I Rejected My Obsessive Werebeast novel Chapter 32

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Chapter 32

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Chapter 32

Aurora’s POV

Today was the day I was finally going to meet Kane. To be honest, I couldn’t help feeling a little nervous.

Silas drove. The city thinned out as we went – high-rises gave way to low walls, streetlights spaced further apart, traffic noise replaced by the hum of tires on clean asphalt. I sat in the passenger seat, notebook on my lap, questions already drafted. I’d rewritten them three times last night.

“You’re quiet,” Silas said.

I looked up. “Going over the questions again.”

He glanced at me. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m fine.”

He smiled a little. “Your pen’s been on the same page for ten minutes.”

I looked down. He was right. I hadn’t turned a page since we left the main road. I closed the notebook instead and set it aside.

Kane’s place was at the end of a quiet residential street. It’s a clean two- story structure with a wide driveway and/dark windows.

Normally, beastfolk without a master lived in housing arranged by the Beastfolk Exchange rather than buying their own homes. Unless a beastfolk formally declared to the Exchange that they would never enter into a bond, they weren’t allowed to live alone.

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Yet, for some reason, Kane had chosen to do exactly that.

Had he already lost faith in humans? I couldn’t help wondering.

Silas parked. Turned off the engine. For a second, neither of us moved, Then his hand reached across the console and squeezed mine. Briefly. Firm. “Let’s go.”

Kane opened the door himself.

Up close, he was bigger than the photos suggested. Not gym-big-the kind of built that came from actual fighting. Shoulders that filled the doorway. A dark jacket, sleeves pushed up to the forearms. His face was all hard lines — sharp cheekbones, a straight nose, and the scar through his left brow that the file had mentioned.

—

He looked at Silas first. His eyebrows went up a fraction.

“Didn’t think I’d hear from you,” he said. Voice was lower than I expected. Rough but controlled.

Silas nodded. “Thanks for agreeing to meet.”

Kane’s gaze shifted past him and landed on me.

I met it. Didn’t look away.

“Come in,” he said.

–

The living room had good light – a wall of windows on the east side, morning sun filtering through sheer curtains. Minimalist furniture. No clutter. A bookshelf along the far wall, mostly paperbacks with cracked spines. I noticed a small photo frame on the shelf, face-down.

Kane gestured toward the sofa. “Sit.”

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Chapter 32

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We both did. Silas stayed quiet, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, letting me take the lead. I opened my notebook.

“Mr. Westbrook, Kane, if that’s okay, thank you for taking the time.”

He sat across from us in a single chair, one arm resting on the armrest. “You said you wanna a pre-interview. Go ahead.”

I started with the foundation. Funding structure. Operational model. How many beastmen they’d relocated so far. Standard stuff.

His answers were shorter than I expected. Direct.

“We don’t run on sympathy,” he said at one point, when I asked about public donations. “Sympathy gets people to share a post. It doesn’t pay rent. I don’t need people to feel sorry for my kids. I need people who can actually do something.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

I moved to the next section of my notes – the shelter expansion plan I’d found buried in a municipal filing. Budget estimates. Timeline. The gap between current capacity and projected intake.

When I mentioned the specific numbers, Kane’s eyebrow ticked up. Just barely. But I caught it.

“You looked into the expansion,” he said. Not a question.

“I did. Your current shelter houses thirty-two. The filing shows you’ve applied for permits to double that. But the funding gap is -”

“Significant.” He finished it for me. Leaned back. Looked at me for a long moment. “You’re the first person who bothered to read the actual

documents instead of just the press release.”

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