I ran my fingers through his fur. “I don’t want to leave him.”
The mage wine was still hitting me, but the adrenaline rush had dissolved a good bit of it. Still, I wanted to stay here with my soft wolf-mate forever. I didn’t want this night to end.
The guy cocked his head. “Do you want him to rip out the throat of every man in this room?”
I gulped. “You don’t have to be so condescending—”
My wolf-mate bared his teeth at the guy, hackles raising. Then, he stalked toward the man.
Oh, wow.
My irritation evaporated. “Hey, Green Eyes,” I called to my mate. “Come back over here, and don’t hurt the dude.”
Well, whaddya know … the wolf listened, padding back over to me, sitting by my feet. Ha. I could get used to this.
Now bring me a cheese pizza.
Kidding.
“You need to leave. Now,” the tux guy said. “It’s just a matter of time before—”
Howling erupted upstairs, followed by snarls and snaps.
“Shit!” the dude muttered. “It’s happening.”
His eyes shifted from grass-green to yellow, and the last remnants of the mage wine burned out of my body in a flash. He was shifting … they were all shifting.
All that sexy-shmexy mate-desire was basically coitus-incompletus, making me a lusty-beacon to every single male wolf on campus.
“Hey, wolfie,” I muttered, kneeling to get on my protector’s level. “I gotta go. Uh … will you walk me home?”
Before I even finished the sentence, I was moving toward the door. It was a race—get out of the house before the fighting reached here. Whenever wolves fought, it took a tremendous amount of willpower to keep yourself from shifting and asserting dominance. But a fight like this would be pointless. Better to protect my mate and get the hell out of here. A fight this big was bound to have repercussions. Alpha king repercussions.
Hard pass at that.
“Thank the mage,” I said, relieved when my mate’s wolf followed me out. As I passed the guy fighting against the call of his instinct, I felt my own skin tighten, and then fur rippled down my forearms in response. Why couldn’t she do this during sparring matches at home? Right now, it felt like she had a mind of her own.
I raced out of the front door and padded along the trail, the sleek black wolf right beside me. My fingers were wound into his black fur, and my heart raced a mile a minute.
Mate.
Fated mates.
Holy frick.
He wasn’t from Crescent Clan—which was a problem. Big problem. Mating outside of one’s clan was forbidden; it diluted powers.
Besides, my father had a plan for me: I was supposed to go home to Montana, take up his position as alpha, and mate with a nice man from Crescent. My dad suggested Garret every chance he got, and the guy wasn’t bad, so I’d never been opposed to the idea. But that wasbefore.
Intentionally mating with another alpha heir from another clan would be treasonous. But could fate be wrong?
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even realize when we’d reached the back door of my dorm. It was dark out, the moon high in the sky, only casting a small amount of light, and there wasn’t a soul outside the building except me and my mate.
I knelt down and met the wolf’s yellow eyes threaded through with blades of green. “You can shift now. I’m safe. You don’t need to protect me anymore.”
His eyes flared from yellow back to green, and as his form shifted, he stood tall and muscular, wearing the same tuxedo and black mask.
Damn.
