Page 60 of Bound

“Please. He sat with his head in my lap and let me do it. I fed him cookies the entire time.”

Which I didn’t doubt for a second. Brody was a goner.

“I’m sorry about the past few days,” Topher said once we were alone. “I shouldn’t have shut you out, even if I thought it was the only way to keep you safe.”

A car passed by on the rain-slicked street, its taillights fading in the distance, and I knew I needed to tell him everything, that I had to get mated soon or my curse would only consume me. That maybe fate had brought us together in the most unconventional of meetings, but there was only one person I could imagine my future with, and it was him.

“Topher—” I started, just as my phone buzzed. Frowning, I opened the text.

Brody: You two need to get home now.

West: What happened?

Brody: As soon as Cal got to work tonight, all employees on site were ordered to report to the medical center for mandatory blood testing.

West: Shit.

Brody: Cal didn’t go, tried to fake that he was getting sick. They stopped him at the door. Said he could leave, but that he had to submit a blood sample first. Cal refused.

“Can they do that?” Topher growled, reading over my shoulder.

“It’s the human government,” I said through my teeth, still typing. “They can do whatever the hell they want.”

West: What happened?

Brody: His supervisor likes him, you know? Cal’s the best psychiatrist they have on staff and he’s taken on plenty of their more challenging cases. You know how Cal is—if his blood pressure was any lower we’d have to classify him as a zombie. Cal said he could tell his supervisor didn’t want to do it, but the guys from county were there. Said if he wouldn’t submit to sampling, it left them with no choice.

“Goddammit,” I whispered.

Brody: Cal turned in his keycard and walked out.

For a beat, Topher and I just stood there, rain dripping from the eaves, tinny pop music playing over the speakers, the smell of French fries and pancake syrup mixing with the humidity as next door at Kerbey Lane, laughter rang out from the open door as a group exited.

Topher followed me silently to the car. “What happens now?”

I pocketed my phone. “Nothing good.”

9

West

“TEN MINUTES,” THE ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL CALLED.

Slowly, I reached towards the plastic basket of art supplies in the center of our rectangular cafeteria table. The three teachers seated in the next group over stopped breathing. Isabel Connors, who taught Geometry, recoiled like I might actually try to bite her in order to claim the last glue stick.

Glue sticks obviously being catnip for werewolves. But I digressed.

It would have been funnier if everyone within twenty feet of our table hadn’t been squirming like they couldn’t wait for an excuse to rush out of the school cafeteria, which no matter the time of day, always smelled faintly of overcooked steak fingers and floor wax, and check their hands for stray cuts.

Okay, maybe not everyone. There was the usual crowd so bored with staff development that they were half asleep in the hard plastic stool seats welded to the cafeteria tables. Mr. Lu was grading math quizzes at lightning speed. Marc Torres, my old high school band director, and two teachers on my ninth-grade team, had even braved the whispers to sit with me.

So help me, I would make sure the marching band sold more tickets for their zombie-themed fundraising night in the corn maze this year than ever before even if Topher and I had to take Major with us door to door wearing Fighting Howlers t-shirts.

No one could resist a zombie golden retriever.

Tossing the glue stick back in the box, I pulled out my phone and opened the group chat with my brothers.

August: How’s it going?