Page 40 of The Broken Wolf's Redemption

She had to fight for him. Fight for him not to go, but all she could get out was, “Please.”

“We’ll be fine. Back in a few hours. I’ll take Waverly to see that sunrise, like my sister suggested. You can come with us. She’ll think it was part of the plan, to come here and get you.”

“Jesus Christ—”

“Is full of opinions that I’ve never overly been very much interested in. Plus, I’ve heard he’ll forgive me anyway, in the end, so I’m not too worried.”

She wasn’t going to let him rattle her with his purposefully shocking blasphemy. She wasn’t even religious, and it was still offensive. “Then listen to my opinion. Waverly needs you. That’s not negotiable.”

He laughed harshly. “What she needs is stability. Goodness. A family. A pack.”

The urge to reach for him was so strong she balled her hands in her shirt. “You’re talking like you’re going there to get yourself killed. You’re not allowed to do that. We have a contract. Who will I owe my soul to if you’re not around?”

“It’s in my top desk drawer. It was only ever between you and me. You’re free to go.”

It was everything she wanted, but not like this. Not at this price. Her heart started to hammer so loudly it overtook every other sound in the room.

“I refuse.” She needed to stay calm. Rome needed her strong right now, not on her knees “I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t pay off a debt. I gave my word. You had best be around to let me make good on it.”

“Careful. It sounds dangerously like you care.” His mocking smile peeled off gleaming white teeth, but there was a note in his voice that had never been there before.

“I absolutely care!”

He wasn’t expecting that. A small light flickered on in his eyes, but it was enough to throw him and the rest of the room into shadow in comparison. What would it be like for those eyes to come truly alive? For them to look at her protectively, with want and need, with emotion that drove it and echoed it in his soul? What would those eyes look like brimming with life and love instead of the resolute acceptance that he was already lost, already damned, already dead, so the things he did didn’t truly matter?

“For Waverly,” she said thickly. “I’ve met your family. They all love you and would be devastated.”

“I went down to Arizona and personally executed one of the nastiest wolves I have ever met, not to mention an entire group of Rangers. I’m not worried about this.”

Why did he kill those Rangers? He’d said it was because they took something that belonged to him, but what was it? It was a shock, how he stood there so calmly, admitting to terrible sins like that. Casually, not proudly, like it had to be done and he’d done it. It did more than shock her now. It broke her in half.

She hurt for him. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who enjoyed killing and violence. It was like it was obligatory like this. He was going to help his brother. The Arizona thing happened because that wolf threatened his family and his pack. He was already out of it, but he’d risked his own life to save theirs. He was like a vigilante, handing out justice where it was needed, but that wasn’t excusable.

“You could get shot or stabbed or—”

“That all heals.”

He was so calm it was maddening. So cruelly handsome it was a perpetual douse of cold water. He was resolute above all. She wasn’t going to change his mind. He wouldn’t stay for Waverly, and he wouldn’t stay because she asked him to.

Of course. She meant nothing to him, and he meant nothing to her. That was all there was. She had zero right to feel so enraged that every muscle in her body tensed and her heart threatened to implode because it beat to such a wicked drumming.

“Have fun with your gore and carnage and violence,” she snapped. “Vampires might drink blood, but I’ve never met anyone who craved it as badly as you do. You seem to need it to survive.”

Rome’s hand shot out. He broke his own rule again, but they weren’t under contract at the moment, so maybe it didn’t count. His fingers wrapped around her throat. He could have squeezed the life out of her easily. Broken her neck with a single twist. She was so much smaller than him. Weaker. The fact that her nipples pebbled under her t-shirt and her leggings got wet said that her brain was again way the hell off, sending her the faultiest of signals.

Her nostrils flared and she stared up at him defiantly, tilting her chin up and leaning back so his fingers tightened. He held her like that, too hard and too near. She breathed too hard, drinking in the masculine spice of him. He smelled like fresh laundry, like he’d put on clean black clothes to go out and commit foul murder, and that made her want to laugh in an unhinged way.

She’d signed a contract for her body, but she was losing her fucking mind because of this man.

The pressure increased, cutting off her air. All she could do was stare up into his face, into those black eyes that refused to glitter or glint. The light was gone. There was only dark, shadow, night. The far depths of all the realms of torture and despair.

“I don’t belong to you,” he growled. “I don’t have to answer to you. I’m the least fit person for Waverly. Better that she go to my family. You once said so yourself.”

He released her without honestly doing any damage. She wasn’t gasping or choking. She was breathless for entirely different reasons. “Don’t you dare throw that back at me!”

He shrugged. The arrogant fucking bastard. She heated how she wanted to fly at him and beat him with ineffectual fists. She wanted to shift and take him down, to bite him and make him bleed just to make him feel. She hated how at the same time she wanted to put her arms around him and hold him, plead with him, get him to see that he wasn’t beyond redemption if only he’d stop. She’d touch him and she’d make him touch her. She’d forcehim to endure the same flames that licked up her body and made her irrational and useless.

“I’m leaving. I’ll be back in a few hours. If I’m not here by seven, you know the way to Brooke’s, but just in case, I’ve left my family’s contact numbers in there.” He pointed at the coffee table.

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