accustomed to.

After washing my hair, I foamed pine-scented natural body wash over my body and rinsed off. I swear Sascha was trying to make me smell like him.

Dressed in my own clothes, I grabbed the Sudoku book and located a pen in a bedside drawer. Breakfast was still on, but after Mandy’s hostility, I opted to traipse to a bench by the stream instead.

I missed my tribe.

The sun rose higher as I worked through several Sudokus in quick succession.

When did I last get time for this? I couldn’t remember. It had to be back when I workedThe Dens.

“Do you mind if I sit?” The wolf looked around thirty to the unknowing eye. My sniffer said otherwise. Like counting rings on a tree stump, I could tell this guy was older than any other Luther I’d scented before.

I swung my legs off the bench. “Of course.”

I searched for his scent but didn’t find one.

Curious.

“I don’t usually have to share my fishing spot.” The ancient wolf sat and busied himself with a tackle box and rod.

Make him go away,Booker snapped.

He glanced at me. “You prefer to be alone?”

“Not me.” A tinge of decay hung in the air. “Not all the time. My wolf does.”

The air cleared.

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