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“So, you were lying to me!” Her heart began pounding harder in her chest, almost to the point of pain.
“That’s fucking rich coming from you!”
When the tears started to gather in her eyes, she hated herself a little for it. She didn’t want to show him that weakness. “Were you a member, then?”
The anger was still in his chocolate brown eyes when he replied, “I was a prospect.”
“When did you become a member?”
“Not that I owe you a fucking thing, especially not an explanation, but… when you left town.”
She nodded as tears fell from her eyes. She angrily wiped them away and turned away from him. “You bought your membership at my expense. Got it.”
Messer was swung around by a yank on her shoulder. It didn’t hurt. He was careful enough to not hurt her, but when she looked in his eyes, she could see his rage. The odd thing about it was she wasn’t scared of him. Something about him made her feel safe with him, but she couldn’t pinpoint why. He could and had every right to kill her where she stood. Whether she was safe or not in his presence, Matthew was pissed.
“I didn’t do it for a fucking membership!” He scoffed and glared at her. “What the fuck did you want me to do? Huh? You want my family dead! You expected me to invite the enemy in? Swing the doors wide and let you and your merry band of misfits in to murder my family? No! Fuck that! I’d protect my family from that for free!”
She shook her head, still angry about being bamboozled. Betrayal was a bitter pill to swallow. “You feel safe around them? After everything I told you?”
A gold light shined from his eyes as his face screwed up even further with anger. “Yes. I. Fucking. Do.”
She gasped. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. No! He couldn’t be.
“That’s fucking right, Messer. I’m one of those monsters you think you know about.”
“No,” she breathed and shook her head. “No, that can’t be. You can’t be… No! I would have known.”
“Shifters have been living around you your entire life!” He turned away from her and put his hands to his hips. “Fuck!”
She leaned back against the wall and softly asked, “And how many people have they murdered?”
One second, she was staring at the Howlers MC logo on the back of his leather cut, and the next, there was a large black bear roaring in her face with his paws pressed against the wall on either side of her head.
Messer’s heart nearly stopped. A fucking bear was within inches of her face! Long fangs and angry chocolate brown eyes were all she could see. He breathed into her face for a moment, before she blinked and Matthew was standing there again, his hands now pressed against the wall where the bear’s paws had been.
“A lot fucking less than humans have, especially the ones you hang out with,” he answered.
“You… you’re… you’re a bear!” Messer was stunned and outraged.
Matthew clapped slowly. “Very good. They take pride in intelligence over at that academy of yours, don’t they?”
“You were a shifter when…”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve been a shifter my whole life.” He stepped away from her and put his hands back to his hips as he shook his head.
She couldn’t process everything. Her brain simply refused to process any of it. Survival was all the only thing she had enough brain power to focus on in that moment. “What… what are you going to do to me? Are you going to kill me? Do you even care what happens to me?”
He shook his head, but after a moment, he looked at her. “I wish I fucking didn’t.”
She wiped away the tears that were once again streaming down her face. “Why do you?”
He let out a humorless laugh and answered, “Because the Gods are apparently comedians.”
She didn’t bother pushing on that, and he didn’t offer further explanation. Instead, she asked, “You expect people to just believe that they are safe living next door to shifters when shifters can turn into animals that they are warned to keep their distance from?”
“They’ve always been safe living next door to us!” He shook his head again. “You people are all the same. Murder anything different from you.”
“You people? You people? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
