Free Every Night Forever by R.E. Butler

girl that people cared about.”
     
    Stunned, he stared at her blankly, not sure he’d heard right.  “What are you talking about?”
     
    Embarrassment flushed her cheeks pink and she said, “I just wasn’t.  My mom left when I was eighteen to follow an alpha; I haven’t heard from her since.  My sister lives on the West Coast and only calls once a year.  I think she’d only care about me if I died, and then only if the funeral didn’t interfere with her life.”
     
    “But the pack?  I thought wolves were like a big family.”
     
    She snorted unhappily and stood up abruptly.  “If that was true, then I wouldn’t have been able to walk away from them as easily as I did.  No one cares that I’m gone, and no one would care if I disappeared entirely.”
     
    In complete disbelief, he watched her walk out of the office with her head down, grab her things off the desk and leave.  He ran to the door, because he didn’t like her walking out to her car alone at night, but she was already peeling out of the parking lot, her metallic-blue Camaro’s taillights disappearing quickly.
     
    If he thought she was stand-offish before their conversation Monday night, he hadn’t known the definition.  Perfectly professional, she graced them with the frozen smile she used to keep the clients at arm’s length as well.  Mason and Cairo were furious with him, but he couldn’t justify her reaction.  She was hurt and broken, but not in any mood to let any of them in.
     
    At ten-thirty on Thursday night, he walked out into the empty gym and stopped in front of the front desk.  “Lock the door behind me; I’m going to run the deposit out, I’ll be gone about twenty minutes.”
     
    “Sure.”
     
    She followed him to the front door.  He turned, his hand on the push handle. “Alyssa, I’m sorry if I upset you by asking about your past.  You’re so closed off with us.  We just want to get to know you better.”
     
    “Holy shit, you guys are persistent,” she groused.  Anger.  At least that was an emotion, not the blank nothingness they’d been faced with.
     
    “Because we care.”
     
    “Oh yeah, sure.”  She snorted derisively.
     
    “Of course we care.  Why would you think otherwise?”
     
    “I know exactly the kind of caring that you guys are interested in, and I don’t play like that anymore,” she snapped, fury in the depths of her pretty eyes.  He stepped back and his shoulder bumped against the glass.
     
    “Wait, wait, what do you think we’re looking for?”
     
    “I know just what you’re looking for.  Every time I’m around you guys I’m drowning in lust.  I can’t fucking handle this.  I left the pack to start my life over and you’re trying to trap me into the same thing again.  I won’t play party favor.  I’m not a toy.  Leave.  Me.  Alone.”  She shoved him out the door and snapped the bolt in place, stalking back to the desk with anger and hurt radiating off her in waves.  He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d sprouted wings and started whistling.
     
    He stared at her as she sat down in the desk chair and buried her face in her hands.  He hadn’t meant to upset her; that was the exact opposite of what he wanted.  He walked to his car, realizing for the first time that because she was were, she would have the scenting abilities that human women didn’t.  Of course she’d be aware of how she affected them physically, the same way they were aware of it with her.  They’d not ever bothered to try to hold back their lustful thoughts of her, and he was just as guilty of that as his brothers.  He believed she was attracted to them, but she was holding back, and now she might try to quit because of it.  His brothers would never forgive him.  He had to fix this.
     
    He idled the car in the parking lot for several minutes.  He knew he had to go back in and apologize.  And he needed to tell her everything.  If he waited any longer, they would