Page 40 of Purchased

“If he ever treats me the way Duplante treated you, I will kill him myself.” I pause, realizing that isn’t quite fair. “I might kill him anyway, you know.”

Her eyes widen.

“You’re a monster!”

“We’re all monsters. It’s our whole thing. We’re people who become wolves and devour human flesh.”

“We don’t devour human flesh!”

Another faux pas. I’m really racking them up today.

I try to reset the conversation a little.

“I am sorry you’re hurting. I really am. But that guy sucked, and if Armand hadn’t killed him, I think I would have sooner or later.”

“You?” She laughs bitterly. “You’re a female. You’ll be used to breed and nothing more. Me? I’ll never have another mate. I’ll never be bred again.”

“That’s up to you. Why don’t you try one of the younger males?”

She laughs, more out of shock than amusement.

“They’re a decade younger than me.”

“You could be a cougar as well as a wolf.”

She smiles weakly and shakes her head. “We get one mate.”

“I don’t believe that. I think we have special mates, but there’s nothing in life where there’s only one. I don’t believe your fated mate would curse at you in mixed company and get his head cut off.”

She starts to cry even more, and I slink away, feeling guilty and unable to help. Wolves put a lot of stock in fated mates and lifelong bonds, but I think sometimes a lifelong bond is better burned than endured. If I was talked to like a piece of shit and treated the same way, I’d rather be alone. I don’t care about the fucking mate bond. As much as I might be attracted and attached to Armand, I won’t be suffering for it.

Fuck that.

“There you are!” Armand steps around the corner, and his appearance makes my body flush with excitement and arousal. Looking at him is a chemical experience, like I’m doing a drug of some kind.

“Hi,” I say, instantly shy. This time yesterday, I didn’t know this man. Now, when I look at his handsome, angular, elegant face, I am internally set alight. It’s unsettling as much as it is exciting.

I wonder if Jenny felt that about the man who died, if she thrilled to him before he called her a curt name, or otherwise abused her.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” he says, with just enough concealed concern in his voice to tell me that he thought I’d run away. It’s not a ridiculous thought. Running away was my thing, for a while, until I realized that terrible things happen outside an orphanage, and sometimes awful walls can keep you safe.

“I was just looking around. Is that not allowed?”

“Of course it is allowed, this is your home. I am just cautious. I waited my entire life to find you, and now that I have found you, having you out of my sight creates a pain I didn’t know was possible to feel.”

I smile.

“Breakfast,” he says. “You must be starving.”

I am.

CHAPTER9

Armand

Beatrix settles in with the pack quite well, but of course I cannot let the mystery of her provenance lie. I send Daniel to scrounge up all the information he can find about her. He’s a solid man, and I know if he finds something scandalous he won’t use it against us.

A week passes, and life begins to somewhat settle into its new routine. I am a busy man, splitting my time between never-ending pack business and time with my mate.

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