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We’d all thought nothing of it before Leah camealong. Then it got awkward. Leah had average control when it came to her temper—it took her the usual length of time to stop exploding out of her clothes every time she got pissed. We’d all caught a glimpse. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t worth looking at; it was just that it was so not worth it when she caught you thinking about it later.
Jared and the others were staring at the place where she’d disappeared into the brush with wary expressions.
“Where’s she going?” Jared asked.
I ignored him, closing my eyes and pulling myself together again. It felt like the air was trembling around me, shaking out from me in small waves. I lifted myself up on my hind legs, catching the moment just right so that I was fully upright as I shimmered down into my human self.
“Oh,” Jared said. “Hey, Jake.”
“Hey, Jared.”
“Thanks for talking to me.”
“Yeah.”
“We want you to come back, man.”
Quil whined again.
“I don’t know if it’s that easy, Jared.”
“Come home,” he said, leaning forward. Pleading. “We can sort this out. You don’t belong here. Let Seth and Leah come home, too.”
I laughed. “Right. Like I haven’t been begging them to do that from hour one.”
Seth snorted behind me.
Jared assessed that, his eyes cautious again. “So, what now, then?”
I thought that over for a minute while he waited.
“I don’t know. But I’m not sure things could just go back to normal anyway, Jared. I don’t know how it works—it doesn’t feel like I can just turn this Alpha thing off and on as the mood strikes. It feels sort of permanent.”
“You still belong with us.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Two Alphas can’t belong in the same place, Jared. Remember how close it got last night? The instinct is too competitive.”
“So are you all just going to hang out with the parasites for the rest of your lives?” he demanded. “You don’t have a home here. You’re already out of clothes,” he pointed out. “You gonna stay wolf all the time? You know Leah doesn’t like eating that way.”
“Leah can do whatever she wants when she gets hungry. She’s here by her own choice. I’m not telling anyone what to do.”
Jared sighed. “Sam is sorry about what he did to you.”
I nodded. “I’m not angry anymore.”
“But?”
“But I’m not coming back, not now. We’re going to wait and see how it plays out, too.
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