Page 4 of Same Difference
Nate kept looking over at her, but she was the one who was not meeting his eyes now. Her wolf was at the surface, and she felt like she could Change right here and shred him.
She didn’t know what was happening, but she did know one thing—this was about to be one of those moments she would remember all of her life.
She lifted her phone and opened the text thread with Nory.Wish I was with the Pack already.Send.
Her eyes were rimmed with moisture and she blinked hard. Nory’s response was immediate.I’m so excited. Come home! Let’s do girl’s night this week.
A sad smile stretched her lips, and she put a heart response on it, then set her phone into the cup holder. She was acutely aware of everything right now. The shade of yellow the streetlights cast the parking lot into as Nate parked in the back. The loose gravel that sprinkled the asphalt, like a truck had spilled a little bit of his load. The snow that had been piled up on the edges of the parking lot. The throaty rumble of her dad’s truck as he backed in two empty spaces over.
Thecrunchsound her dad’s boot made on the loose gravel as he stepped out of his truck. The cold wind on her bare arms as she slid out of Nate’s truck.
The way her mate whispered that he was, “Sorry,” and, “It’s for your own good,” as she closed the door behind her.
The way her heart felt as if it was in her throat.
The warmth of her dad’s hug, and the grit in his voice as he said, “Hey, peanut.” It had been her nickname since she was a cub.
The light blue in Decker’s eyes as he came around the front of the truck. She’d loved him once.
“What are you doing here?” she murmured as she eased back out of her dad’s hug.
Her dad’s lightened green eyes drifted to something behind her—Nate—and back as he squeezed her shoulders gently. “We’ve come to pick you up. Didn’t Nate tell you?”
She shook her head, too chicken to look back at her mate in this moment. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Seriously?” Decker asked. He huffed a laugh and looked pissed. To Delta he said, “He’s giving you back to me.”
“What?” she asked, horrified. “Giving me back…I’m not some pawn in a game. It’s my choice.”
“It was your choice until you entered into Arrangement negotiations,” Decker gritted out. His anger was always right there at the surface. It was one of the things she’d grown to hate about him.
“Okay, let’s sort this out,” her dad said, holding his hands out to Decker. “Delta, you went to Nate’s Pack because he was the best option at the time, but that Pack has been dissolved by the Elders, and you are now a Rogue.”
“We are figuring all of that out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” Dad said. “The only reason I agreed to an Arrangement for you was because it was to a Donn wolf, who was Second of a Pack.”
“He is my mate!”
“You haven’t consummated the pairing yet,” Decker said low.
Every argument she had building up escaped her mind in a moment.
“Hey, man,” Nate said, finally breaking his silence. “That isn’t for open discussion.”
“Clearly it is,” she whispered, turning to look at him. “You told my ex that?”
Nate frowned. “Your ex?”
She jammed a finger at Decker. “It was you or him. I chose you.”
Nate shook his head slightly, his gold eyes drifting between Decker, her father, and her. “I was negotiating your release with him, because he’s just taken Alpha of the Heritage Place Pack.”
Well, that was news to her, but also not that surprising. Garrison, their last Alpha, was getting older and had been talking about stepping down.
“We didn’t have any trouble consummating our pairing,” Decker said, eyes on Nate. “She fucked me easily.”
A snarl rippled from him, and he clenched his jaw, and looked at the ground, then up at her. His expression was unreadable, but the hairs on the back of her neck lifted with the intensity in those off-putting gold eyes of his. “You were paired, and you fucked him?”
