Page 10 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

I took a deep breath and leaned against my desk. “We can keep an eye on her while she’s here, but otherwise, we can’t exactly lay a finger on her, either. She’s engaged to a human.”

“Ahuman?” he roared. “An omega that perfect needs a whole pack of alphas to satisfy and protect her. What the hell is one knotless human going to do?”

I felt his frustration deeply, but I couldn’t let it overtake me and make me do something stupid. Marlowe didn’t seem the type to appreciate typical alpha aggression. “Cam, you need to calm down. We have no claim over her, and she obviously doesn’t want any part in our world, at least for the moment. We’ll do what we can to help her with James’s passing, and any legal transfers with the company, but keep your distance, and keep your knot in your pants. I mean it.”

He leaned back in a huff, his legs fidgeting uncontrollably. Cam was the physical manifestation of how agitated my mental state was. That morning, getting to sit across from her in the diner, feed her, take care of her – it had all scratched an itch I’d ignored for far too long.

I’d really gotten ahead of myself on the drive to my office with plans to convert one of the spare bedrooms in my house to a nest. I had already been adding Earl Grey tea and fuzzy throw blankets to my shopping list when I pulled into the parking lot.

But Cam’s idea of seduction involved shoving her hand on his cock, and he had scared her away.

I should have been ripping his head off, but I sadly related too much to the pain coursing through him. So instead, I headed towards the drink cart, blowing the dust off a bottle of whiskey – it had been months since I’d last been up here – and poured us a couple of glasses.

“I think we need this,” I said, handing one to him.

“Too fucking right,” he replied, downing the whole thing in one gulp.

We sat in silence, the clock on the fireplace mantel ticking away the empty seconds. She wasrighthere. I could have had her with just a little more time.

“We need to let the pack know,” Cam said.

I let out a pained chuckle. “What’s the point? ‘Hey guys, we found what might be the last omega ever and she’s perfect, but she doesn’t know what shifters are and Cam sexually harassed her so badly she skipped town.’”

He scrunched his face. “I didn’t sexually harass her. What are you talking about?”

How could he be so dumb sometimes? “Maybe here you can walk up to a female, shove your knot in her face, and call it witty banter. But in the human world, the onesheknows? You’d get arrested for that.”

“Well, the human world sucks.” His brows narrowed in disdain. “Up here, I’m practically Mr. Fucking Darcy.”

I choked on my whiskey and started laughing. “How do you even know who Mr. Darcy is?”

He stared out the window. “My ex loved that movie.”

That made much more sense than the first image I had conjured of Cam sitting down to read a book.

“But anyway,” he continued. “My point still stands. She hasn’t met the rest of us, right? What if we can get one of them to, you know,wooher, and help ease her into reality? Then she won’t be so pissed at us anymore.”

I paused. The idea had merit, I had to give it to him.

“Fine, but we only send one. She’s going to be skittish and on edge, and two large alphas are going to set off her alarm bells.”

Camden paused, then looked up. “Professor?”

I nodded, finishing the rest of my drink. “Professor.”

4

MARLOWE

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” I yelled in a huff. I had checked into my hotel room and was tearing my bags apart looking for my birth control pills for the third time. Every pharmacy I had called said they’d never even heard of the brand, and in this weather, I wasn’t about to go driving around to find it, either.

My body already felt overheated and under-stimulated, and the strange, testosterone-fueled encounters I had had with all the men in this city weren’t helping matters. I wished Mike were here so I could just take out all this pent-up horniness on him.

But why was I even this horny to begin with? I was here to take care of my dead father, for god’s sake. Without a doubt, the past twenty-four hours had been the weirdest of my life.

My first reaction was to call my mom, and I bit back the heartbreaking truth that she was no longer with me. More than ever, I needed her to console me, to answer all these questions I had about our life and about dad that I couldn’t ask those two “shifters” back in the office.

Shifters. What the hell was that all about? Was life up here really that boring that people had to play werewolf to pass the time? Had my own dad truly beenthatdemented?

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