Page 55 of Unwilling Wolf

“Work you?” she asked, confused.

He sauntered over to her, all tall and dark and muscled up. He looked like a demigod she’d read about in a book once. Except Garret was real. He wasn’t some figment of her imagination or a fictional character. He was a real, flesh-and-bone, red-blooded werewolf. And he was her husband.

Her life was so strange now.

He smoothly picked up the stool and settled it behind her. “A woman learns a man, learns his buttons, learns what he wants to hear, and learns to manipulate him.”

“You seem to assume a lot about that. Lessons from Miss Jennings?” she asked coldly.

He gave a dark chuckle and reached for a wooden cup that sat next to the soap. His fingertips pressed gently on her shoulders, easing her forward, and then he reached around to her jaw and slowly tilted her face back. And then he scooped water with that cup and poured it down her hairline, careful not to let the streams of water drip into her eyes.

She closed them and sighed heavily, slipped into the feel of his fingertips gently caressing hair wash into a lather in her tresses.

“I never wanted Anna as a mate,” he said after awhile.

“A mate?”

“The human word is wife. For a wolf, it’s mate. A mate is bigger. A mate is a woman a male werewolf wants to bite.”

“That sounds terrifying.”

“It is. It hurts. It’s bloody and messy. It’s got to be a big bite to Turn a woman. Getting a wife is easy. You put a ring on a woman, you say some vows in front of a preacher. Sometimes you care what she thinks, and sometimes you don’t give a single damn what she thinks or feels, depending on how much of your head the wolf is taking over at the moment. But a mate? A mate is a woman chosen by both parts of a werewolf. He wants her to be strong like him. He wants her to be able to protect herself with teeth and claws when he is away. He wants to put babies in her. He would die if it meant she would live. Anna wasn’t that. Her father wanted to make a deal that I would force it. He wanted me to marry her and then Turn her, even if I didn’t want her like that. He knew if I made my wolf choose her as a mate, I would do anything for her. Jennings could be the puppet master, and he would have complete control.”

“Why would you ever consider it? I know she’s pretty, but why put your wolf at the mercy of that family?”

Garret poured water over her hair, washing out the suds as Eliza sat there quietly, arms around her knees.

“My head gets cloudy around that family.”

“Why?”

“Because they made me. The wolf…he gets confused. The man in me wants to kill them, and the wolf in me wants to protect them.”

Eliza shook her head. “I hate them.”

“Yeah, well, the feeling’s probably mutual. They probably hate you too. You are a broken spoke on a wheel that was headed toward exactly what they wanted. You stopped their plans.”

“Good. You shouldn’t be a part of anyone’s plans but your own.”

“Mmm,” he said. “There you go again, working me.”

“You think I’m just saying the things you want to hear?”

“I know you are.”

“You don’t know fuck,” she said lightly.

“Chhh, you shouldn’t speak like that. You’re a lady.”

“You told the woman at the store I was rich.”

“You are.”

“I gave you every penny I have to my name for this ranch. I’m only as rich as we are.”

“You could go back to Boston tomorrow and have a fancy home, limitless food, and unending options. You could find a husband—”

“I have a husband—”

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