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“What the fuck?!”I yell, jackknifing out of bed. Blinking groggily, I bring a hand to the back of my neck, where it feels like I’ve been bitten.If I have bugs in my bed, I’m burning everything in the whole damn room.
I flick on the bedside light before turning to inspect the bed. However, I pull up short when I find a massive pest lying on top of it, staring at me with a faux innocence that I don’t buy for one second.
“What the hell are you doing in here, Wilder?” I demand, folding my arms over my chest and glowering at him.
“Can’t I just come and check that you’re alright?”
“No.” The back of my neck still stings from whatever the hell he did, and as I lift my hand to once again feel the area, I warily ask, “What did you do to me?”
“It’s probably best that you don’t know.”
Oh well, okay then.
“Best for who? You, because you know I’m going to be pissed at whatever you’ve done?”
The infuriating asshole just shrugs as he languidly climbs off my bed.
I track his movements with all the wariness of a chicken watching a fox approach its coop. As I do so, my mind reels, trying to figure out what he’s up to.
One thing sticks in my head, and on a whim, I ask, “Did you drug me?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it drugging.”
“So yes, then,” I snark.
“If you call putting a couple of crushed-up antihistamines in your food, drugging,” he drawls, making me itch to wrap my hands around his neck.
“I think by most people’s definitions, that’s called drugging,” I retort, only half paying attention as I try to work outwhyhe would drug me.
I ignore him standing at the other end of the room in favor of focusing on identifying exactly where the sting is coming from on my neck. My fingers still as they come across something that feels harder than the surrounding tissue. Something rod-shaped and foreign.
“Wilder,” I growl out with barely contained rage. “What the hell is this in my neck?”
He gives another maddening shrug. “A tracker.”
The words are said so casually that it takes a second for them to penetrate, but when they do, I shriek, “You put a tracker in my neck? What the hell is wrong with you, Wilder? Why would you do that?”
“Are you seriously asking that?” Wilder growls, getting angry. “So we can keep tabs on you. So, if that whacko drugs and kidnaps you again, we can find you.”
His face is like thunder as he takes a menacing step forward, though I get the sense that, for once, his anger isn’t directed at me. Is Wilder… concernedforme? I peer past the fury simmering in his feature until I spot the torment buried underneath. His anger is a front, but why? Because he doesn’t want me to see his true feelings, or because he himself isn’t ready to acknowledge them?
In a tone born of darkness that sends delicious shivers trickling down my spine, he declares, “You belong to me, and I won’t let that bitch steal what’s mine.”
I’m left dumbstruck, gaping like an idiot at him as I struggle to wrap my head around all of it—the extent of his invasion, the crazy logic he’s using to defend himself, and the hidden emotions I’m almost positive I see concealed beneath layers of mistrust and insecurity.
“Kai said he’d get me a tracker bracelet.” It’s the only thing I can think to say, my brain too strung out as I try to wrap my mind around all of this. Besides, it’s not like he will see reason with anything I have to say or about how wrong it was for him to put something in my body without my knowledge or consent—which is ultimately the underlying issue here, regardless of why he did it or the emotions behind his actions.
Wilder scoffs. “Bracelets can be removed, Em.”
I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Then I could have sewn it into my clothing, tucked it in my shoe, or… I don’t know, but there are steps between a bracelet and putting a tracker in my fucking neck.”
“Well, it hardly matters now. It’s done now.”
So help me God, it takes everything in me not to smack him across the face.
“You had no right to do that without asking me first,” I snap.
His lip curls up in disdain as he snorts, staring down at me like I’m a disgusting bug on his shoe. “Just like you had no right to make decisions for me.Youmade the executive decision to leave without saying goodbye.Youmade the executive decision not to give us a shot. Those were all decisions involving me thatyoumade on your own. So, yeah, I think I’m entitled to thisone.”
