Chapter Seven
Boone
The cabin smells like her now.
That hits me while I’m standing at the kitchen sink, washing the mugs from last night.
Three days. She’s been here three days, and her scent has already worked itself into the wood, the fabric, the goddamn air.
Chamomile and fear-sweat and something underneath, wild and bright, that I can’t stop noticing.
I slam the mug into the sink. The crack rings out, sharp and ugly.
“Subtle,” Wren calls from the bedroom doorway.
I don’t turn around. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Nope. Banned from going anywhere alone, remember? Your rule.” The mattress creaks as she throws herself back on it.
“I’m trapped in here with your knives and your terrible pillowcases.
Did you buy those, or did they come with the cabin?
Because if you chose them voluntarily, we need to have a conversation. ”
“They’re pillowcases.”
“They’re the color of depression, Boone.”
My fingers dig into the counter. Four hours. That’s all I have before I stand in front of every wolf in Katu and try to sell them a lie. That this female—chaotic, stubborn, impossible, arguing about pillowcases while her life hangs by a thread—is mine.
My wolf paces beneath my skin, restless and hot. He’s been worse since yesterday. Since the practice. Since Talon made me put my arm around her shoulders and her body fit against mine like a lock finding its key.
Useless exercise. And thinking about it only makes it worse.
I dry my hands on a towel and turn. She’s sprawled across my bed again, bare feet dangling off the edge, one arm thrown over her eyes. The oversized green sweater Peyton sent rides up at her hip, exposing a sliver of skin above her waistband.
I stare at the ceiling, fighting the urge to look at her again.
“You need to get ready,” I say.
“I am ready.”
“You’re lying on my bed.”
“Your bed is surprisingly comfortable for something owned by a man who decorates with hunting knives.”
“Wren.”
She lifts her arm, peering at me with one eye. “What?”
“The gathering is in four hours.”
“I’m aware. I’ve been counting down like it’s my own execution.” She pauses. “Which it might be.”
I cross the room and stand at the foot of the bed. Her gaze tracks me, cautious beneath the bravado. The bravado never fully reaches her eyes. There’s always something raw underneath, something watchful and bruised that she tries to bury under jokes.
I should say something reassuring. Something that makes this easier.
“You need to shower,” I say instead.
Her mouth drops open. “I showered this morning.”
“Shower again. You still smell like the road.”
She sits up, indignant. “I do not smell like the road.”
“You smell like bus seats and gas station coffee.”
“That’s my personality.”
“It’s not. It’s your blocker, and it’s fading, and if you walk into a pack gathering smelling like a pharmacy, every wolf there will know something’s wrong.”
That shuts her up. Her fingers twist in the hem of the sweater, and the bravado cracks, just for a second. “I know. I ran out of the tea two days ago. I didn’t think I’d need it this long.”
“How long does it take to clear?”
“Xavia said three to five days after the last dose, so...” She counts on her fingers. “Maybe another day. Maybe two.”
Too damn long. The gathering is tonight, and if her scent is still tangled up in blockers, every wolf in the room will smell the lie.
“Water,” I say. “Hot. As much as you can stand. Sweat it out.”
She stares at me. “You want me to flush my system through my pores.”
“I want you to smell like a wolf when you walk into that hall.”
Her jaw tightens. “I know what you want, Boone. You want me to be convincing. You want me to walk in there and hold your hand and let every wolf in Katu sniff me like I’m a piece of meat at a market.”
The words come out sharp, and I hear what’s underneath them. Not anger. Memory. Dax, presenting her at that joining dinner. Dax, putting his hand on her neck in front of half the pack. Every wolf in Ashstone, looking at her like she was already his.
I crouch in front of the bed, so we’re eye level. She stiffens, and I stop, giving her space to pull back, but she doesn’t.
“This isn’t that,” I say. “No one is going to sniff you like meat. The pack will see us together. They’ll watch how we act. If they believe we’re real, Ashstone has nothing.”
“And if they don’t believe it?”
“Then we make them believe it.”
Her eyes search mine. “How?”
I already know what’s coming. I’ve been thinking about it since Peyton left my cabin, since she dropped the word gathering and walked out like she hadn’t just set a bomb in my kitchen. The answer sits in my chest, heavy and cold, refusing to move.
“We have to look like mates,” I say. “Not two wolves sharing a cabin. Not allies doing each other a favor. Mates.”
Wren’s pulse jumps. I see it in her throat, that quick flutter that she can’t hide no matter how hard she tries. “What does that look like?” she asks, voice smaller now.
