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I remembered the way his nose had felt pressed against my throat in the alley. How heavy the weight of him had felt. How my magic felt like it was howling at the very thought of having him near. I’d hated him then, and I hated him now.
But the funny thing about hate is the razor-thin line that separates it from something else entirely.
Because I loved him too, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I didn’t. I always had. Even when I’d wanted to kill him, even when I felt the most betrayed, I couldn’t stop. It was a twisted thing, the roots buried deep in my chest, tangled and thick. I had thought it would rot and fester, become something dark that I couldn’t control, but it just stayed as it was, and I hated him for it. For making me feel this way after all he’d done to me and I’d done to him. I wanted him gone. I never wanted to see him again. I wanted him to hurt like I’d hurt. To burn. To bleed. I wanted to keep my hands on him, to feel the animal underneath. I wanted to lean forward and bite him, leaving my mark against his skin, tattooed so that he would never be without me on him, so that everyone would know I’d been there, and I’d been there first.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to fuck him.
I wanted him to tear me apart.
“Gordo,” he said, ever the wolf.
“No,” I said, the perfect prey.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
I tried to step back. I didn’t move. “I’ve got a damn good idea.”
He turned his arm over. He gripped my wrist, thumb brushing against my pulse point. “I wasn’t your first.”
Goddamn him for knowing what I was thinking. “Damn right you weren’t.”
“And you weren’t mine.”
I wanted a name. Tell me who the fuck it was. I’d find them. I’d fucking kill them. I said, “I don’t care.”
His eyes flickered orange. “But I swear I’m going to be your last. Fight me. Hit me. Fucking light me up. Hate me all you want—”
I bristled at that. “Get the fuck out of my head,” because I could hear him whispering gordo gordo gordo along that thread that stretched between us. It bounced around my skull until all I could do was hear him saying my name again and again and again. He was consuming me, and I wanted him to. I couldn’t stand the thought.
“—but it’s going to happen. You hear me? I will hunt you down if that’s what it takes. You can run from me, Gordo. But I will always find you. I let you go once. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
“Fuck you. I want nothing to do with you.”
He grinned, and it was all teeth. “I felt that. In your pulse. It stuttered. It shook. You lied.”
“Do you whisper the same things to Dale?” I asked him, jerking my arm out of his hand. “When you fuck him? Do you lean over him and tell him that he’s going to be your only one?” I sneered at him. “Or does he mean nothing to you? Are you just using him to scratch that itch?”
Something complicated crawled over his face, the smile fading. I couldn’t parse it because it was a jumble of too many things. “He’s not—it’s not like that.”
“Does he know that?”
“Deflecting. You’re always deflecting.”
I snorted. “Bullshit. Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t mean it’s deflecting.”
“I don’t need to—” He frowned. Closed his eyes. He grimaced, throat bobbing as he swallowed. For a moment he looked tense, muscles in his chest and arms clenching tightly.
I wanted to reach out for him. I didn’t. “What’s wrong?”
He opened his eyes again. “It’s… nothing. I just—that bite must have taken more out of me than I thought. I’m fine.”
He did look paler than normal. “Shift, then. You’ll heal quicker. We need to get back to the house before Pappas wakes up. We need to figure out what the hell is going on.”
He watched me, searching for what, I didn’t know. He nodded and took a step back. Moments later a large brown wolf stood before me. He whispered his songs in my head, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore them.
HE FOLLOWED me back to my truck, ever my shadow, even though we weren’t the same people anymore. He made a low chuffing sound as I opened the door, and I looked back in time to see him disappearing in the trees, heading toward the Bennett house.
