~ CARA ~
A few days later, I woke up feeling odd. In truth, I’d been feeling odd for days. Walking with Ralf the night before I’d finally recognized the feeling—why when I kissed Rig I didn’t freeze up the way I always had in the past.
I’d been walking through the dark, my hand trailing on Ralf’s fur—because he still showed up every night to walk with me—and I’d realized I was just strolling. Enjoying the night. I didn’t feel afraid. Because I knew if anything happened, Ralf would take care of it.
That had made me remember the thing Rig had said in the pet store that day.
He’d been staring down at me, and for the first time I’d felt like I was seeing Rig Landon without the mask of flirty mischief. He
~ CARA ~My eyes flew wide in concern. Rig’s head was buried in my shoulder, his shoulders rising and falling quickly with his panting breaths that I could feel against my neck.“Do what?” I pleaded, trying to pull up his chin, still arching against him.Then, though he’d resisted my efforts to lift his head, he lifted it on his own, his eyes glinting, his chest still heaving.“Don’t make me be the one to remind you… your first time should be special... with someone special... right?” he said.It could have been bait. It could have been resentment. But there was none of that in his tone. His
~ CARA ~It was a great relief when Meg and I left the lab on Friday morning. My hands shook not because the blood tests had been too painful, but because I didn’t like thinking about what they might reveal. But then, Meg kept warning me that they might not reveal anything.“Because we don’t know what we’re looking for, I just did a full panel. Hormones and stuff. But I’ve also thrown in the DNA test, and I’m going to try and sneak in the genome sequencing when we do that assignment in a few weeks. Just… I’m not a doctor, Cara. I might not find anything abnormal at all.”Meg was being kind. I hadn’t meant to tell her, but as we were alone and my nerves increased, I’d ended up blurting a lot of it out. I didn’t tell my friend about the strange d
~ CARA ~“Do you have any dresses that are formal?”I stood in the doorway to Meg’s room, heart fluttering in panic.Meg gaped at me. “I have like one, but I don’t think it would fit you in the chest and besides, I don’t think peach is really your color.”I slumped. “You’re right. I didn’t think about that. Damn. I didn’t think about any of this. I’ve only got ninety minutes. I’m going to have to tell Mack I can’t go.”“Rig should have been the one to ask you, anyway,” Meg said, her forehead furrowed.“Wait—what?!”A
~ CARA ~“…so, I mean, imagine this: Rig is standing there, naked, with his mouth open, and his mom’s staring at him and he goes, “It’s not what it looks like, I swear.” And we’re all rolling.”The passenger seat of the car, I was laughing so hard my sides ached. “Stop. You have to stop. I’m going to cry and ruin my makeup,” I gasped.“You should. You don’t need all that crap on your face,” Mack said, his eyes bright and smile more relaxed than I’d ever seen it. He turned to wink at me before turning back to the road.Still giggling, I flipped the sun visor down and wiped my eyes carefully. &ldqu
~ RIG ~As the two females, glittering and giggling, left my table, both casting glances at me over their shoulders, I smiled tightly and waved, waiting until they’d passed behind one of the big pillars in the cathedral-style ballroom before sitting back in my chair and clawing a hand through my hair.Fuck I hated these things.White tablecloths, chandeliers, snooty human servants bringing drinks and serving at the food table, everyone dressed in their finest and trying to out-handsome, or out-beautiful each other… Wolf gatherings were so stuck up and… political.I was the Alpha King’s heir, which meant every eye was on me, all the time. But especially tonight. Tonight they all knew they were competing for my attention, and my father’s app
~ CARA (Minutes Earlier) ~Why hadn’t Rig told me about Natalie? Why hadn’t he admitted that his parents had picked her for him?The questions that I couldn’t answer kept circling my brain, faster and faster, as we drove.I had tried not to betray how afraid I was, but I knew I was distracted and tense—and that Mack could tell. He’d been very kind and gentle, turning on music so I didn’t feel obliged to talk, and giving me warning when we got close to the hotel.“Just relax, it’s probably going to be fine,” he’d said softly as we pulled into the parking lot.“But what if it’s not?”Mack turned to me with
~ CARA ~I went completely still. My entire body feeling like even the slightest touch or movement might shatter me into a thousand pieces.Rig gripped Natalie’s arms tightly. When he pulled back from the kiss, his face dark, for a moment my hope rose. Then it was plummeted to the marble floor beneath my feet as a deep voice called over the noise of the crowd.“It’s about time you two stopped playing games!”The entire crowd roared with laughter, whoops and whistles echoing through the ballroom as Rig turned his head quickly to look at the man who must be his father, but whose face was obscured by the people standing between us. But as his father spoke again—loud enough for everyone to hear—I couldn’t absorb any of it. I couldn&r
~ RIG ~‘Don’t hate me, Rig, please, don’t hate me. He was going to—’I was so stunned, and so angry, it took me a second to pry my head out of Natalie’s grip. But before I could even curse, before I’d even properly straightened, my father’s voice boomed from the dancefloor.“It’s about time you two stopped playing games!”I sucked in a breath and told myself I had to loosen my grip on Natalie’s arms, not break them, as the crowd around us roared.Whoops and hollers rang through the ballroom and over the applause as all of the gathered wolves turned their attention to me and Natalie because my father—my fucking father!—had swung an arm wide to