Page 64 of Wolf Unseen

And as for my mate being a hybrid, and therefore less than in the eyes of the Shifter Council, well, they could go fuck themselves too.

I reached the corner of dorm five and sniffed. A waft of burned sugar drifted down from an upper window, sending my wolf into a frenzy. He wanted to storm upstairs and claim our mate, but I pushed him back into his cage.

Now wasn’t the time.

Our little mate was safe, which had been my concern after he ran off earlier.

Not tonight, I told my wolf. As much as he wanted to pin our mate down and claim him, it was too soon. The little wolf was flighty as hell, and if we tried to force the issue, he’d run away again.

So for now, we’d play the long game and wait for him to come back to us.

Tonight had shown us he reciprocated our interest, even if he refused to admit it.

I shifted into my beast, howled mournfully a few times, and then settled down at the base of a tree beneath the little wolf’s bedroom window. The chill in the air promised further snow, but my wolf didn’t care. His thick pelt protected him from the cold, and a bit of snow wouldn’t hurt.

No matter how long it took, we’d wait for our mate to accept our claim. And if anyone tried hurting him, we’d kill them.

39

Riley

“For this week’s homework, I’d like you all to write a report on the wolf shifter peace treaty of the 1850s.” Several loud groans echoed around the classroom, mostly from wolf shifters.

The only thing I knew about the shifter peace treaty was it was boring. So boring I’d rather run laps of the athletics field than read a book on the topic.

“Want to come to the library with me?” Simon asked hopefully as we packed up our things.

I dropped my notebook in surprise. “There’s a library?”

“You’re joking.” My friend rolled his eyes before staring at me with his mouth open. “You’re not joking?”

“Um, no,” I admitted sheepishly. He shook his head, appalled.

I’d done the bare minimum since arriving here, and my grades reflected that. It was a miracle the school hadn’t rescinded my fake scholarship.

As long as they ignored my low academic achievement until the winter solstice break, I’d be fine. If I hadn’t left Moonfall Academy by then, I would have bigger problems to deal with, such as my glamour spell losing its potency.

Tamara warned me it might begin slipping after four months, although she said six months was the normal time-span for such a spell.

Not knowing what else to do with myself because it was late afternoon and I had no fucking leads to check out, I trailed after Simon. Instead of exiting the main building, as I usually did, we turned right and headed up to the first floor.

A set of dark wood doors covered in carvings of moons, flowers, and vines stood open at the end of the long corridor. I gasped in surprise when I walked into the cavernous space.

Light filtered down through colored glass roof windows, creating a whimsical atmosphere. The central area contained tables and chairs surrounded by tall bookcases. There were two additional floors connected by staircases at each end of the room, and in front of the library’s entrance sat a desk where a gray-haired librarian sorted through piles of books, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses resting on her hook nose.

“Be quiet and no eating or fucking in the stacks,” she barked at me with a venomous scowl.

“Um, okay?” Not quite the welcome I expected, although maybe I should have anticipated some hostility given everyone else looked down on me. The human librarians I’d met over the years had all been mega-bitches with Napoleon complexes.

“Do students have sex in the stacks?” I whispered to Simon as we bagged an empty table by the history section.

“Yeah. Tobias Morrone got caught getting a blow job at the start of the semester.” I bit my tongue so hard I nearly choked on a chunk of flesh. “But most people come here to study,” Simon continued. “Apart from you, it seems.”

He pulled out a notebook and then headed off to search for the books he needed. Since I wasn’t in the mood for reading bullshit textbooks, I opened my notes app to review what I’d discovered about Lorna’s disappearance.

Which was sweet fuck-all.

Tate and Tank were my prime suspects, and until Felix’s software program cleaned up the camera image enough that we could identify the guy she’d been with at the rest stop, I couldn’t rule either of them out.