9. Kedi
Kedi
When I arrived at work the next day, it was impossible to miss the scent of rosemary and lemon verbena that lingered by the entrance.
Adrenaline flooded my veins, my wolf scrabbling at my insides for me to let him out.
Conroy was here? But no, as soon as I stepped inside, I knew he hadn’t set foot inside the shop, but at some point last night, he’d stopped in front of the door.
Was he looking for me?
It was nearly impossible to get on with the oil change scheduled, when all I wanted to do was take my fur and go hunt him down.
By the time my lunch break came around, though, I was only able to track the scent down to a seedy bar, where he no doubt got into a vehicle and drove away. It was a dead end.
Lucky for me, that wasn’t the end of our little game of cat and mouse.
Several times throughout the week, I swore I caught a whiff of his scent on the breeze, and once I caught sight of a truck driving slowly past the shop that looked similar to the one he’d driven away from me that first night in the woods.
My entire body prickled with awareness, every second of every day.
I felt like I was being stalked, but he was too discreet for me to ever catch him in the act.
I would see a blur of movement from the corner of my eye, maybe a head of brown hair disappearing into the crowd.
My wolf was sure it was him, and I wanted to believe him.
Especially when the alternative was that I was just going crazy.
Norman’s warning rang through my head. “You’re lucky he only rejected you.
” Assuming Conroy was a hunter, it didn’t take a genius to figure out when he was taken.
The attack on our pack all those years ago.
It would’ve been easy for the Order to snatch him up.
Even if he had been raised to be a killer, though, not one single atom of my being believed that Conroy would hurt me.
Subjectively, when I thought back to that day in the woods, he might’ve looked dangerous, with his bow and arrow and sheathed blade, but not once had I felt like I was in danger.
But… what if I was wrong? He certainly wasn’t walking up to me in broad daylight to say hi.
I was torn about what to do. On the one hand, my self-preservation had me weighing my options, like getting a new job across town, or heck, moving across the country where he couldn’t track me down.
But not only was all of that a pain in the ass, another part of me thought this might be my chance to lure him out of hiding.
I could be safe about it…
Liar, my wolf chided, but I noticed he wasn’t doing anything to stop me either.
Because Conroy and I needed to talk, and if it took using myself as bait, then so be it. I would even be willing to sprinkle myself with seasoning if it made me a tastier temptation.
So one night, after I caught sight of his truck taking another slow drive-by of the garage, I said farewell to my boss, and I set out for home.
I thought a nice, slow, meandering walk sounded nice.
It was a lovely evening. So lovely, in fact, that I should pull down the zipper of my coveralls.
Such perfect sunny weather that I might even pull the top off and tie it around my waist, leaving my torso bare, showing off my nipple piercings and extensive ink.
I’d even had Joel help dye my hair a bright blue just for the occasion, to match my eyes.
I knew I’d grabbed his attention when the distinctive tick-tick of his engine slowed behind me.
He really needed a new fuel injector to take care of that.
I didn’t turn around, didn’t change my stride.
Just tipped my head back and breathed in that gorgeous spring air, the light breeze kissing my skin, oversensitive as I keenly felt my mate’s gaze searing into me.
Just before I rounded the corner of the block, I was sure I heard the slam of a vehicle door, and I knew he’d taken to following me on foot.
I made sure I didn’t go too fast that I might lose him.
I wanted him to find me, after all. I even went so far as brushing up against as many buildings as I could, leaving the barest hint of my scent along the way.
Nice and easy to follow in case he lost sight of me.
My wolf was panting with eager anticipation.
He seemed to see this as a game, all part of a mating ritual of some kind.
I didn’t want to disappoint him, but there was a very real possibility that Conroy was coming to kill us.
We’d surprised him last week in the woods, but he’d had time to think things through.
It would go one of two ways, and we had to be prepared for both.
With the briefest pause at the bottom of my apartment steps, I nearly gave in to the temptation to look back.
What if he didn’t follow me inside? Then I suppose we would do this again and again, as many times as necessary until we lured him close enough to talk.
Through the main door, I paused again in the foyer to make a show of checking my mailbox—junk and more junk, which I tossed into the recycling bin, before heading up the stairs.
When I reached the second landing, I heard the front door open below, and my heart kicked in my chest. It was him, it had to be! Sliding my hand along the railing, I kept climbing, even as my legs threatened to turn to jelly beneath me.
For the first time, I felt a new understanding for my bestie.
When Joel first mentioned that he loved being chased by North through the woods, I’d thought it was a bit too kinky for me.
I didn’t like it rough, and what was the point of drawing out the inevitable?
But right now, with my entire body alight knowing that my mate was hunting me down, and not knowing his intention, I finally understood a bit of the appeal.
Anticipation and adrenaline ignited every nerve ending, and it took all my focus to keep my breathing calm, because if I wasn’t careful, my panting gasps would echo all through the stairwell and no doubt alert the predator on my tail that I was on to him.
And I needed him to be completely unaware so that he would walk straight into my trap.
I didn’t even pause at the third-floor landing.
I wasn’t going home, not today. Not for what I had in mind.
I kept going all the way to the rooftop, pushing the heavy metal door and stepping out onto the flat, concrete expanse.
My little rooftop garden greeted me, and aroma of fresh herbs washing over me instantly, a mirror to the scent of my mate, hopefully on my heels.
Moving quickly, I grabbed the baseball bat I’d stashed up here earlier and moved into place behind the door. My limbs felt sluggish and heavy, the bat shaking as I geared back, muscles taut, reminding myself not to choke up on the grip.
It’d been years since I swung a bat, but it came back to me like riding a bike.
I’d played on my high school team. After meeting my wolf for the first time, I’d been all kinds of messed up without my parents, without an Alpha to ground me.
Being a part of a team had been almost like a pack of sorts, and I’d thrown myself in headfirst. I was even offered a scholarship to attend college in California, but that would’ve meant leaving what was left of my pack behind, and I simply couldn’t do it. We’d all experienced enough loss.
His footsteps were so quiet, I almost missed them, but there was a loose board three steps down, and it let out a warning creak.
So when the door cracked open, I was ready for him.
I stepped into the swing, putting my full weight behind it.
His eyes widened a fraction of a second before I made contact, the impact jarring up my arms, and just like that, his eyes rolled back and he went down like a sack of bricks.
I felt guilty about it for about three seconds, but then I got to work tying him to a chair.