Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 441 - Chapitre 450

Maybe because he’s keeping his distance, and he’s not leering like a Quarry Pack male would. In a way, he reminds me of a scruffy pup who’s come across something fascinating like tadpoles or an ant hill. His interest isn’t creepy at all.When there aren’t any grownups around, sometimes Abertha will do tricks for the pups, pull buttons from behind their ears or make it seem like she’s levitating a few inches off the ground, that kind of thing. The littlest, shyest pups don’t crowd close and bug her to spill her secrets. They hang back, rapt.Justus is looking at me like that. Like I’m magic, and he’d best give me room because I might be dangerous.My spoon scrapes the bottom of my empty bowl.“Do you want more?” he asks.I shake my head and set the bowl down as far as I can get it from me.Much more slowly than last time, he prowls forward, bracing himself on one hand. His forearm and bicep flex to take his weight, and then he shifts onto his opposite knee and that thigh tenses. With e

The pecking voice should be rattling off these facts, but she’s grown eerily quiet.“Look at this,” he says, flipping to a full-page illustration.A tiny woman, Thumbelina, is kneeling on an enormous lily pad. In the murky water underneath, huge wide-mouthed fish with bulging eyes swim among the reeds. She covers her face with her hands in despair. A monarch hovers in mid-air, gawking at her while she cries.The colors are lovely in the lamplight—butter yellow, crimson, olive green—but I don’t like the picture. Thumbelina is scared and alone, and the butterfly just gapes at her while the fish swarm underneath, horrified surprise on their fishy faces. Something terrible is coming, and she can’t see it.Justus smooths the page with a calloused thumb. “It reminds me of you. That’s why I traded for it.”I feel like I’ve been socked in the stomach. “I have brown hair,” I argue. The woman in the picture is a blonde, but I know why the sad, weeping lady stranded on a lily pad reminded him of

I’ve never heard a male say he’s been mistaken like it wasn’t costing him everything to say it, which is funny since females in the pack apologize all the time for things that aren’t even their fault.“We were young,” I say, letting him off the hook because that’s what you’re supposed to do when a male humbles himself—preserve his dignity at all costs. A male with hurt pride is dangerous.“I didn’t think,” he says. “I was so happy that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.”“Happy?”He glances down at the rug, the hollows under his cheekbones darkening. “You were all I ever wanted.”I wish I could believe him—my loneliness longs to—but I was never naïve enough to take that kind of thing at face value. “You wanted a mate, you mean.”He’s quiet for a moment, but then he draws a deep breath and gnaws his lower lip. “Stay here,” he says.Where would I go?I’m expecting him to leave the den, but instead, he crosses to the big basket and begins to unpack it. It’s a clown car. I have

He jumps to his feet. I flinch and whimper. His face darkens, but he ignores the reaction and takes over with the box, shoving the lid on and returning it to the basket.“I swore I would. I keep my promises,” he mutters darkly as he stuffs the blankets, quilts, pants, and shirts on top of the box with complete disregard to whether the stacks are in the right direction. When he puts the lid on, it won’t close.I want to say sorry. I didn’t want to make things weird—well, weirder—but I didn’t have a choice either. When the panic hits, seeking reassurance is a compulsion. If I don’t, I freak out, and then things get really, really weird. I wish I could explain, but he’s an angry male, so I’m not about to open my mouth.The air around me is tainted by a slight burst of my fear. Whatever gland or chemical in my body creates it—and I definitely wasn’t paying attention that day in class—is still mostly exhausted. Justus’s nose wrinkles, though, and he freezes, his arms braced on the basket l

When our females approach the time that they become interested in males but don’t want attention from them quite yet, they’ll just wear their fur under their wraps for a few years. I guess Annie can’t do that. It’s all or nothing for her kind. I can’t even imagine.What do they do if they’re in their skin but there’s a sound in the distance, and they want to know what it is? How do they crack bones to get to the marrow? What if they want to crack a walnut? Do they go ahead and lose a tooth?Thankfully, by the time Annie passes me a cup, I’ve distracted myself from my hard-on so I can sit normally.“I’ll have milk and sugar for you tomorrow,” I say and instantly regret it.Her face blanches, and I clock the exact instant that the word tomorrow makes her remember that I stole her, and she doesn’t want to be here.She’s going to ask me to take her home.I can’t.Not now. Not yet.I hop to my feet, leaving my cup of tea on the floor.“We have to go,” I bark. “I have something I need to do