Page 60 of Hungry Like the Wolf

Maybe it would be better to end it herself as soon as possible. The prospect of that was painful for her, for reasons she didn’t understand. He wasn’t her mate. She wasn’t his. They were friends, new friends at that, who were just pretending.

Why, then, did it make her feel like she would vomit to even consider walking away from him? It would be the kindest thing she could do, keeping him safe from worse heartbreak and worry, and yet even the thought made her feel ill.

“I’m fine,” Nadja finally settled on.

“Mm-hmm,” Rose said. She looked over her shoulder at the rec hall, where the CD player was blasting Whitney Houston and Robbie was singing “How Will I Know?” in a squawking falsetto.

“Come on, girlie. Let’s take a walk.”

Nadja followed her off the porch and down the trail that led past her cabin and into the woods. It was the trail JJ had taken Robbie to for runs. Robbie said it led down to a lake.

Rose didn’t say a word as they walked, not to Nadja anyway. But she had plenty to say to the members of the pack as she passed, asking after someone’s cold and complimenting the paint someone else had chosen for their front door. She scolded a trio of kids for playing too near the prickle bushes but then laughed to herself as they passed and sang, “They’ll learn the hard way, I suppose!”

Nadja followed behind, feeling more like an outsider than she ever had. She hadn’t spent much time around the pack, other than the first council meeting and that one pasta dinner. But Rose interacted with everyone with the ease of close family.

Eventually, they passed the last cabin, Robbie and Nadja’s cabin, and the forest sounds grew louder as the sounds of the pack faded in the distance. They broke through the trees a while later, and then the lake appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It was smooth as glass, reflecting the towering trees surrounding it, the clouds in the sky. Rose led her to a boulder and sat, patting a space beside her.

“Now, I’ll ask you again. How are you?”

With the ravens chattering in the trees overhead and the breeze ruffling the branches, it was somehow easier to answer than it had been before knowing that Robbie was twenty feet away, boisterously singing and clanging around the kitchen.

“I don’t know,” Nadja asked.

“Talk to me, Goose,” Rose said, chuckling to herself.

“I just… I don’t want to hurt him.”

Rose was quiet for a long moment. The ravens croaked, and something small rustled in the underbrush nearby.

“I don’t worry about him,” Rose said.

“But the pack?—”

“Loves him,” Rose interrupted. “He’s pack, no matter what happens between the two of you.”

“But JJ said no unmated males are welcome in the pack.”

Rose nodded. “That’s true. And there’s a good reason for that. But that man of yours is more golden retriever than wolf, and that’s obvious to anyone who spends more than thirty seconds with him.”

Nadja smiled at the image. Robbie was a big puppy, friendly and keen and excitable and silly and everything she’d never once been herself. She felt relieved to hear that from Rose, that no matter what happened between herself and Robbie, that he’d be accepted. That he’d be safe, that he’d be loved.

“He is a golden retriever. You’re right about that.”

“I’m glad you brought him here. He’ll be good for the pack. You both would be good for the pack, if you decide to stay. Lord knows enough of us around here need therapy.”

“I can’t stay. I’m not his mate.” It felt as if all of the sound in the world died with that statement. The birds, the breeze, the rabbits in the underbrush. Everything went quiet, as if the earth was listening, waiting for what came next.

Rose, however, simply shrugged. “That’s not really my business.”

“Isn’t it pack business?”

“Yes and no. The stories have it wrong, you know. A wolf knows their mate, but it’s not like the whole pack knows it before they do. We’re good, but we’re not that good.”

“But Robbie would know. He would have told me.”

“Would he?” Rose asked, and Nadja couldn’t help but think of Magda and all of her infuriating questions, the answers to all of which she already knew.

“Wouldn’t he?” Nadja threw back.