“A while ago.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Shop’s in the back.”
“So you do chop firewood.”
“I work wood. Not the same thing.”
Lumberjack, I mouth to myself. “You don’t spend much time here, do you?”
“Not lately, no. Just write me a list and I’ll get you what you need.”
Which is when my heart stops. Because I understand why he brought me here.
I need the mother of all escape plans. “I can’t stay at your house,” I say, calm. Reasonable. I’m an adult. I’m not panicking.
“Why?”
“Because.” I attempt a playful smile. “I’m a kleptomaniac. I’d steal your razors and shaving gel— and clearly, you’re in dire need of them.”
“Serena.”
“Not to mention, I snoop around. You’d have to hide all your porn magazines.”
“I have Wi- Fi, killer.”
“Well, turning on incognito browsing is a pain.”
He folds his arms. “It’s good that you’re funny. Next time someone tries to saw you open to study your half-Human gut microbiome, you can shoo them away with a jab at their masturbation habits.” He strides down the hall, and I run after him.
“Koen, seriously.” We pass a bedroom that smells so ruinously mouthwatering, it has to be his. Enter another. “I don’t think this place is a good fit for me.”
He opens the cabinet in the en suite to inspect its contents. “Because . . . ?”
“Well, this is not really an isolated area, and I haven’t learned how to tune out sounds yet.”
“Poor baby Were.” He turns to me. Suddenly, I see compassion in his eyes. “In that case, we’ll find a place where you can be alone in the middle of nowhere.”
My heart soars. “Really?”
“No,” he says mildly. “Fuck that. You’ll stay where I put you.”
I slump.
Koen is not a defenseless child, or a Vampyre who passes out in the brightest hours of the day. I’m sure that if I have a violent sleep-walking episode, I’ll get exactly what I deserve. But what if he’s the one asleep? Not to mention, he can be highly perceptive— and that meshes poorly with my secrets.
I need to be isolated to properly rot in my dysfunctions. “Thing is,” I try again, “I really like living alone.”
“Maybe you had shitty roommates,” he says casually, opening a closet. He grabs a set of fresh sheets and lifts them to his nose. They must pass muster, because he drops them on the mattress. “I, on the other hand, am a fucking delight.”
I watch him unearth several pillows. “Does it not bother your back, Koen?”
“You mean, the supermassive weight of my ego? No, it does not.”
“Oh, come on. How did you know— ”
“You’re gonna have to come up with more creative insults than that, Serena.” On the way to the bed, he taps my nose with two fingers and starts unfolding one of the pillowcases.
I take a deep, bolstering breath. “I really wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Pretty fucking late to worry about that,” he says distractedly, continuing to make the bed.
“Well.” I scowl. “I’m sorry. I didn’t ask to be a hybrid hunted by every single species.”
“You didn’t. You didn’t ask to be my mate, either.” He stops mid fitting a bottom sheet to look me square in the eye. “However, you did ask me to take you in and use you to lure Vampyres away from Ana. That was your mistake.” His mouth curls in a small, sardonic smile. “I won’t be sleeping in the cabin with you, if that’s what worries you.”
I flush. “No, that’s not what— Wait. Where will you be sleeping?”
“Outside,” he says, like I deserve to take remedial Were classes just for asking.
“You sleep outside.”
“Yes.”
“In the great outdoors.”
“Yup.”
“Every night.”
A brief pause. “Not every night.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Just every night in which I have time to sleep.”
“You mean that you don’t sleep every— You know, don’t answer that.” And I used to think that my job was stressful. “Did you just never outgrow your backyard camping phase— Oh. You sleep in wolf form.”
“Like God intended,” he says, with the tone of someone whose opinion of God’s will is that it’s secondary to his own. Rationally, I know that Koen wasn’t born with a pack to boss around. There must have been a time in his life in which people surrounding him would not have thrown themselves under a banana car just because he snapped his fingers at them.
And yet I can’t picture it. “I can’t stay with you, Koen. I need to be on my own.”
“Do you need to, or do you want to?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. You’ll do what I say anyway.”
I close my eyes. “Maybe I should just go back to Lowe and Misery— ”
“Who, notoriously, have nothing and no one more important than you to worry about,” he drawls.
I press my lips together.
“Word of advice, killer?” he murmurs. “Stubborn and stupid is just a couple letters’ difference.”
“You’re not the best speller, are you?”
A smile pulls at the edge of his mouth— and then mine. We share a long look, equally frustrated and amused by each other. A weird string strains between us, tugging at me, reminding me that I like him, I liked him from the start, I don’t want to fight with him.
Maybe I could tell him. He would understand, I think. He’s gruff and abrasive, a little mean, but also aware of cumbersome stuff like duty, responsibility, love. He wouldn’t judge me for doing what I needed to do. Maybe he’d help me through my last few months. Maybe I wouldn’t be so alone.
That just sounds . . . good. So good, I nearly say, Koen, I need you to know something.
But he would never keep a secret that big. And then Misery and Lowe and Ana would know, and I want better for them.
So I ask, in my most hard-ass tone, “What do I have to do to get you to let me stay on my own?”
He pauses, staring at me in that serious, uncompromising way I should be afraid of. “You want to be on your own?”
I nod, eager.
“Okay.” He drops the pillow. Flicks his fingers for me to follow. “I’ll allow it. If you prove to me that you can handle it.”
DURING THE TEN-MINUTE DRIVE, I EXPERIENCE MOUNTAINS OF RELIEF, picturing Koen dropping me off at a quaint little cottage after proof that, at long last, I have acquired the ability to plug a charger into a socket.
I should have expected something more like me on a gym mat. Wearing borrowed shorts and a white tee. Standing in front of a tall blond woman who looks like an underwear model tough enough to survive an extinction-level event. She’s inscrutable in a pants-pissing way.
“This is Brenna,” Koen says, much closer to her than he is to me. I don’t know why I notice, or why it makes my belly heavy. “One of my seconds. She manages this gym and trains most younger members of the pack in hand- to- hand combat.” They exchange a small smile. Clearly, they go way back. “Serena here said that if she’s expecting an attack, she can fend for herself.”