17

I flipped through the programs on the television, dozing off in my head, imagining my future life in keno. He was unique, I knew that immediately, but I was more concerned with whether I would now live locked up and sealed off from the rest of the world forever...

I couldn't do that, no matter how possessive he was and no matter how worried he was about me. I was still human and not an animal to be kept in a cage.

"I didn't mean it that way!" I mumbled as my wolf growled loudly, rolling my eyes at the same time. With her, the best thing would be to lock her away in the depths of my consciousness for a while. After all, she brought me all this with her existence.

Just as I was about to deepen my mind again, the door suddenly opened and Keno walked into the room with a large tray in his hands.

"I... Well we... we're not the best cooks," he apologized in advance with a smile and put the tray down on the bed in front of me. It was a large bowl of fries and fish fingers, which I stared at in irritation until my skeptical eyes snapped up at him.

"Heating fries and fish fingers is definitely not cooking," I explained, demonstratively taking one of the fries to bite into it with relish. "And the two of you had to stand in the kitchen for that?"

He smirked at my statement and sat down on the edge of the bed next to me to give me an amused look.

What was his problem?

"What's wrong?" I wanted to know and grabbed the next fries while he just didn't stop watching me intensely. "Ground to Keno," I waved the fries in front of his face, but he unexpectedly leaned in to pull me into a kiss so passionate that I was flabbergasted.

His stormy way of dealing with me made the blood rush through my veins and I enjoyed the tingling in my abdomen for this short duration, in which his lips demandedly caressed mine, until he broke away from me and deep into me saw my eyes. So deep that I caught my breath and just stared at him lost.

"It irritates me how you react to me," he breathed, letting his hand run up my thigh, but I immediately put my hand on it to stop him.

His eyes got dangerously dark again and I wondered why his wolf seemed to want to attack me again.

After all, I was still exhausted from his previous stress and even my usually so excited she-wolf wanted to be left alone.

"Keno," I whispered softly, squeezing his hand off my leg to pull the covers up over me and protectively cradled the bowl of fries on my lap. "I think we should talk."

His eyes blinked a few times as if he were pushing his wolf back, which made me breathe a sigh of relief as I popped a fries in my mouth.

"Of course," he replied to my statement, running his hand through his dark hair and looking at me dreamily again while I sorted out in my head what I wanted to say to him.

"So," I began, concentrating on the essentials. "I'm sort of your mate, right?"

"Right," he agreed.

"And so I'm yours until I probably bite the dust for my clumsiness, right?"

He grinned stupidly and nodded as he did so.

"Correct."

"Good," I huffed and put the bowl aside to lean over to him. "I want a regular degree," I explained, and he didn't seem to quite get what I meant by that, making me almost roll my eyes. But I refrained from doing so.

"I want to see Gloria and say goodbye. She didn't deserve this after everything she's done for me. I just disappeared... it's not fair. Do you understand that?"

"You can't get out, Aria. Don't you understand what you are? You are one of the few female wolves and everyone will be after you!"

He got up from the bed, walked slightly irritated to the window and stared out into the darkness.

"I've managed on my own all these years! Do you think you were the first wolf I met?" I defended my plan, getting up to stand close to him and meet his gaze, but he did just kept staring out. "I've fought off horny wolves, killed vampires and I'm not the naive little wolf you see in me!"

"One week," he said suddenly, looking at me intently. "In a week we'll go to her together and you can explain everything to her."

"Why a week?" I asked, looking down at his hand, which was taking mine.

"Aria. You climbed over a fairly high wooden wall just to get away from me. I trust you to run away again and I don't want to risk that."

"And what changes there in a week?"

"That I have time to make you fall in love with me so that you want to be with me voluntarily and not jump out of the moving car."

I gaped at him, marveling at his arrogance. Did he think it would be possible to get a human to do something like this in such a short time? Of course, my wolf was already addicted to him, but these were physical, animal feelings. What he was talking about were real, deep feelings that needed time to mature...

"Scared?" he asked into the silence, raising an eyebrow to give me an amused look while I was still staring stupidly at him.

"Wovor?"

"That you could really fall in love? That you finally see what you are and that you belong to me and stop fighting your wolf all the time?"

After a short laugh, I snatched my hand from his and sat back on the bed to pull the covers over me and continue eating my fries.

"You have no idea how stubborn I can be," I babbled confidently about skipping off on the drive home, but he seemed just as confident, making me increasingly nervous.

"And you apparently have no idea how captivating my charms can be," he quipped, smiling, settling down next to me, glancing at me to focus on the TV as well.

Who would be right?