Shit, why didn’t I think of that? I tugged my shirt down, wishing suddenly that I’d paid more attention to the clothes I’d grabbed. “Why do you want to know about Andrew?”

He crossed the room in several leisurely strides to sit in his armchair, leaning back with the ankle of one leg resting on his opposite knee. The relaxed pose and the long pause were both intended to make me nervous. They worked. “How long have you been dating him?”

“Why do I have the feeling you already know the answer?” I asked, curling my toes in the thick rug. Suddenly I was very conscious of my bare feet, which was strange, considering how much less I’d worn in the very same room only hours earlier.

“I have a responsibility to the entire Pride to ensure your safety, Faythe.”

Great, the responsibility speech. I stared at him, knowing he would respect continued eye contact. “You promised me freedom.”

“I kept my promise.” He cracked his knuckles one at a time, so slowly that after the first few, I leaned forward in anticipation of the next. It was psychological torture.

“You also promised me privacy.” My eyes were drawn to the first finger of his right hand, as he pressed on it with his thumb.

Crack. “No,” he said, his face impassive as another pop punctuated his reply.

“I promised not to interfere with your life, and I haven’t.” Crack.

“Never argue semantics with an English major, Daddy.”

Finished with the largest ones, he started on the middle knuckles of the same hand, ending each sentence with one, like an auditory exclamation point. “I’m not arguing anything.” Crack. “I’m stating facts.” Crack.

I rolled my eyes. Arguing with my father was pointless, but like one of those windup toy soldiers, I kept walking face-first into the same obstacle, over and over again. I couldn’t seem to help it. Sighing, I resigned myself to the inquisition because resistance was more trouble than submission, and I was already tired of arguing. “What do you want to know about Andrew?”

He nodded, acknowledging my wil ingness to cooperate by folding his hands in his lap. He didn’t seem to care that my compliance stemmed more from weariness than from any sense of respect or obligation. “How serious are you about him?”

Irritation flared in my chest like heartburn, bringing with it a tiny spark of courage. “Why?”

“You know why.” He watched me calmly, expectantly, his age betrayed by the crinkles at the outside corners of his eyes and the gray streaks just above each ear.

They were the only flaws among his otherwise strong, firm features.

“You can’t just pick a tomcat at random and reserve a chapel.” My head began to ache at the prospect of rehashing the argument we’d started when I was seventeen. “I have no plans to get married. If I change my mind later, that’s my business and my choice. Only mine.”

“I haven’t even mentioned marriage.”

Damn it, why did he have to sound so reasonable? And he’d made me bring up the M word! I closed my eyes, gathering my thoughts and my nerve. “Not today, but I know it’s what you were thinking.”

“You know no such thing,” he said, still infuriatingly poised. “I wasn’t thinking of you at al . I was thinking of him. If you spend too much time with this Andrew, he might think he has some kind of future with you. But he doesn’t, and it isn’t fair of you to mislead him.”

“Maybe I’m not misleading him.”

My father watched me calmly from his chair, demonstrating what I lacked and he had plenty of. Patience. He clearly expected this argument to go like al the others in years past: I would yel myself hoarse, then, when I had no more voice with which to argue, he’d speak his mind. And just like that, another choice would be gone, another path in my life chosen without my input or consent.

Not this time. I wasn’t going to yel or throw a fit. I’d outgrown that. His prying questions had led me to a decision—one of the first important choices of my entire life—and I was going to announce it evenly. Serenely. Maturely.

I was leaving. But I wasn’t going to sneak away in the middle of the night, as I’d done in the past. I’d learned from my mistakes, or at least learned that he’d expect me to repeat them. This time I would make my stand boldly in the light of day, face-to-face with my father and Alpha.

It was simple, real y. All I had to do was tel him I was leaving—then convince him to let me go. Of course, that was the tricky part.

I shoved doubt from my mind, ignoring the voice in my head tel ing me that, as usual, I’d bitten off far more than I could chew. My father would fight my decision. He wouldn’t bluster, or bel ow, or roar. That wasn’t his style. Instead, he would deny my “request” and forbid me to leave. When that didn’t work—and it certainly wouldn’t—he’d chase me all over the country if necessary, because he couldn’t afford to lose me. I knew that intel ectual y, just as I knew emotional y that I couldn’t stay. The Pride needed my uterus but seemed to have no use for the stubborn, opinionated parcel it came in. But I was a package deal—al or nothing.

Bolstered by anger and the intoxicating rush of rebel ion, I stood and stepped into the center of the rug, standing directly in front of my father. “I want out,” I said, careful again to meet his eyes. Avoiding them would look like weakness, and I couldn’t afford to appear weak.