“Close. Comfortable. Like we know each other’s bodies.”
“I’ve only known you for three days.”
“Then we practice.”
She laughs, brittle and sharp. “You want to rehearse being in love.”
“I want to rehearse not looking like strangers.”
She goes quiet. Then she swings her legs off the bed and stands, and suddenly the space between us is gone. Her knees nearly touch mine. Her scent, faint and struggling past the herbs, wraps around me, sweet and wild, curling like smoke.
“Fine,” she says. “But if you make it weird, I’m using one of your murder tools.”
“Understood.”
“And if you tell me to shower one more time, I’m using it on you.”
“Fair.”
She steps around me and walks toward the bathroom. At the doorway, she pauses without turning. “Boone?”
“What?”
“I’m scared.” The admission is so quiet I almost miss it. She says it the way she says everything—fast, flat, like if she gets it out quickly enough, it won’t count.
I don’t tell her not to be. I don’t tell her it’ll be fine. She’s not a child, and she’s not a fool, and she deserves better than comfort that costs nothing.
“I know,” I say. “I’ll be right here.”
She disappears into the bathroom. The door closes, and the shower turns on. I stand in the bedroom with my fists clenched and my wolf clawing at my ribs, and I think about what I’m going to have to do tonight.
I’m going to have to touch her in front of everyone. Hold her. Look at her like she’s the only thing in the room. Make every wolf in Katu believe that she belongs to me.
The problem isn’t the acting. The problem is it won’t be acting.
Not for me.
****
The shower runs for forty minutes. I use the time to do something useful.
I strip the bed, remake it with clean sheets, and put the extra blankets Raine brought on the couch.
I reorganize the shelf. I move Joy’s carved bear from behind the candles to the front, where Wren put it yesterday, and leave it there.
I end up standing in the middle of my own cabin, useless, nothing left to fix, the shower still running, my wolf howling for her.
When the bathroom door opens, steam rolls out, and Wren steps into the hallway, wrapped in a towel, her wet hair dripping onto the floor, her skin flushed pink from the heat. I look at the wall.
“You could have warned me,” I say.
“You could have not been standing in the hallway.”
“I live here.”
“Then go stand somewhere else.”
I retreat to the kitchen. Because that’s what a sane man does when the woman he’s supposed to be pretending with is half-naked in his hallway, smelling like his soap and her own wild scent, finally breaking through the bitter herbs like something alive clawing up from the dirt.
I press my palms to the counter and breathe through my mouth until the bedroom door closes. Finally safe.
Except my wolf is pacing, whining like a pup, my hands shaking, and her scent is fucking everywhere. Clean now. Sharper. The wildflower edge finally breaking free, sweet and electric, burning itself into my lungs.
Mate.
I slam the word down so hard my skull aches.
She is not my mate. She is a woman in trouble who grabbed my hand out of fear, and I said yes because my wolf is a traitor who doesn’t understand strategy. That’s all this is. That’s all it can be.
The bedroom door opens, and Wren walks out wearing the green dress Raine brought, the one that falls off her shoulders and sways at her knees. Her hair is still damp, loose around her face, and darker when wet. She’s barefoot.
She looks like spring after a brutal winter. Like something alive blooming in a place that forgot how to hope.
I don’t say any of that. “You look acceptable,” I say.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Acceptable?”
“Presentable.”
“Oh, well, excuse me while I swoon.”
“Your feet are bare.”
“I’m aware.”
“Put on shoes.”
“I’m getting there. Don’t have a heart attack.”
She sits on the couch, fumbling with the sandal straps. Her fingers tremble. She tries to hide it, dropping her chin so her hair falls forward, but I see the shake anyway.
I cross the room and crouch in front of her.
She goes rigid. “What are you doing?”
I wrap my hand around her ankle, careful, gentle. Her skin is warm and damp, her pulse thudding against my palm.
“Boone...”
“Hold still.” I buckle the strap. Then the other one. My fingers are steady because I force them to be. Her breathing is not steady at all.
She looks down at me, eyes wide, something raw and open in her face. Terrified. Wanting. “Thank you,” she whispers.
I stand before I do something stupid. “We need to talk about tonight.”
She nods, pulling herself together. “What do I need to know?”
“Katu gatherings are informal—food, drinks, socializing. But Peyton will announce the mate claim. After that, every wolf in the room will be watching.”
“Watching us.”
“Watching how we interact. How close we sit. Whether we flinch. Whether we smell right.” I pause. “Ashstone may have wolves in the area. Caine’s patrols are watching the borders, but information travels. We have to assume anything they see tonight will reach Dax.”
