Page 27 of Rejected Wolf Mate

“You scared me,” she said.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I walked toward her and glanced at the pages she had been studying. It was the notes I had taken about the Gray Wolf over the last couple of meetings.

I looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. For a moment, the briefest flicker of suspicion washed over me. I remembered Tannen’s warning about how strange it was that Astrid had arrived when she did.

“I…” She glanced at the notes, then sighed, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “Okay, so I might not have been entirely honest when I told you I didn’t know you were here.”

I frowned, studying her, an uncomfortable suspicion crawling up my back. “What haven’t you been honest about?” I finally asked.

She licked her lips, eyes darting around the room. Finally, she forced herself to make eye contact. “When they started asking me questions about you and mentioned the Silver Wolves, I kind of figured out that you had joined,” she said. “So when I broke out, I figured out where the Silver Wolves settled down and came here. I figured you guys would be in the best position to help.” She made a face. “I was kind of hoping they were wrong and you wouldn’t be here, but I knew where I was heading.”

I blinked, taken aback. Out of any of the things she could have confessed to, that hadn’t been it. I never would have imagined Astrid coming here willingly if she’d known.

“Does that mean the rest of the info you told us was wrong?” I asked. “We’ve been going off it to look for their hideout.”

She shook her head. “It’s still correct,” she said.

“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why the sneaking around and looking at the notes?”

“Because those assholes kidnapped me and I wanted to know what you found out,” she said. “I was hoping that I might learn something. I don’t like being kept in the dark. And I knew you weren’t going to tell me everything even if I asked.”

I heard the panicked edge in her voice, and the puzzle pieces clicked into place. She was afraid of them coming back.

I exhaled through my nose, then gently took her wrist and pulled her toward me. “I understand you’re freaked out,” I said, “but we’ve got it handled. You’re safe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“What have you figured out?” she asked, taking a step back and extracting herself from my arms. “Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t seem like it’s much.”

“We’re working on it,” I promised.

She folded her arms, looking up at me with defiance that was far more attractive than it had any right to be. Her eyes sparked with a fire that made me want to pin her against the wall right then and there. God, I had forgotten the pull this woman had over me.

“I don’t like being kept in the dark,” she repeated.

“Right now, you’re as safe as you can be,” I said. “Keeping you here and hidden is going to be the best play for everyone involved. That way, they won’t try to get to you again.”

“Telling me the truth and keeping me informed is the best way to keep me safe,” she argued.

I gritted my teeth, mind swimming as I tried to figure out what to say to her. “The information we’ve got at the moment isn’t great,” I admitted. “It’s pretty muddled, and what we have learned for certain isn’t particularly comforting. I know you’ve already been through a lot. I don’t want to stress you out or put you through more than you already have.”

She glowered. I saw the fire burning behind her eyes, the way her shoulders stiffened the way they always did when she was gearing up for a big fight.

“I’m a big girl,” she said. “I can handle it, and you know it.”

I mulled it over. She’d been through a lot already. I wanted to protect her, to shelter her from all the bad things about the Gray Wolf, because it wasn’t all pretty. Except I knew she could handle it. She’d proven it. And after everything, the least I could do was keep her informed.

“You’re right,” I finally said. “If you really want to know what’s going on, then I’ll give you everything we have.”

She froze, her mouth parting in surprise. She unfolded her arms as she regarded me with something that was either suspicion or shock. The coiled tension in her body began to dissipate.

“You’re going to tell me?” she asked.

“If you really want to know. Just know that you might not like it.”

She shrugged, leaning against my desk, waiting.

“What we’ve got so far isn’t much,” I said. “But everything we’ve learned points to the Gray Wolf planning something big. Only, we’re not sure exactly what. We’re trying to figure out if he’s more the ‘take over the world’ type of guy or ‘rob every bank in the States’ type of guy.”

“Which do you think is more likely?” she asked.

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