My wolf whimpers, curling into herself. I’d like to do the same, except the more I think of it, the angrier I become.
Instead of waiting for some non-existent shifter to step onto the path, I march into camp and head straight to the women’s cabin.
I fling the door open, ready for a fight.
“Problem?” Olivia asks, barely raising her eyes from her book.
“I’m sleeping here tonight, and for as long as I need,” I announce. No more miss nice gal for me. No one’s going to push me around or question my character or?—
“Not sure why you’re ready to rip out my throat over something our alpha already approved.”
That makes two of us. “Sorry. I’m pissed at… someone else.”
“Talk to Ellis. She’s the expert on boyfriend problems, seeing as she always has them. Problems, that is. Though, boyfriends, too.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I snap.
“You sure about that? You reek of a male. I’m holding my nose, because I really don’t want to know who you’re hooking up with.”
Damn it to hell! Damien must have picked up Garrett’s scent on me. And Tess, and… I sniff the air, then my hair, and an arm. Garrett’s scent is faint but clinging to me like mold on bread. By now, everyone’s smelled him on me. Just because I’m too used to his scent, doesn’t mean I need to be so fucking stupid.
I plop onto my bunk, which is precisely as I left it. Unmade and bereft of any personal items. Pictures, ribbons, little mementos decorate the frames of the other women’s beds because they view this cabin—thispack—as home. The more Ilook around, the more I see a temporary place to crash, no different than an empty cave in the mountains.
Cold air rushes in as the door opens and closes. The temperature’s already dropping outside. So much for an early spring.
“I see the newbie’s back,” Ellis says as she takes off her jacket.
“Boyfriend trouble.”
Ellis sniffs the air. “Spent too much time in the tall grass tonight, newbie?”
“My name’s Angelina.”
“I heard it was Angel.” A boot drops with a thud. “That’s right, you only let your friends call you that.” Now the second boot.
“It’s nothing personal. I don’t really know you.”
“All you need to know around here is that Theo’s mine. Stay away from him. Stick to Garrett. He’s more your speed.”
The fact that she can smell Garrett on me irritates me more than it should. I slide under my blankets before I end up snapping at her. The chill of the cabin and scratchy, crappy blankets further irritate me, but not as much as the realization slowly sinking in that I’m not truly mad at Garrett. I’m mad at the damage Marla caused… I’m mad at a shifter I never met, one who’s dead and had her own issues. I can’t blame this on her. This is about Garrett and me, and he’s trying so hard to move past his trauma. Maybe I’m the one who’s frozen in time, unable to move on, to forget.
I’m afraid to forget.
And Garrett’s afraid to trust.
What a pair we make.... Damn. He really is trying. And I lost my cool. All because I’m off in a way I’ve never been before and it’s slowly unraveling me.
“Do you think if I apologize for what I said, he’d take me back?” I ask of no one in particular. Ellis and Olivia don’t know what happened, but they’re all I have right now. My friends, family… entire pack… are gone.
“Guys aren’t as complex as we’d like to think,” Ellis says. “A quick roll in the grass and all’s right with their world again.”
I smirk under my covers, not because I agree with her, but she cared enough to answer. This isn’t my pack, but they’re not bad shifters.
And neither am I. I just have to figure out what’s wrong with me.
“Honesty,” Olivia adds from the top bunk. “That’s more powerful than sex.”
“When’s the last time you even had sex, O?” Ellis says.