Her face pales, but she nods. “So we sell it.”
“We sell it.”
“What does that look like, specifically?”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “Sitting together. Close. Touching, your hand in mine, my arm around you. The kind of contact mates do without thinking.”
“But we don’t do it without thinking. We’ve only known each other for three days.”
“Then we think about it now, so it looks like we don’t.”
She folds her arms. “You said no touching unless necessary.”
“It’s necessary.”
“You said no kissing. Ever.”
My stomach drops. I know exactly where this is headed. I’ve been trying not to think about it since yesterday.
“Kissing is different,” I say.
“Is it?”
“Mates kiss. It’s expected.”
“You said it wouldn’t be required.”
“It wasn’t required at the gate. This is a pack gathering. Ashstone is challenging the claim. If we don’t...”
“If we don’t kiss in front of everyone, they’ll think we’re faking.” Her voice is flat. “Funny how the rules change when the pressure’s on.”
I deserve that. I made the rules. I set the boundaries. And now I’m the one asking to break them because the situation demands it.
“I’m asking,” I say carefully. “Not telling.”
Her arms tighten around herself. “You’re asking me to kiss you in front of the entire pack.”
“I’m asking if you’re willing to. If you’re not, we find another way.”
“Is there another way?”
I turn it over in my head, searching for another way out.
The pack needs proof, real, physical proof.
Handholding won’t cut it. Sitting close won’t cut it.
Mates who haven’t sealed the bond yet are hungry.
Everyone knows it. They’ll be watching for that heat, that pull, that tension you can’t fake between two wolves who want each other and haven’t had each other yet.
If they don’t see it, they’ll doubt. And doubt is all Dax needs.
“No,” I say. “There isn’t.”
Wren is quiet for a long time. She looks at the window, at the trees, at the wooden bear on the shelf. Anywhere but me.
She finally breaks the silence. “Dax used to kiss me in front of people.”
My wolf goes lethal, and I lock him down so hard my bones creak.
“Not like...” She stops, frustrated. “He would grab my face. In front of his friends. Make sure everyone saw. It wasn’t about me. It was about them watching. About showing them I was his.”
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
“I’m not doing that again,” she says. “I don’t care if Ashstone burns the whole territory down. I will not be displayed.”
“That’s not what I’m...”
“I know.” She finally looks at me. “I know that’s not what you’re asking. But I need you to understand why this is hard for me.”
I understand. I understand so well it makes me want to hunt Dax Mercer down and tear him apart, slow and methodical, until he knows what it feels like to be powerless.
“Then we make it different,” I say. “You start it. You choose when. You choose how. I will follow your lead.”
She blinks. “You’d let me lead?” She doesn’t hide her surprise at my suggestion.
“In this, yes.”
“Even though your wolf is currently trying to eat through your ribs?”
I stare at her. “How did you...”
“I can feel it.” She touches her chest. “Something’s been ... pressing. Since yesterday. I thought it was anxiety, but it’s not mine.”
She’s feeling the bond. My wolf goes silent. Waiting.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” she says quietly. “That pressure. That heat.”
I should lie. I should deflect. I should do anything except stand here while she figures out that the fake mate claim is less fake than either of us planned.
“Yes,” I say.
Her eyes widen. She wasn’t expecting honesty.
“I don’t know what it means,” I continue, which is a lie. I know exactly what it means. But she doesn’t need that weight on top of everything else right now. “But it’s there. And if you’re feeling it, too, then tonight doesn’t have to be a performance.”
Her throat works. “Boone...”
I clarify. “All I’m saying is the chemistry doesn’t have to be fake. We just let it exist and let the pack see it.”
“That’s a dangerous line.”
“I know.”
“What if it gets out of hand?”
“Then we stop.”
“What if we can’t?”
I look at her. Fear, fight, and want all tangled up in her eyes. Bare shoulders, damp hair, the sandals I buckled with hands that ached to touch more.
“Then we figure it out,” I say. “Together.”
She exhales. Something in her posture loosens, and she uncurls her arms, letting them drop to her sides.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll start it. On my terms.”
“Agreed.”
“And if I freeze?”
“You stop. We’ll deal with it.”
“And you don’t grab my face.”
The words land like a slap. Not because she’s being cruel, but because she needs to say it. Because someone taught her that hands on her face mean ownership.
“I won’t touch your face,” I say. “Not unless you put my hand there yourself.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she nods once, sharp and certain.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go sell a lie.”