Marc was one of those natural y wel -built men, for whom weight training merely added definition to an already impressive physique. I could count each ripple of his abs, and had done so on more than one occasion in years past, trailing my fingers lightly down his stomach until…Wel , never mind that.

But the memory came just to spite my floundering wil power. I’d almost forgotten there had ever been a time when we could touch each other without one of us tensing, but there had been, once.

I read somewhere that most girls either fal in love with or grow to hate the man who takes their virginity. For me, it was both. I hated Marc’s cocky assurance that I would eventual y want him back, but I couldn’t imagine him not being there every time I came home. He had been my first everything. My first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first real confidant. And that was most of the reason I hated him, on those occasions when I did. He knew me too wel . But I knew him, too.

“See anything you like?”

I blinked, my cheeks flaming. I’d been staring, and for a while, apparently.

Parker was gone, and I hadn’t noticed him leave. There was no one left to shield me from the heat in Marc’s eyes.

I sighed, knowing his question was far from rhetorical. “Seeing something I like isn’t the problem, Marc. It never was.”

“What is the problem?” he asked, his voice thick with yearning. I had my hand on the doorknob, and I fought the urge to turn and look at him. I lost. And there was that expression on his face again, that fear I’d had trouble placing the day before. It stil looked al wrong, like Christmas lights in June.

“I’ve changed, and you haven’t.” I left the room before he could ask me to elaborate, because I wasn’t sure I could. Not until he put on a shirt, anyway. I couldn’t even think until then.

Twelve

The twenty feet of plush beige carpet between my room and my father’s office might as wel have been a bed of hot coals. Each step hurt a little more than the last, and the distance seemed to swel with each painful thump of my heart.

Growing up, I’d feared nothing worse than being cal ed into the office. Going on my own was one thing, but being summoned was quite another. Like Marc, Daddy never yel ed, but unlike Marc, he would not be moved by my tears. Not that I planned to shed any.

My father was more than just my sire. He was my Alpha, and because I was a girl, that wouldn’t change until I got married, which I’d spent the last few years avoiding. As a child, I’d owed my father obedience and respect, but as an adult and a member of the Pride, I owed him even more: lifelong loyalty. Everything I did, even away from the ranch and the rest of the Pride, had to be done with the safety of our secret existence in mind. The mistake I’d almost made in the woods might have gotten anyone else, even my brothers, expel ed from the Pride. But Daddy wouldn’t expel me. Ever. Tabbies are too valuable to be discarded for any reason. At least until they’ve borne a daughter.

No, Daddy couldn’t afford to oust me, but he could take away my freedom.

He’d certainly done it before.

I stared at the door, postponing the inevitable for another few seconds of torturous anticipation. Ethan used to say that waiting to be punished is always worse than the punishment itself. But Ethan had never been grounded. At least, not like I had been.

The house was a collage of sound around me; I could hear people going about their business in nearly every room. My mother puttered around the kitchen, wiping down counters and rewarming food, in blissful ignorance of my emotional turmoil.

Ethan was in the shower; I could hear him humming the theme to Gilligan’s Island as he lathered and rinsed. And repeated.

But in front of me was an auditory vacuum, a white spot on the canvas of chaos that was my home. Daddy’s concrete-walled sanctuary was scary in a way no dark al ey could ever be. Anything could be happening in there—anything at all—and no one would know it. But then, that was the whole point.

I knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a reply. I probably wouldn’t have heard one anyway. Daddy sat hunched over his desk, talking on the phone, but when he saw me, he said goodbye and hung up. It wasn’t a good sign.

“Close the door, please, Faythe.”

I pushed the door shut, and took a seat on the couch. I knew the dril . I even folded my hands on my lap like a good little girl. But it had been years since my father bought that act.

Daddy pushed back his chair and stood, leaning on the desk with both hands while he looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite place. Exasperation?

Dread, maybe? But it definitely wasn’t the fury I’d expected.

“Tel me about Andrew.”

“What?” I gaped at him, so surprised by his request that at first I actual y couldn’t process what he’d said.

“Your boyfriend at school.”

“Yes, Daddy, I know who he is,” I snapped, and he raised his eyebrows at my tone. I took a breath and tried again. “I thought this was about Marc’s leg. Or maybe…not inviting anyone to graduation.” I’d started to say “the man in the woods,” or “my bet with Jace.” But then I remembered he didn’t know about either of those little errors in judgment, and I wasn’t about to tel him. Soon I’d have more secrets on file than the CIA.

Daddy frowned, dark, heavy brows overshadowing eyes the same shade of green as Ethan’s. “You know, you could avoid this kind of confusion if you weren’t always in some kind of trouble.”