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“Since the moment we met, you’ve been a sarcastic, cynical,meanjerk who looks at me as nothing more than a liability … or an infiltrator or something. I’ve given you no reason not to trust me, and yet you don’t.”
He swung the axe up and split the round into two before pinning me with his stony glare, rooting me to where I stood. “I don’t, and you’d be best to fucking remember that.”
I dished his glare right back at him. “You forget which of us is a triple-threat Hellcat, Captain. You might be good at fighting and with a blade, but without my blood, you’re nothing more than an Amlin.You’dbe best to rememberthat. And right now, even with a full vial of my blood in your body, you’re weak as fuck.”
He sneered at me, and his nostrils flared. “Swearing now, Kitten?”
My eyes formed thin slits. “Fucking right, I am.”
He snorted a laugh, shook his head, and reached for another chunk of wood.
“I’m not leaving until you tell mewhyyou hate me. So you better get used to my company.” I sat down on a stump and watched as he split chunk after chunk of wood. His arm muscles bulged and flexed beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt, and the veins in his forearms protruded. My mouth filled with saliva.
Maybe he wasn’t as weak as I thought he was, just in pain.
My nipples pebbled beneath my shirt when he cleaved another log round.
“Jorik seems to think that your hatred for me has something to with Chance.” Ah, the flare of his eyes and tensing of his jaw said I’d struck a chord. Jorik had been right. Now I just needed to pluck that chord and get it to make some noise. “He and Rix think they sent you and Chance on secret missions without them, since you and Chance were older.”
With each word I spoke, Zane’s carefully constructed mask and those walls he’d built around himself were beginning to crumble. His grip on the axe was tight enough to make his knuckles bright white and the veins and tendons of his arms protrude even more.
“So what happened with Chance? I mean, I know Jorik said your previous commander killed him for speaking out, but I think there’s more to it. There has to be if it has triggered a hatred for me so strong it feels like a thousand white-hot razor blades along my skin every time you look at me.”
His gaze remained steady, almost trance-like on the wood he was chopping.
I needed to push him harder if I wanted him to break, if I wanted to crack that mask and tear down those walls. “Is a Kappa the reason Chance was killed, and now you think all Kappas are evil? Did you trust a Kappa when you shouldn’t have, and Chance paid the price for it with his life?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that question as he lifted the axe in the air, because he released it and the entire thing went flying behind him into the shed. His eyes flicked to mine, molten-hot fury making the gray in his eyes glitter like quicksilver on fire.
Ah, looks like I pushed another button.
I stood up and casually made my way over to where the axe had landed. I picked it up and walked back toward him, grabbing a giant round of wood with one hand and placing it on the splitting block he’d been using. With one hand—because I’m crazy strong, remember—I lifted the axe and brought it down into the wood, causing it to split with surprising ease.
I shot Zane a conceited smile.
“So let me put some pieces together,” I said calmly, splitting the two halves I’d made into smaller halves. “Not that you’ve been much help, but your reaction to things has left me enough breadcrumbs that I’ve been able to figure things out—I think.” I tapped my temple. “Sigma brain, remember.”
His growl was the sound of thunder rolling in.
“So they sent you and Chance out on secret missions, leaving Rix and Jorik back at the compound. Your commander probably used killing Rix and Jorik as a motivator to get you and Chance to comply, right?” I glanced at him as I picked up another round of wood and placed it on the splitting block. “Stop me if you’ve heard this story.”
Zane’s heart rate was going wild, and the way he was looking at me would have terrified anybody who wasn’t me. I simply snorted a laugh as I brought the axe down into the center of the wood round again.
I needed to push him to the point where he lashed out either with his fists or his words. But we’d come this far. I wasn’t backing down until I had some answers, no matter how those answers came to be.
“I’m guessing you and Chance got tangled up with a Kappa and she tricked you or something and that was what led to Chance being killed. He was an example to the rest of you … but mainlyyou. A lesson in what happens if you trust a Hellcat, if you go against orders.” Splitting two more halves into smaller halves, I shook my head. “So I’m guilty because of what strain flows through my blood.” Tension sang through my muscles, and the hot, charring flames of anger licked up the sides of my stomach and into the depths of my throat. “What if I acted like you, huh?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he ground out.
“Nearly every man I have ever met has been a cruel, cold-hearted bastard. Moord, the scientists and trainers at the compound. Even the super soldiers that I came across were sadistic and soulless. So what if I treated you, Rix and Jorik the same way you treat me, huh? Assumed that you three are just like the others, hmm?”
He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “It’s not the same.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. But it’s exactly the same, and you know it. Just because I’m Kappa doesn’t mean I’m the same as the one who screwed you and Chance over. We’re not all the same.”
He shot me a look that, if I’d been anyone else, would have made my face turn ashen and fear race down my spine like a frigid drop of water.
But I wasn’t anybody else, and Zane did not scare me.
