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He came back, took stock of the situation, and held out his hand. “Give them to me.”
“So you can lock them up?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Right. In a safe onlyyouhave the code to.”
“Summer, give them to me.”
Summer. I bit down a growl and tried to sound reasonable. “In return for the code to the safe.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’m your mate or I’m not. Make up your mind.”
“You’re my mate, but I’m not going to trust you with AmberHowl secrets or business just because of that.”
“These aren’t AmberHowl secrets. They’remine.”
“And they’re dangerous to AmberHowl. You don’t get to decide how they’re handled.”
I clicked my teeth at him as my vision started to blur. The journalsweredangerous. Theydidbelong in a safe. And putting them in the safe wasn’t the issue. Searle putting them out of reach next to the industrial-waste lemon-cream-cookies and the furry handcuffs was the issue.
I put my hand on the door knob and turned it, but kept the door closed. “Give me the code, and I’ll turn them over.”
“Summer, I am not going to argue this with you.”
“If you want to call me that name, you treat me like a fucking adult and your mate!” I wasn’t going to grovel with my belly on the floor so he could warm his feet in the glow of my endless, depthless gratitude. I might be exhausted, I might be weak, I might be oozing assorted unsavory biological hazards from a hole in my side, but that just meant I didn’t have the energy to be civil.
Searle pushed up against me. I squished back against the door. He shoved his hand into the door by my head and it sank home in the frame.
Backlit by the sunlight through the window, the shadows turned his seal-brown hair a smoky black, the slight curls forming a hazy, menacing halo, while his eyes were dark. His voice remained punishingly soft. “Let me explain my opinion of you,mate.Summeris a lone wolf of no breeding or proper rearing.Winteris a high-bred wolf who knew just enough to get herself entangled with the Elders, but not enough to avoid getting cut with silver. Your opinions on how a pack should be run are lessons in whatnotto do, no matter what name I call you, or who you think you are.”
Pieces of my soul flaked off and drifted into a pit of brackish water and simmering silver while I stood in the center of a ruined landscape.
Searle gave me a couple of heartbeats to really let the salt and silver sink deep into my muscles and nerves. “I don’t want to start things between us this way. I want us to be happy together, in time. I have tried to be respectful and polite, but you refuse to meet me halfway and see reality.”
“You callthishalfway?” My throat trembled with howls. “The halfway point betweenshelost her true mate, pack, and identityandI’m standing in the room I woke up in this morningisn’tstanding in this room.”
“As I said, this isnothow I wanted things to start between us.”
“If you give me the code to the safe, there’s no problem.”
“No.” He stood so close his single syllable brushed my cheek. His scent was like apples and deep woods and forest undergrowth, and bright sunlight grain. “You having notebooks with information you shouldn’t have is how all of this started. It’s how you found us in the first place.”
That was justdirty. “So it’s my fault bad things happen to me because I don’t let bad things happen to me.”
His nostrils flared. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’sexactlywhat you meant. Either you think I’m not smart enough to notice it, or too timid to call you on it.”
“I give you my word you can have access to them whenever you wish, as long as I supervise.”
“No.” That was a complete sentence.
“Don’t make me take them from you. You know how dangerous they are.”
“What, you worry people are going to come toss your room? You have bigger problems than these journals then,First Beta.”
