Page 53 of Wolf Blood

Shaking my head, I forced myself not to follow the woman and went into my own apartment.

The scent stopped me in my tracks, and I sucked in a deep lungful of her and me together.

She smelled like apples. Likehome.

I'd heard of it before—werewolves who met someone they weren't fated to, who smelled like something memorable from their past. Sometimes they ended up fated. Sometimes it was fate's way of telling them that they would play a role in each other's lives. Sometimes it was nothing at all.

Fate liked to fuck with people in that way.

I'd never been driven to bite Harper so we weren't fated mates. Not yet, anyway. That kind of connection could happen at any point, but I didn't think it would. Didn't particularly want it to, either.

My possessiveness was difficult enough to deal with as it was.

I took deep, lung-filling breaths of her scent and mine.

Maybe I could understand why Maverick hoarded his female's clothes after all.

Not that Harper was my female.

She was just... mine.

Was there a difference?

For sanity's sake, I was going to stick with yes.

I bypassed the kitchen and living room entirely, going straight to my bed.

I hoped she'd been fiery enough to touch herself there. I craved the scent of her pleasure. Hell, I fucking ached for it.

I dragged the duvet off the bed and lifted it to my nose, inhaling deeply before tossing it back to the mattress.

No luck.

Tugging my hair free from the tie, I dragged a hand through it, grimacing against the pins-and-needles feeling that accompanied the motion.

Every fiber of my being shouted for me to go back to the little vampire's side. To take her home with me, or stay with her.

But she was supposed to be finding herself, and I wasn't looking for a mate. She'd be even more of a target if we were together, on top of every other reason I had to stay away.

Maverick would be more of a target, too.

Whatever was between me and Harper could only ever be friendship. Or whatever version of friendship we had, where I kept her alive until she could do it for herself.

But fuck, my cock ached.

I didn't know what I was going to do when breeding season reached its peak. Normally, I could just lock the door and suffer through a few days of intensely painful self-pleasure.

Harper complicated things.

The safest scenario for her would be to spend it in a long-time-mated couple's spare room and have one of them feed her when they had a few minutes of mental clarity, but that wouldn't exactly be enjoyable for her or them.I doubted she would agree to it.

And I went into a jealous rage at the thought of her biting anyone other than me.

The only way for me to feed her through it was to spend it with her, which I couldn't allow.

Or I could spend it with someone else while she stayed in the spare room, which I doubted would work. When instinct took over, all I would want was her.

I could put her in my bedroom with a lock on the door and strict orders not to come out under any condition. If I supplied her with an immense amount of my blood in bags, it could work.