Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl, #1)(19)

I tore open the box and gasped at the Canon Rebel DSLR. It had four different lenses, a lighting kit and tripod, all in a nice clean black carrying bag.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

This was like … a casual one-thousand-dollar gift. But aside from the money … it was a camera I’d always wanted. Thus far I’d only been taking pictures on my old-ass iPhone with a cracked screen. I bought a set of click-on lenses for it on Amazon for twenty bucks that worked surprisingly well, but this … this was next level.

Sage shook her head. “He’s totally smitten.”

I snorted. “Look around, I’m living in an episode of Werewolf Bachelor. He probably sends all the girls gifts right before the first gala. His calling card.”

But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true.

Sage frowned. “Werewolf what?”

Human TV, they probably didn’t watch The Bachelor. “Never mind. Help me get dressed, I don’t want to be late.”

Pushing the drama of the day from my mind, I focused on getting ready for the Welcome Gala.

While Sage curled my hair into an elaborate curled up do, I read the bylaws. Well, not all of them, but the ones that pertained to the mating year.

Bylaw 24.1: The longest an Alpha may rule the pack is twenty-five years.

Bylaw 24.2: When the eldest son of the Alpha gets to his senior year of college, he enters his mating year, and may not graduate without choosing a mate.

I nearly choked on my own spit. Sawyer had to pick a wife within the next nine months or they wouldn’t let him graduate!

Bylaw 24.3: The Alpha’s son may not take over the pack until engaged.

Okay, well, that was obvious. It was clear they cared so much about having a mate and marriage.

Bylaw 25.3: The prospective female mate must have no obvious breeding issues. It is also desired that she be a virgin.

Breeding issues?

I scoffed, “That’s fucked up.”

Sage looked over my shoulder. “Eww, the bylaws. Written like a thousand years ago by my ancestors. They make me cringe to read. They really need to update those things.”

Relief washed over me. “So they don’t take this stuff seriously?”

“Oh, no they do. Everyone knows they are outdated, but they go along with it.”

I closed the tablet and set it on the table, taking a deep breath.

What the hell was I doing? Getting ready for a party where I would corral like sheep with God knows how many women all for a chance to have something I didn’t even want. I didn’t want to get married! I was twenty. And kids! Holy crap. The bylaws said Sawyer could only be alpha for twenty-five years max. That meant once he took over for his dad, he’d have to start pumping out babies pretty much right away.

I held up a hand for Sage to pause curling my hair. “I don’t know if I can do this.” I stood and paced to the other side of the room.

I liked him, but so did half the school. This was crazy, I’d become my worst nightmare. I was some boy-crazy girl. Why else would I do this?

I liked him.

There, I admitted it to myself. The way he yanked me from my seat today during the vampire attack and tucked me to his chest, it was like he’d instinctually gone into protector mode. The entire school could have been under a zombie level attack and he, the second most important person in Wolf City, had saved me … I was the first item he’d grabbed in a house fire.

He also changed his class from what was no doubt a full schedule of pre-med classes to have a stupid photography class with me. He bought me a camera because he knew I’d love it, not because it was a flashy gift.

“You okay?” Sage frowned, curling iron in midair as I paced before her.

I sighed. “I like your cousin. I do. It’s just … this isn’t my thing. Fighting for a guy … it feels icky.”

She nodded, setting down the curling iron, and walked over to me.

With a sigh, she looked up at me with a haunted expression. “This summer … for an entire week, right before school started, Sawyer ran away.”

My eyes widened. Sawyer didn’t seem like a rule breaker to me.

Sage continued. “My uncle went nuts, thought he may have been kidnapped, until he found a note from Sawyer. ‘I can’t do it,’ the note said. It was about his mating year.”

My heart tightened in my chest and then skipped a beat. Never for one second did I even think that he might not like this as well.

My mouth dropped open as the story pulled me in. “What happened?”

Sage chewed her lip. “My uncle sent half the pack out to look for him. Brandon, Welsh, and I scoured the entire state until he finally called me on the seventh day and said to come get him.”

When I didn’t speak, she went on: “He was in an off-grid cabin in Montana. Hadn’t shaved, was living off the land. I’d never seen him so depressed, and I’ve seen him through a lot of shit.”

“Fuck.” I couldn’t imagine the pressure he must feel to be alpha of the largest pack in the world, to be forced into a set of rules he never signed up for.

“I’ll never forget what he said to me when I got there.” Sage looked out through my window into the dark woods that lay beyond my dorm.

I leaned forward, my mouth going dry as I hung on her every word. “What did he say?”

Sage chewed at her bottom lip. “This is private family shit, okay? You promise never to tell that I told you this story?”