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For a few minutes, Frankie watched him eat with fascinated amusement. “You definitely have the appetite of an alpha wolf,” she mused once he was more than halfway in.
Suddenly, he paused mid-forkful before he abandoned the utensil on his plate. He frowned. “Maybe I’m not so hungry.” He slowly pushed his plate away.
Frankie scooped up a bit of her eggs. “How long have you known you were a wolf?”
Jace let out a long sigh, shoving his hands in his coat pockets beneath the booth. “Is this the part where we play twenty questions or something?”
Frankie lifted her fork. “I’m just trying to understand.”
Jace drew his coffee mug into his large paw of a hand. “What’s to understand, sweetheart? My old man walked out when I was a teen. Bastard saddled me with whatever this,” he glanced over his shoulder, ensuring they were alone, before his eyes flashed to his wolf briefly, “is. I stuck around long enough to graduate high school, then joined the E.U. That’s it.”
Frankie found that hard to believe. “And you’ve never embraced it? Never wondered about who or what you are?”
“Oh, I’ve wondered plenty.” Jace grabbed his fork again, using it to push around a large clump of sausage gravy. “But that doesn’t mean I have to embrace it.” He met her gaze.
“Doesn’t it?” she asked. “It’s who you are.”
Jace’s expression turned grim. Pulling out his wallet, he dropped several twenties on the table, more than enough to cover the bill and then some. “I don’t have time for this.”
He slid from the booth, coming to stand.
His back was fully turned toward her by the time she said, “On the night of the full moon, do you feel its pull? Like something living is crawling underneath your skin, threatening to burst out?”
Jace froze.
“I bet you get the same feeling when you’re angry. You constantly fight to control your emotions and hide your identity from the other hunters.”
His spine cracked when he moved, hands clenched.
“And when you’re hunting and you smell a female wolf shifter, it turns you on more than a human woman ever could, doesn’t it, and you hate yourself all the more for it.”
Jace remained silent, his body language speaking volumes. The muscles in his back flexed, and she could feel the rage which radiated from him.
“And right now, I’m making you angry,” she said, pushing him to his limits. “Because every mention of your true nature pisses you off. You’d rather loathe yourself your entire life than embrace what you really are.”
Silence answered her, as powerful and forceful as if he’d spoken.
He needs to know this,she reassured herself.
“How can you hunt your own kind?” A pang of sadness hit her in the chest. A part of her felt sorry for him, because she was challenging all his preconceived notions about himself.
It was part of why she’d put a stop to the heat between them.
How could she be with him when the part of himself he hated was also a part of her?
“I’m not one of you.”
“You are.”
He spun to face her, his face flushed and his hands clenched as his eyes flashed to his wolf. “I am nothing like him.” Walking to her side, he leaned down staring her square in the face, and Frankie saw the resolve in his gaze. “I’m nothing like you.”
He was so close to her that she could feel the heat pulsating from his body. Clenching her thighs together, she tried to ignore her undeniable interest in him. The intoxicating smell of his hair, and that keen absence of scent on his skin. She inhaled a sharp breath, balling up her courage. “You can’t hide from the truth forever.”
He broke eye contact and stalked from the diner, grabbing his coffee as he went.
“We’re not all monsters,” she called after him. “I had a family once, and I never would have betrayed them.”
“Bully for you,” he called back.
