“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be the one who’s angry here. If anyone should be pissed, it’s you.”
“Thanks,” she muttered and looked down at her hands. “I’m not happy. I made sure Anders knew how upset I was. You’d be proud of how I handled it, actually,” she said with a grin.
I smiled back. “Did you chew his ass out?”
“Big time. I told him an alpha needed to stay calm and collected all the time, and how a real alpha wouldn’t be so quick to anger, all that stuff. I think it worked. He visibly calmed down.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I’ve never met a guy so worried about what others thought of him. He doesn’t seem like an alpha in that way. He’s sort of insecure and not like…” She drifted off and averted her eyes.
Not like me? The thought made my inner wolf happy, and I had to stifle a satisfied growl. Unable to help myself, I inched closer to her, feeling her body heat radiate into mine. To my relief, she didn’t pull away. When our legs touched, I couldn’t help thinking of having them wrapped around me, urging me deeper as she moaned beneath me.
June tilted her head. Our eyes locked, and the world narrowed. I had to believe she was imagining the same thing I was.
“So, you guys are still good?” I asked, trying to pose the question as innocently as possible and get my mind off the things flashing through my head.
“We are.” Her cheeks flushed as she looked away. “He apologized once he calmed down.” Rather than looking relieved, she appeared more like she’d accepted a fate she wasn’t exactly excited about.
“Which is good,” she continued. “This is my last chance. I can’t fuck it up.”
That stoked my rage again. She wasn’t fucking anything up. Anders was. I didn’t give a shit what he’d seen us doing. That piece of shit should have been thanking his lucky stars he had a woman like June as his mate. Through sheer force of will, I kept my mouth shut and said nothing in response.
June must have sensed my emotions without me speaking, though. She nudged my knee with hers. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m not the type to stay with a guy who doesn’t treat me with respect. Anders is rough around the edges, but I’m hoping he’ll get better with time.”
Something about her tone told me she wasn’t confident in that assessment. I wanted to tell her to forget Anders, to come back to Hidden Grove with me, but I held my tongue, not wanting to damage our relationship further—or damage my pride along with it. This was a decision she’d made. I couldn’t alter her choice.
“I need to blow off some steam,” she said, and before I could respond, she’d shifted.
She jumped around in a circle, wagging her tail, tongue hanging out madly. She looked more like a goofy family dog than the big dangerous wolf she was. There were other, more intimate ways I’d rather blow off steam with her, but I’d take what I could get. There was no telling how much time I’d get to spend alone with her. Climbing to my feet, I shifted. Before I’d even landed on all four paws, June took off.
Over the next half hour, we played like children, racing each other, playing follow-the-leader, splashing in the icy creek water. We even tried to hunt a deer together. I hadn’t had this much fun since I was a child. What made it even better was that I was having this moment with June.
Eventually, we ended up in a small clearing only a hundred yards from town. She rushed toward my side and shoved her nose under my right armpit, causing me to tip over. I yelped in surprise as she jumped on me. We rolled around, before I managed to clamber atop her. We both shifted back to our human forms at almost the exact same moment. June lay beneath me, panting for breath.
“You got me,” she said, grinning up at me.
She was beautiful with her hair spread out around her, her skin all rosy. The heat of her body radiated into me, and I couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss her. When our lips met, all I could do was moan in relief and pleasure. Kissing her was like coming home, and even more so when June wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close.
For a few brief moments, it was like heaven, but then we came to our senses. I slid away from her, and June scrambled out from under me, looking horrified.
“We can’t,” she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“I know, but that asshole doesn’t deserve you, and you know it.”
“We talked about that,” June said. “I calmed him down. It’s going to be all right.”
I scrambled to my feet, my anger returning. “He put his hands on you, June. No man worth a damn would do that. You deserve better.”
June wrapped her arms around her knees and gave me a sad look.
“I know that. I really do. But at least Anders wantsme. Good or bad, he wantsme. Not a dead woman he can never have again.” She stood and walked away without another word.
All I could do was stand there, mouth hanging open, watching her go. How could I argue with that? Was she right?Was my obsession with Naphele costing me something that might be wonderful? I shoved my hands into my pockets and began the slow walk back to town, wondering how I’d gotten in such an awful place and dreaming of ways to get out of it.
68
JUNIPER
Ispent the next three days basically holed up in my house. So much had happened that I couldn’t face the world outside while my head was spinning. First the fight with Anders, then raging at him about putting his hands on me like that. The time I’d spent with Levi in the forest had been a nice change of pace, until it had turned into a disaster. I was stuck in this strange unwinnable limbo. My brain understood my only option was to make things work with Anders, even though I knew he was far from perfect, and I still had no romantic feelings for him. My heart, on the other hand, still pined for Levi. Those feelings, masochistic and pointless as they were, wouldn’t go away. It might have been easier if Levi had never turned up in Idlewild, but he was here now, and there was nothing I could do about it.
The only thing thatdidget me to venture into town was meeting with Anders. His rage at finding me and Levi together had faded, but the week leading up to our mating ceremony was more stressful than I liked. Anders continued verbally chastising me and making snide remarks about Levi, even threatening to toss him out of town. From what I could tell, Anders was only letting Levi stay because he was too excited to combine the packs and didn’t want to mess up the plan he had.
