She had felt that heat from her touch. He wore his leather cut, but it didn’t stop him from aching for more, wanting her touch.
Amelia’s gaze was wide, and she took a step back.
Did she not want to touch him?
“Why do you stay?” Wolfe asked.
She had been looking at the floor, but he didn’t want her staring down. Her gaze should be on him at all times.
Amelia looked up. “What?”
“It doesn’t take a genius to know that your life is fucking hard, but you don’t leave. Why not?”
She laughed. “You’re wondering why I stick around?”
“Why do you?” he asked. “None of it makes any sense.”
Amelia took a sip of her coffee and shrugged. “I’ve thought about it. Quite a few times, actually. The first time I wanted to, and I even went to the pack line the day after I first turned into a wolf. My parents told me they had done what they could and kicked me out. That was … hard. Probably one of the hardest things I ever went through.”
He saw tearsfill her eyes, but she closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were gone. “I wanted to leave, but, I don’t know, I stared at that line, and I felt like running away, leaving, was the wrong thing to do. I’m not a runner. So, I turned back around, and I decided what the hell.” She had another sip of her coffee.
“Is that what you do? What the hell?”
“Not always. Like the petition for the deer. No one asked me why I was so determined to get it signed. They didn’t care. I told them clearly and preciselywhat they were signing. They wanted me to shut up.”
Wolfe thought about it, and he nor the club had asked. “Why did you?”
Amelia looked at him. “What?”
“Why did you want that petition signed?”
“After one of the full-moon runs, I make sure to go through the forest and retrieve all the clothing. I know we’re at risk of hunters, so I don’t want to leave anything too suspicious, and a town full of clothes is pretty suspicious. One of the pack had hunted a deer, but they hadn’t … killed it. They had injured it.” The tears filled her eyes once again, only this time, she didn’t bat them away. “It was crying out in pain, and it was hurting. I … I couldn’t … so I took it to a human vet.”
Wolfe stood. “What?”
“I know. I know leaving the town line is dangerous, but I tookthe deer to the vet because I couldn’t bring myself to kill it. It was such a beautiful animal. A female. If she hadn’t gone to Doctor Milton, the vet, Wolfe, she’d have died. The vet nursed her back to health, and I paid for the bill. I didn’t ask for the pack to help. I paid myself, and then, I was there with the vet when he released her back into the forest. I knew I had to keep her safe, so I … got the petition signed. I don’t know which one of us attacked her, but what I do know is they did it for fun. They allowed her to suffer. She was dying, and if I didn’t go and get our clothes, she would have died, slowly and painfully.”
He had no idea that Amelia got their clothes.
They all assumed that each of them got their own clothes. Wolfe found his clothes always neatly folded on his bike. In fact, now that he thought about it, all their clothes were neatly folded after being laundered.
“You wash the clothes?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
Okay, now he just felt like a fucking prick. A giant fucking prick.
Did Alpha know?
Did the club know?
“But why do you stay?” Wolfe asked.
“This place is my home. It’s my family, and I guess I’m that member that no one particularly likes but they all kind of put up with.”
She finished her coffee, and Wolfe drank his.
No one seemed to realize that Amelia was a freaking gem. The pack didn’t deserve her. None of them did.