It was impossible.
Wren sighed in resignation. "I got her out of my system. Now I need to work."
But the problem was that Maggie wasn't out of his system. If anything, she was more a part of his thoughts than ever before. He didn't understand the hunger he felt. The need.
The beast within him wanted out to hunt for her. It was salivating inside, simmering. It was a good thing he knew how to control the beast, otherwise there was no telling what he might do.
He left Aimee and went to get his pan.
"Wren?" she said, pulling him to a stop.
Wren cast a meaningful look toward the bar where Fang was waiting for the bearswan. "Stop being a dreamer, Aimee. Our reality is too harsh for that."
He saw the doubt in her blue eyes. "But it's the hope of something better that keeps us going."
He scoffed at her blind optimism. "I abandoned the idea of hope the day my own mother lunged at my throat to kill me." He gave Aimee a hard stare. "And if I were you, Aimee, I'd heed that warning well. Neither of us has a human mother. If you think for one moment that Nicolette wouldn't turn on you, too, you're crazy."
"I'm her only daughter."
"And I was an only child-the last of my mother's kind-and yet she didn't hesitate to come after me. Think about it." Wren brushed past Aimee, back into the bar.
Still, Aimee's words rang in his ears.
Hope. He snorted bitterly at the thought of it. Hope was for humans. It wasn't for animals or freaks.
"Hi."
He glanced up to see a young woman in an extremely short skirt and tight midriff shirt approaching him.
She leaned her head back and polished off her drink. "I thought I'd save you some time and bring my glass to you," she said, giving him a hot once-over. She slid her empty glass over her breast before she handed it to him.
Amazed that he felt absolutely nothing for her, Wren inclined his head and took it from her before he moved away to another table.
The woman pouted before she returned to her seat.
"What the hell is wrong with you, tiger?" Justin asked as he joined Wren. "What kind of beast would turn that down?"
"Go get her, panther," Wren said quietly. "She's all yours."
"Yeah, I think I will."
Wren watched as Justin made straight for the woman and struck up a conversation. A few minutes later, the two of them were headed off toward the storeroom near the stage that had been soundproofed by one of the bears as a place where they could take willing human females for a quickie or two.
It was weird that Wren felt absolutely nothing for the woman. Not even a slight stirring. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he was mated. But there was no mating mark on his hand, and even if there were, he would never mate with a human. Especially not Maggie. Her father was too prominent a man.
The idea was to keep their world a secret from humans. Mating himself to a member of a politician's family was suicide.
Marvin came running up to drop a glass in his pan before he dashed off again.
Nicolette paused just outside the door to her office as she watched Wren cleaning tables. Every animal sense she possessed told her that it was time he left Sanctuary-not that she had ever really wanted him here.
If she had her way, there wouldn't be anyone staying at Sanctuary except her own family. But that wasn't their laws. It was necessity that dictated she allow other Were-Hunters to come and go and even live in her beloved home.
That didn't mean she liked it.
Her gaze softened as it drifted toward her son Dev, who was talking to her other son Cherif. She'd lost two sons to the Arcadian Were-Hunters who had once pursued them to the ends of the earth and beyond for no other reason than because her kind were animals. She refused to lose any more children to tins bloodthirsty war of Arcadian against Katagaria.
She would do anything to protect her family.
"Lo?"
She turned at the sound of her mate's call. Aubert was staring at her with a concerned gaze. "Oui, Aubert?"
He glanced over to where Wren was. "The tiger isn't hurting anyone."
She curled her lips as she watched Wren cleaning. "His very presence offends me. He isn't right and you know it."
"He has nowhere else to go."
"And neither do we." She jerked her chin in the direction of the monkey as he bounded back toward the tigard. "That is unnatural, too. I hate that damned monkey. He is filmy. Animals such as that one are food for us. They should never be kept as pets."
"Marvin isn't a pet," Aubert said quietly. "Wren doesn't own him. They are friends, and the monkey keeps the tiger calm. It is why we allow him to stay."
She made a disgusted sound. "Why must we cater to him? We are bears. We are the more powerful. One strike and we could kill the tiger."
Aubert conceded the point with a nod. "In the wild, beast to beast, yes. But Wren is part human, as are we. He knows not to attack us from the front, but rather to attack us from behind. What he lacks in strength, he makes up for in speed and agility. He could kill us. I have no doubt."
She looked at her mate with rancor. "You fear him?"
"No," he snapped. "But I'm not a fool. Don't let your hatred blind you, ma petite. Better to use his strength to fight for us than to make an enemy of him."
She considered that. "Perhaps, but he isn't like the others. He sees through us and our hospitality."
"Oui, but he keeps it to himself. Seldom does he speak to anyone."
Still Nicolette didn't trust Wren. She could sense the tigard's unrest. Sense his volatile state. He could turn violent at any moment "I think we should take our concerns to the Omegrion." The Omegrion was the ruling council for their kind. It made and enforced the laws of all Were-Hunters, and its members could call out a blood hunt for anyone the Weres deemed a threat to their world.
Aubert rolled his eyes. "There is no need for that. Wren is not a Slayer."
"No, but he will be. I can feel it."
Wren let out a deep breath as he finished wiping down the table. With his new haircut he was attracting way too much attention, and he hated it. He'd always liked blending into the background. In the past, people might notice him, but they quickly looked away. Or curled their lips in repugnance.
Either was preferable to the women watching him now. To the men narrowing their gazes because their girlfriends were ogling him.
Tigers by nature were solitary creatures. They lived their lives alone.
And yet his thoughts kept drifting back to the afternoon. To the sight of Maggie's face.
I have to forget her.
The only problem was that he couldn't.
Marguerite sighed as she straightened her bed. But it was hard to not think of Wren while she made up the bed where they had spent most of the afternoon.
"It's for the best that he's gone," she told herself.
It was true. Law school wasn't easy. Her classes were hard, and they required a lot of concentration. The last thing she needed was the distraction of a troubled bad-boy boyfriend.
The last thing she could afford was to flunk out of school. That would just tickle her father no end.
Marguerite stepped back from the bed and stumbled over something under her foot. Frowning, she saw the small black wallet on the floor.
She grimaced at the sight. "Damn." Of all the stupid luck. It must have fallen out of Wren's pocket while he'd been dressing.
She picked it up and opened it to find his license and money. Yeah, it was his. Not like it could have belonged to anyone else, but she'd still been holding out for a clumsy burglar.
"I should mail it to him."
But he would most likely need it before then. "I can be a grown-up about this."
She'd take it to the bar, leave it with the waitress, and duck out before he even saw her.
Okay, that was a little cowardly and less than adult, but it would be the way to save her feelings. If he didn't want to see her, then she didn't want to be seen.
Wren was in the kitchen unloading dishes when something strange went through him. It was hot and scintillating. Like something had brushed up against his very soul.
Eyes narrowed, he lowered his head and scanned the room.