Page 41 of Never His Mate

“What?”

“Do you really know Aleksander Filan?”

“I’ve lived with him for a year—”

“That’s not what I mean.” His brow furrows, his gaze narrowing as he gives me a once-over. It’s different than from before. Colder. Calculating.

Now this?

This is the Ryker I remember. Not the seventeen-year-old I crushed on, or the twenty-two-year-old I fell for. This is the twenty-eight-year-old Alpha of the Mountainside Pack, the one who rejected my wearing an expression just like this one.

“You think he’s a good guy,” he announces at last.

Of course I do. “So what? He is a good guy.”

“He’s fooling you, Gemma.” When I begin to argue, he cuts me off. “He let me kick his ass.”

“Ryker—”

“Listen to me. I know it’s hard for you to do that, but just listen. I’m strong. I’m alpha. I know how to take down my prey, and that bloodsucker? He’s no easy kill, even if he’s already dead. He let me attack him. At that bar. With you watching. He never even once tried to fight back.”

“But why would he do that?”

Even as I’m asking him, I think I already know the answer.

Ryker’s not wrong. Aleks didn’t try to fight back. I remember thinking that was so weird at the time, that he just stood there and let Ryker slice right through him. Since he wasn’t in any danger of being killed—you can’t kill what’s dead unless Ryker went for his head—he had to know he’d recover eventually.

But would my opinion of the alpha wolf who attacked my friend?

Yeah.

I don’t want to believe it. Ryker has every reason to be making this up. I’m sure he’d love it if Aleks turned out to be just another guy willing to manipulate me to get what he wants from me.

Maybe it isn’t a shifter thing, but a male thing. Especially after the way he basically accused me of secretly liking Ryker’s attention...

“No. You’re trying to turn me against Aleks.” It’s the only thing that makes sense. “He was there for me when you weren’t. I might not be in love with him, but I do love him. He’s my friend. He wouldn’t do that.”

He wouldn’t.

Ryker taps his fingers against the back of the bench. When I hear the click-click-click, I know his claws are out.

He’s quiet for a moment, before he says, “Ask him about his fang.”

What for? “I already know about the fang.”

“Yeah?” It’s a dare. I know it is. Still, when he says, “Tell me about it, then,” I fall for it anyway.

“No one in Muncie knows I’m a shifter. Well, except for the first vamps that I ran into after you rejected me—”

“Gretchen. She told me all about you. She’s not your biggest fan. Funny that she tried hitting on me when she hates you for being Pack, but I got her to tell me about your life here before I sent her on her way so I guess she has her uses.”

I shouldn’t be jealous at the casual way he mentions the leader of the Nightmare Trio. I should be pissed off that he grilled her about me, but I’m not. I’m jealous, and it seeps into my voice as I say drolly, “Oh? Is that what the two of you talked about over drinks?”

“Yes.”

A simple answer.

Yes.

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