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“So, I won’t help you.”
“Then I’ll do it without you.”
“Like fuck you will.” He held her tighter. “You have no idea how to deal with vampires.”
“And you need me, whether you can see it or not,” she retorted, drawing on some strength deep within.
“How do you figure that?”
“Cory…he…I know him.” She didn’t want to think of Cory as a vampire and didn’t want to consider that they were after her.
“They turned him. What’s to stop them from turning you? No. I’m not risking it.”
“My life isn’t yours to protect or not. But I know a lot about the opal. And you said yourself, they want me for some reason.”
“Which means you stay out of this.”
“The Blood Opal has brought us together. We have a better chance of finding it if we help each other instead of working alone,” she said. “I’m not backing off, Kodiak.”
He swore. “We would have to work together and that means real trust.”
“I know.”
He nodded.
“Can you really trust me, knowing I’m a wolf shifter?” His tone softened, and he gently ran his hands up the exposed skin of her arms.
She knew what he asked. This was more than them working together, but the rest?
His fingers brushed along the scars from teeth and claws. The attack by the dog she’d endured had scarred more than flesh. It had gouged deep into her psyche.
Something that had only lasted seconds had felt like hours. Worse, the memory remained with her all this time, always fresh and clear in her mind.
Getting past that, truly past it, was something she wasn’t sure she could do. Didn’t know if she wanted to because that attack was part of her. It had changed her life.
Not the bad things, like her phobia of dogs or her hatred of the ugly scars. But it made her stronger, helped develop the drive to become something. It got her to shape her life so she wouldn’t be scared like that again.
And this man…he was the thing she hated.
If anything was to happen between them on a deeper level, could she ever get past that? Truly?
There was trust, and then there wastrust.
“I…”
He changed how he touched her, only his fingertips met her skin as he moved his hands down. Like he knew.
And yet…
She wanted him.
Even that light touch set tremors off within her, sweet, keening waves of want and need and desire. The longer she was with his human form, the easier it was to pretend that she’d never seen him transform into a wolf. Her mind turned to the time they’d spent together in her bed, and at the nightclub, letting their lust for each other have free rein.
She wanted that. Desperately.
“You can’t,” he responded, sadness thick in his voice. His arms wrapped around her once more.
“I can try.” Even she didn’t believe the words she spoke. The fear was too deep to get over suddenly. “I need time.”
