Page 29 of Mate
“— under repeated reassurances that you could take care of yourself,killer?”
“I . . . Before. I already couldn’t shift.”
His jaw tics. “Here’s the deal: you’re not an idiot.”
“Wow. What a compliment.”
“Sure. Keep that in mind when I ask you why the fuck you are acting like one. How. Long?”
“It’s genuinely hard to tell. A few days after I moved to the Southwest?”
“How many?”
I try to recall. “Maybe a week or so? The first time I tried and wasn’t able to was the day after . . . after Ana returned.” The day after Koen and I met. “I also started feeling poorly, and— ”
“Feeling poorly?”
Tell him, I order myself.Tell him. Tell him everything. It’ll make things so much easier.
But it wouldn’t. It would be incredibly selfish. Things would be easier for me and significantly more complicated for everyone else. “Nothing bad. You’re right, my appetite has been low. Nausea. Issues sleeping. One of the Southwest physicians, Dr. Henshaw, said it’s stress from . . .” I shrug and smile. Artfully, if I say so myself. When it comes to my recent past, the ratio of what went wrong to what could have gone wrong is so high, it’s objectively funny. “Take your pick. Basically, I just need to wait it out and chill. Hence the cabin.”
“Are you in pain?”
I shake my head, instinctively. His expression looks so dubious, I wince. “It’s more like discomfort.”
Koen doesn’twantto believe it, but it’s obvious that he’s not sure where the lie’s at. “For someone juggling this many secrets, you’re pretty terrible at keeping them.”
“I’ll try to do better, Alpha.” I bat my eyes at him, which makes his scowl deepen by a factor of ten. “Could you please not tell Misery and Lowe?”
“Oh, you’re hiding shit from them, too?”
“I’m an equal opportunity liar. And really, it would just give them one more thing to worry about, when Ana should be their— ”
“Priority, yeah. You’ve mentioned her.” My craning neck weeps in gratitude when Koen takes a seat on the edge of themattress. His posture is lazy, but his eyes stay sharp. “Under Were custom, I cannot keep this from Lowe. He’s your Alpha.”
“Is he, though? I didn’t, like, go to the DMV to sign paperwork— ”
“To the what, now?”
“— and I didn’t take a blood oath. You said it yourself, that I have no pack— ”
“You are not an official member of any pack. You are, however, affiliated with the Southwest. The alternative is for Were society to deal with you as a rogue Were, and you donotwant that.”
“I don’t understand, why does it matter— ”
“Correct. Youdon’tunderstand. Were packs are not chummy extended families, killer. To safely set foot in a pack’s territory, you’ll need to be affiliated with that pack or with their allies.”
“And if I’m not?”
He gives me a flat look that— Okay. Got that loud and clear. “Can I change? If I were affiliated with the Northwest, then it would be okay for Lowe not to know, right?”
“That would makemeyour Alpha.”
“Would you mind that?”
He stares like I’m trying to sell him a pouch of magic beans. “To be clear, I know that I’m being played. I’m just allowing it because I love the idea of telling you what to dothatmuch.”
I cannot help my smile. “Very well. Deal. Now that I’m officially a Northwesterner— ”
