Chapter Sixty Three

I could feel Kaylie’s fiery hot rage washing off of her as she drove us to the mall. I road shotgun, and I kept my body pressed against the door just to put a little more distance between me and her. I didn’t say a word, and she didn’t either. Somehow, that only made the tension even worse. The looks she kept shooting me out of the corner of her eye told me exactly what she thought of my little ruse— and what she’d like to do to me because of it.

We pulled into the parking lot, and she rolled into a spot outside one of the clothing stores. I unbuckled my seat belt and reached for the door handle. Why had I said that? I could have told them I was going to the kitchen, but no I had to volunteer for a shopping trip with little Miss Skank over here.

“What the hell are you up to?” she demanded before I could open the door. I froze, and gave her a timid look.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Kaylie threw her hands up in the air. “You didn’t mean for this to happen? What’s that supposed to mean? You didn’t mean to ask him for money so we could go shopping?”

I shook my head and sat back in my seat, groaning. “No, I didn’t mean to get you involved. It was the first thing I thought of.”

“Involved in what?” she asked, her voice icy. I looked at her, and couldn’t keep from shivering.

“Nothing,” I said. “So, what are we going to do?”

Kaylie held my gaze for a few seconds before sighing and looking away. “We’re gonna go shopping. D.K. expects me to come home with some new clothes, so it’s not like we have a choice.”

With that, she opened the door and got out of the car. I hurried to do the same, and came to walk beside her as we headed for the store. Now that she was away from D.K., I realized, she didn’t have that shallow, haughty expression on her face anymore. She kept her head level, instead of looking down her nose at everything. And, most surprising, she didn’t seem nearly as mad about all this as I’d expected. She was upset, sure, but I had thought she was going to rip my head off before we’d even reached the store.

“This way,” she said when we got inside, steering me towards the nearest assortment of tops. We didn’t talk as she started rifling through them, occasionally carrying one to a mirror to hold up in front of herself. I stood back, letting her do her thing, perfectly happy to stay out of the way. I had things to think about, after all.

I’d failed to kill D.K. That wasn’t good, because it meant that I still wouldn’t be able to sneak Kimberly away on the full moon. Not that I had any idea what I’d do after that, now that Stark was being tortured by Majestic, but I’d been planning to figure things out as I went. With D.K. still alive, that brought my plans to a screeching halt. Something had to happen, or else it wouldn’t end well for Kimberly. But what could I do? I was still under his control, and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. It went against a wolf’s instincts to rebel against its alpha, and I was no different. I thought about trying again to convince Tyler to challenge him, but quickly threw that away. As big and strong as he was, that boy was even more whipped than me.

I looked up when Kaylie walked past me to hang a black shirt back up on its rod.

“You should keep that one,” I said. She froze, and gave me a withering glare. I shrugged. “Sorry, but it looked good on you.”

That looked like it caught Kaylie off guard, and she looked from me to the shirt a few times before hesitantly picking it back up.

“You think so?” she asked. I nodded. “Okay, then.”

She threw the shirt over her arm, with two others that she’d selected, and then headed for the register.

“Is that it?” I asked when the cashier bagged them and handed Kaylie her receipt. Kaylie looked down at the rest of the money in her hand, and then a little smile rose onto her face.

“We got a lot of money left. Let’s go somewhere else.”

Despite myself, I smiled too as she turned and led the way out into the food court and towards a shoe store.

“I haven’t had a nice pair of heels in years,” she said, immediately slipping off her sandals to try on a pair. She hesitated, and then looked up at me. “What do you think?”

“Not your color,” I answered.

Kaylie thought about this, and then shook her head. “I didn’t think so, either.” She returned them to the shelf and then held up another pair. “How about these?”

“Much better,” I said. She tried them on, and then brought them up to pay for them. Just before she got to the register, though, she stopped and looked back at me. “You want some?”

This time, it was my turn to be caught off guard. Not just that she thought I needed new clothes, but because Kaylie was the one offering. Then I remembered that I was wearing the same ratty clothes I’d moved into her house in. I tried to wear those around the others as much as possible to keep them from finding out about what Majestic had given me.

“Sure, thanks,” I said, and she abruptly changed course to lead me back inside the store. A few minutes later I had a new, shiny pair of tennis shoes on my feet, and Kaylie was handing over a few bills to the man at the register. Truth be told, I felt a little bad about accepting them. I had a good pair of shoes at home, so I wouldn’t be wearing these ones very often. Still, I’ll admit having Kaylie buy me something was a nice change of pace.

“You want a slice of pizza?” she asked as we went back into the food court. Five minutes later, we were sitting at a table, both of us holding piping hot slices of pizza. I tried to make myself wait until it was cool, but when I inhaled that cheesy, greasy smell, I couldn’t resist. I shoved the whole thing in my mouth, puffing when it burned my tongue but refusing to spit it out. Oooh, it hurt so good!

“This is nice,” Kaylie said.

I finished wiping my mouth off with my napkin and looked at her.

“The shopping trip,” she clarified, and then looked down at her pizza. She hadn’t touched it. “I haven’t done anything like this since D.K. became alpha.”

I smirked. “So, you’re actually glad I said that to him?”

The smile slowly fell from her face, and she picked up her pizza and took a bite. She held it much more carefully than I did, making sure the grease didn’t smudge her makeup of drip on her clothes. When she set it down, the look she gave me was more serious. “I’m not mad you said it, I wish you hadn’t said it the way you did.”

I blinked, suddenly reminded of what I had been doing when Kaylie walked in.

“What do you mean?” I asked hiding my hands under the table so she wouldn’t see how I was clenching them.

Kaylie thought for a few seconds, and then shook her head. She got up from the table, and I followed.

“If things are so bad, why do you and Tyler go along with it?” I asked as she dumped almost her entire slice of pizza into the trash can.

She turned and gave me a stone cold look, the one I was used to getting from her. “You really want to know?” she asked. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”