His next words were a rumble so low and gravelly, I could hardly understand them. “Fine. But you’re done for the night. Go to bed, Abby.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, Jace.” When he only growled at me again, I raced through the woods toward the ranch without looking back, silent tears trailing into my hair. I’d really messed up, and now Jace thought I was using him. Of course, I was, but he couldn’t possibly understand why or how.

Or how much I hated myself for it.

Or the fact that I had no choice.

If I wasn’t with him when he investigated the murder, I’d have no way to explain why my scent was at the scene of the crime.

FIVE

Jace

I followed Abby at a distance until she got to the ranch, then I shifted and headed back into the woods in feline form, trying to escape my thoughts. And give everyone else time to go to bed.

They could not get a whiff of Abby’s scent on me.

What the hell was I thinking? Abby Wade was infuriating. She disobeyed any order she didn’t agree with, then instead of apologizing, she would insist that she’d actually done me a favor. How could I ever have found that exciting? She was hazardous and unpredictable, like a bomb with a broken timer. Yet somehow, the more she pissed me off, the harder it was to get her out of my head.

I hadn’t spent so much time thinking about a woman—especially one I’d hardly touched—since Faythe. But she’d never had the corrosive effect on my willpower that Abby had.

Back then, I’d crossed lines because I wanted Faythe and I was too young and stupid to give a damn about the consequences.

Now, consequences were all I ever thought about, but I’d kissed Abby back because I couldn’t fucking help it.

I should have known better than to follow them. I’d sent her out with Brian to remind her of where she belonged, no matter how I felt about the pairing, but seeing them together had actually hurt, and an injured tomcat is a dangerous tomcat.

Even more dangerous was their complete lack of chemistry. Abby wasn’t shy around him because of fear or inexperience. She was just completely unattracted to him.

I should not have been in on that secret. And I damn sure shouldn’t have been happy about it.

I ran as hard and as fast as I could, concentrating on the feel of the earth beneath my paws rather than the images I couldn’t seem to purge from my memory.

Abby leaning against that tree, crimson curls caught in the bark, breath puffing from her mouth in little white clouds.

Abby’s eyes, deep brown, staring right through me as if she could see exactly what I wanted.

But what I wanted didn’t matter. Whether or not she was attracted to Brian, Abby was taken. I’d been down that road before, and the emotional wreck at the end had nearly killed me. I couldn’t go through that again, and I couldn’t put her through it at all. Not to mention Brian. That spineless mouse didn’t deserve Abby, but he didn’t deserve to lose her either. None of this was his fault.

Keeping things professional would save their engagement and prevent my premature departure from the Appalachian Territory under a shroud of disgrace.

Cold air stabbed at my eyes and nose. Nocturnal mice, skunks, and rabbits fled from my path and I considered snagging one, since I’d missed out on Karen’s chili. But to hunt, I’d have to stop running, and if I stopped, those thoughts would close in on me again.

Where the hell had she learned to kiss like that, anyway? Was that how she kissed Brian?

My blood boiled at the thought of him kissing her. Of his hands plunging into those fiery curls. Of him tasting her…touching her…

He had no right—

Except that he did.

She’s not yours. My head was sure of that, but my body vehemently disagreed. My heart… Well, what the hell did my heart know? I hadn’t even realized she’d grown up until a couple of months before.

A growl of frustration rumbled up from my throat, and rats skittered from a hidden den into the dark. The solution was simple, if unpleasant.

We would just pretend that kiss never happened.

“So, you and Abby, huh?”

I froze with the doorknob in my hand, the soft click of the latch still echoing in my head. I’d been sure everyone else was asleep.

“Kaci?” I blinked, and the guesthouse living room came into focus in the dark, another warp-speed race down memory lane.

Ancient springs groaned as her outline rolled over on the old sofa. “Yeah. Does Brian know?”

“There’s nothing to know. What are you doing here?”

“Roughing it on the couch.” She sat up on the farthest cushion, her shadowed silhouette clad in a baggy tee and yoga pants. “Abby’s in my bed. In case you were wondering.”

I ignored the inference and tried not to wonder how she knew whatever she thought she knew about me and Abby. “And you couldn’t rough it on your bedroom floor, in your sleeping bag?”

“What am I, eight years old?”

I knew better than to answer that, with tabbies suddenly turning into women overnight.

The other Alphas had all been put up in the main house or at Owen’s, but I’d practically grown up in the guesthouse back when Marc, Vic, and Parker all bunked there, so I’d voluntarily exiled myself. “Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but the couch is mine.”

“I’ll scoot. You wanna spoon or be spooned?”

I growled in warning. Shifters sleep in big piles all the time—even nude—but an authority figure sleeping alone with an underage tabby? That was yet another scandal I could not afford.

“Kidding.” Kaci laughed. “You’re not my type.”

Thank goodness. “And your type would be?”

“Under twenty-five. Which is why Faythe and Marc put a moratorium on enforcers anywhere near my age two years ago.”

“Good for them.”

She scowled at me in the dark. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Theirs.” I didn’t even have to think about it. “You’re too young to—”

“I’m six months younger than you were when you came to the Lazy S. If you were a virgin at seventeen and a half, I’ll bite off my own claws.”

How was it possible that seventeen looked so much younger on her than it had felt on me? I’d thought I was ready to conquer the world, one human girl’s bed at a time. But the thought of little Kaci…