Page 77

I gazed out the window as I gripped the steering wheel of the rental car, feeling my wolf grow tense as I left Riverside behind. I looked up at the blue sky. “Oh, I don’t know. She left me a building.”

“A building.”

“One with a thriving business that rents it out and with some tenants in apartments, too. It’s an income. I’ll probably sell it.”

“I don’t know. You might want to hold onto that,” said Casey. “I guess that was her apology?”

“I guess,” I muttered.

“And what about your ex?”

“I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to think about him.”

Casey smirked. “Well, okay, good. About time you moved on from that jackass.”

“Definitely time,” I said.

After I hung up with Casey, I flipped around the radio stations, having trouble getting reception, until I could get onto the highway. Then, cruising down the road, I felt my wolf begin to get very nervous. It was as if she was hurling herself against the inner walls of me, whining piteously.

I just needed to get back to the city, I thought.

The wolf would be suppressed in the city, the way the wolf had been for years. I tried to soothe that part of myself by promising I would go out and shift and run now, especially since I could shift more easily now.

It wasn’t until I stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom that I realized what was going on with my wolf. It was because, when I went to the bathroom, I had slick coming out of me, and I couldn’t understand why I was such an idiot.

But I hadn’t gone into heat in a really long time. I had forgotten what it felt like.

I went back out to my car and decided that if I just drove the rest of the way to the city, it would push my heat down, and everything would be okay. I even got back in the car and pulled back onto the highway.

But the heat was intensifying, and I had to pull off at the next exit.

I drove right to a gas station and pulled into a spot in the back parking lot. I turned off the car. My whole body felt too tight and too loose at the same time. My nipples throbbed. My clit pulsed. I rubbed myself up against the upholstery of my car and gasped and sighed and I managed to send a text to Casey saying that I wasn’t going to make it back to the city.

Then I called my dad.

He did not answer the phone.

I tried to send him a text, but my vision kept going cross-eyed as I tried to operate the keyboard, and I was too far gone to think about using the voice-to-text feature.

At this point, I remembered that I could shift myself. But I was off the highway, at a convenience store in front of a strip mall. If I went running as a wolf out here, people would see me and call the animal control center or something. They’d know I was a werewolf, but there were fines for shifting in highly populated areas, sometimes even jail time. It wasn’t worth it.

I moaned.

There was only one person I wanted, anyway.

I worried my head against the headrest. I had his number now. We’d exchanged numbers during that interlude where we decided to take the future slow. I didn’t think I wanted a future with this man, but I didn’t want to pass my heat all alone in a gas station parking lot.

I called him.

He picked up right away. “Leo, I thought you left town. Your dad says—”

“I’m right off Exit 17 of the interstate,” I said in a choked voice. “I’m in heat. I can’t shift here. I can’t drive. I need—”

“On my way,” he said, his voice changing to all business immediately. “Can you send me your location?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I managed. “Damian, I’m really, really sorry—”

“None of that. This isn’t your fault,” he said. “Hold on, omega, I’ll be there soon.”