Her Three Cursed Soulmates

Chapter 10

Lyra POV

“You can put your clothes in my backpack,” I tell him. “If you want.”

He grins insouciantly.

“And what if I say I just want to leave my clothes behind and go naked?”

He really thinks he can bother me like this, I can tell.

“I don’t give a damn what you do,” I tell him. “But when it’s windy or cold or raining and you’re balls out in it, don’t come crying to me because I don’t have a spare set of pants that will fit you.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Come here,” he says, stripping his shirt over his head.

I already have the backpack buckled around my torso, my shoulders slipped out of it, so I cross the room and turn my back to him. I feel a redistribution of weight as he packs his things into it.

I shimmy out of my own clothes and hand them back to him.

“Can you put these in there too, please?”

I’m fully expecting him to say something lewd, to make a comment about my body. After all, no matter how many times we shifted in front of one another, the men in my pack never stopped nudging each other and raising their eyebrow suggestively when they caught a glimpse.

But he doesn’t say anything. He just stuffs my things into the backpack on top of his own and zips it up.

So that’s weird. But I guess he’s probably just not attracted to me. And that makes sense. We did meet under really strange circumstances.

Besides, I’m not attracted to him either.

I f*****g wish I was because I’ve been frankly wildly aroused ever since Kaely and I went our separate ways. I’d love to get it out of my system, even if it is with this guy. But he’s not putting me in the mood.

Then he slips his fingers under the straps of my backpack. I’m about to object, to pull away from his touch, but he tugs at them a little and says,

“Is this going to stay on?”

And I realize he’s just evaluating how tight I have it, not looking for an excuse to touch me.

I nod.

“It stays on when I shift,” I tell him. “It’s a little loose on me now, but it’s a snug fit on my wolf body.”

“That’s pretty clever,” he says. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

I have no idea if he’s mocking me or not, so I don’t respond to it.

“You ready to go?” I ask.

“Ready,” he agrees. “Which way to the coven?”

“Well, hang on,” he says. “We can’t go straight there.”

“We can’t? Why not?”

“I need something to eat,” he says. “I’ve been locked in that cage for four days.”

“They didn’t give you food?”

“They gave me scraps. I finished what I had yesterday. You can’t expect me to be any use as a guide if I’m not fed.”

I sigh. I should have known he was going to give me the runaround.

“Look, it’s no big deal,” he says. “I just need to hunt first. Then we can go.”

“Can we at least hunt in the direction of the coven? I don’t want to waste any time.”

“We’re going to have to leave the city if we want to find anything good,” he says. “Unless you want a pigeon.”

I definitely don’t.

“Fine,” I say. “We’ll go out to the woods.”

We shift, side by side. The straps of my backpack tighten around me as I take on my wolf form, and I give my body a quick shake to make sure it’s not coming loose. Then we head out of the house we’ve been sheltering in, moving toward the border.

Cassian and I fall into step with each other surprisingly quickly. I didn’t think hunting with a stranger would feel this natural, but it’s as easy as hunting with Kaely was. We don’t have an alpha’s command binding us together, so I wouldn’t have expected things to feel so easy between us, but they do.

In fact, it’s a little bit easier with Cassian than it was with Kaely because it feels less like a competition. With Kaely, I could tell every moment that he was trying to control where we went and what we did. I didn’t really question it because that’s the kind of guy Kaely is. He needs to be in control.

But the hunt with Cassian is more cooperative. When I catch a scent on the edge of town and turn to follow it, he follows. There’s no question, no debate or challenge, and I’m honestly not sure whether he’s caught the same scent I have, or if he’s just trusting me to make the call.

Why should he trust me so much? We hardly know each other.

But on the other hand—I’ve put a lot of trust in him, haven’t I? Letting him out of his cage when I hardly know anything about him, relying on him to take me to the Moon Caster coven. I don’t know why I’m so sure that he’s telling me the truth, that he really is going to help me. I just know that I feel confident with him.

I shouldn’t be able to feel this comfortable with anyone. Not so soon after being rejected by my alpha mate. That should have completely rocked my foundations.

The only thing I can think of to even begin to explain it is that we’re in such serious circumstances. We’re both desperate and alone, and maybe that’s what is tying us together. Maybe that’s why, even though we shouldn’t feel anything but doubt about each other, we’ve managed to find a way to work together.

And whatever is behind our good chemistry, I’m glad for it because the animal I’ve caught the scent of is definitely a deer. And even though I’ve got the strength to take it out by myself, a deer is much faster than I am, and having the ability to work together will help us bring it down.

We’re going to be eating well tonight.

I catch Cassian’s eye and c**k my head to the side, and he inclines his own head a little, so I know he understands and agrees.

The hunt is on.