Read Guarded (True Alpha 2) for Free Online Page B

a pair of black slacks and a brilliant blue shirt that looked like silk. “Here. At least you’ll have one outfit to wear. Until you have time to shop.”
    Mia held the lightweight clothes in her hands, tears threatening her eyes again. “I can’t take your clothes, Jeeter.”
    “Take them?” She looked horrified, but Mia knew it was fake. “You totally have to bring those back! Whenever you come down from your New Boyfriend High and remember to come visit me.”
    Mia couldn’t help it—she hugged her roommate again. When they broke apart, Jupiter rummaged in her pants and brought out her phone.
    “I look like hell!” she proclaimed. “And you’re not much better, Miss Hot For New Boyfriend.” Her roommate held up the camera and hugged Mia to her. “What better time to take a selfie?”
    Mia laughed but before she could even protest, Jupiter had already taken the picture. Checking her phone, she nodded approvingly and tucked it away.
    “That’s going straight to Tumble, isn’t it?” Mia asked.
    “Tumbler, you dork.” Jupiter grinned, then tugged her toward the bathroom. “A disastrous selfie is the perfect thing to remember you by.” More quietly, she added, “And those clothes will be a reminder for you that you can always come back.”
    Mia shook her head. “Jupiter, I’m not—”
    She held up her hands. “I’m just saying, in case you change your mind. It’s not like I’m getting a new roommate for the summer. Forget that noise. If you’re not here, I’m keeping this place all to myself!”
    Mia half-laughed and ducked into the bathroom right behind her roommate. She didn’t know how temporary this move was going to be—her stay at the dorms at UDub was never going to be permanent anyway—but it was ever more clear that the only thing she would miss from McMahon Hall was Jupiter.
    And it was sweet of her roommate to say Mia could come back, but she was a shifter living among humans. She never really felt like she belonged among the drunken, bed-hopping college kids anyway—not with her drive to finish school and find a way to get her mom out of the slums. But now that Lucas had awakened her inner wolf, living in the dorms just felt like a badly fitting dress that she constantly had to tug to sit right and not flash some part of her that she didn’t want to reveal.
    In fact, when it came to belonging somewhere, the only person who had ever made her feel that way was back in her room, packing her things and moving her away.
    And when she thought of it that way, it felt exactly right.

There was exactly one box and one medium-sized duffle bag in the back of Lucas’s car. That was the sum total of Mia’s belongings. His wolf growled its disapproval, and Lucas had to agree: it wasn’t so much that she packed light, but that she had nothing of permanence. One photo of her mother, but no personal effects. Nothing of her past. No hint of her dreams for the future, beyond an armful of business textbooks.
    It was far too much like his apartment. And it made him angry.
    She should have more of a life than that. Maybe he was a train wreck after Tila’s death, but Mia still had everything ahead of her. Not with him, but with someone.
    Until he dragged her into the mess that was his life.
    After Lev had pulled him back out of not only the Olympic mountains, but the deep, dark forest of his despair, Lucas had torn out everything in his apartment that reminded him of Tila—her clothes, the photos, every memento of their brief and beautiful time together. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her—he would have given his life for hers. There were nights he would gladly have laid down in a cold grave, if it would have brought her back to life. He simply couldn’t bear the torment of having her all around him all the time. He nearly left the apartment altogether, but in the end, Lev packed her things and took them away… and Lucas could breathe again.
    He gripped the steering wheel harder, wheeling