Page 25 of Dancing With Demons

His eyes narrowed to slits. “What is this? What are you doing right now?”

“It’s called taking responsibility for my actions, acknowledging that I was wrong, and apologizing.”

“Well, it’s disgusting,” he snapped. “Cut it out.”

My hand flew to my mouth, smothering a giggle before it came out. I knew plenty of guys who were allergic to accountability, but never had a guy reacted to my sorry like I barfed it up on the carpet.

Ronin flew forward and grasped my hand, pulling it away from my mouth.

“What is it?” I cried, startled. “Do I have something on my face?”

He stared intently at my mouth, frowning—then he dropped my hand. “No, you do not.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he sounded angry.

“So your answer is no?” he asked, backing away.

I nodded. “It’s no. We’re both asking too much of each other, so, let’s stop. You don’t have to protect me, and I won’t bond with you.” The words fell from my lips unbidden. “But maybe we could, you know, be friendly with each other from here on out?”

Ronin scoffed, turning on his heels and leaving in a cloud of mint and cloves. “You and your made-up words.”

He slammed the door shut on my sigh. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“YES!” I SCREAMED INTO the phone, blood swallowing my vision. “Yes! My answer is yes!”

His long, sharp teeth shredded my underwear.

“Stop it! Get off!”

Dora’s screams battered my eardrums.

“Ronin, help me! Oh, gods, please, help me!”

Something hard and wet pressed against my entrance.

“HELP!”

An Hour Before

I KEPT A TIGHT GRIP on Dora’s wrist, keeping her close to me. That day, Stop Being Pussies was being held in the dungeon library. Before shoving us inside and locking the doors behind him, he told us that he captured and released a shade in the library, and it was up to us to find and kill the creature.

That was it.

No instruction. No tips. No training. And not a single word on what a shade even is.

The good news was that worrying about my current predicament was taking my mind off the weird message I got from Tristan that morning.

Tristan: All this stuff with Lucifer and your sister sucks, but I can’t help you, Charlie. I can’t even get anywhere near you thanks to these new rules. I’ve got to focus on getting my pack and position back, so whatever you need from now on, just hit up that red-eyed shit, Belphe.

I sent him three messages since then asking what was going on, and why he wanted me to ask Ronin for help when he told me to stay away from him. But I got no reply.

I wouldn’t lie. Being left on read by Tristan hurt more than I expected it to. We were still getting to know each other, but I thought we were friends. I thought we had each other’s backs—

—but that may have just been more of my entitlement and over-reliance. I wanted my tough, strong, powerful werewolf friend to have my back and protect me, even though there wasn’t anything I could do for him.

No wonder he put up a hard boundary between us, I thought, eyes stinging. I kept whining at him about Dora when his own sibling was just murdered, and he was forced to kill his own people to get back into the werewolf wing.

Tristan big-time had his own problems to deal with. I couldn’t be the mortal leech hanging off his backside anymore. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself to lighten up the pain of his silence.