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I did the math; they were going through a shit-ton of women. Half the grad-school program had unknowingly ridden some wolf-cock.
It was impossible to take this personally. It had been days. Plenty of hours had passed, plenty of time to work my charm. They liked me, I could tell. They liked me way better than my own mates did, at least.
I sipped on my latte and watched as they drew straws. Hunter pulled a long straw, made a strange, evil laugh, and then practically skipped away from the scene immediately. Rog was left holding the short straw. He frowned at the straw in his hand, like this was an experiment that had gone heinously awry.
I came up to slap him on the back. “You know what?” I said, biting my lip hopefully while curling my arms around one of his. “You can bemydate to a party. There’s a few to choose from…”
He looked down at me and winced, like I was planning on poisoning him at said party. But seriously, if I was going topoison him, I’d do that well before I left. I didn’t feel the need to be theatrical about things.
“I’ll take good care of you,” I promised him with a grin.
Now he was grinning at me. “You are adorable, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “A box full of kittens getting carried around by a baby bear cub. That’s me,” I confirmed sweetly. Then I straightened and tightened my grip around his big, strong, Lycan-man arm. “Did I ever tell you that you’re my favorite professor?”
He looked down and raised an eyebrow at me.
“Okay, third favorite,” I corrected.
“You only have four classes right now,” he reminded with a frown.
“And congratulations, you didn’t come in dead last! Still, I can’t go home and watch more Netflix. I’m out of chill, Rog. I need toparty. I need to get a life! Is this what I have to look forward to? Waiting at home for Caelum and Ry to get home from their Lycan shit and their work shit to squeeze in a time to fuck me?”
“No. Eventually you have pups and—” He squinted and seemed to realize something. “Wow. We come from anextremelypatriarchal society…” he said introspectively, but then shook his head and tried to pretend to be a modern guy once again. “Anyway, no. We just have rogues around, and you were almost attacked once, and it would be really bad if something happened to you.” He had explained this several times—that things would loosen up as soon as the rogue situation was removed.
He got a text message. “Hm. We got an errand.”
My shoulders slumped, and I unraveled my arms from his, because the first image I had was when my mom used to take me on “errands”. Errands were the worst: they were boring, they were tedious, and they were somehow exhausting.
He playfully bumped me with his elbow. “Hey, what’s with the frown? You’re getting everything you want!”
I looked up at him, feeling strangely hopeful. “Huh?”
“Yeah, we gotta go hit up a Swamp Stomp,” he told me. “C’mon, we’ll take my bike.”
“You have a bike?” I asked, striding quickly along next to him. “I thought you were a nerd.”
“Of course I’m a nerd. But I’m also super cool when I want to be.” He put on his sunglasses to illustrate. He took me to a bright orange Suzuki. It wouldn’t have cut it in my brother’s club, but it still looked pretty cool. He passed me his helmet and I frowned at it. “Look, if something happens to me—chances are it’ll hurt, but I’ll heal. It takes a lot to kill us dead. You’re technically unclaimed, though, making you human. You’re vulnerable. Something happens to you, and something might as well happen to me because Caelum and Ry would kill me.” He wobbled his head back and forth. “Most likely literally. And if you die, and thus they die because of the mate-bond, then the rest of the pack will kill me… And I want to stay alive. Wear the helmet.”
I put on the helmet and strapped it on, then straddled the seat behind his and held on.
Hmm. Rog also had some muscles going on. It was hard to tell because he was one of those leather-jacket people; I figured he was really skinny or kinda pudgy and trying to hide it. But now I knew; he had some abs. I felt them underneath my fingers.
Now I wondered if all the pack was like that, and I hadn’t noticed. Really, other than Caelum and Ry, I hadn’t looked too close even when the other girls in my classes had, and even before the spell fucked shit up.
Even now, here I was, my arms around Rog and still thinking about stupid Caelum and Ry.
I shook my head at myself.
I was only halfway surprised when the ‘Swamp Stomp’ we went to was a huge party circulating under a zydeco band. The titling on the banner overhead said, ‘Little Mama’s Swamp Stomp’.
There were a lot of Cajuns here, which was unlike her other parties closer to campus. It meant that there was a lot of food, and not all of that food could be bought at the store. There was definitely alligator being barbequed…
“Hey, Ombre,” Rog said after he turned off the bike.
I looked around and even took off the helmet. There was nothing there.
Still, there was a deep voice, so deep I felt it in my stomach, that said, “Hey, puppy. Want me to tell Wendy you come by?”
