Page 39 of Rejected Wolf Mate

We stayed like that for a while, neither of us moving, neither of us saying anything. It was as though we were both waiting for something to drop, both waiting for the other to make the first move that never came.

“Are you going to attack me?” he asked. “Because if what Rand says is true, I don’t know why you haven’t already.”

“Stay back,” I ordered, even though I knew my only way of backing up my threat was the thin blade of steel clutched in my hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I swear to god, if you come a step closer, I won’t hold back. Let me go. I have other things I have to deal with.”

He stayed where he was. “I like to think I’m pretty smart,” he said, eyes still flicking between my hand and my face. “And I don’t think you would randomly come out and tell Rand the truth out of guilt. I think it’s more likely that you would leave in the middle of the night, maybe leaving a note so we know what’s happening. So either the whole thing is an incredible ploy by the Gray Wolf to throw us off our game, or you needed to tell him. Otherwise, you could have just run off without saying anything.”

He waited, arms folded, as I stared at him. I glanced around, sniffing the air to smell any of the other Silver Wolves. But it was just him.

“Tell me the truth, and I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I think there’s more going on than meets the eye, and I want to know what it is. I don’t like making rash decisions when I know I don’t have all the facts.” His lip quirked upward. “Unlike a certain other shifter we could name.”

The quip caught me so off-guard that I actually gave a soft snort and lowered the knife.

“It’s my sister, Thea,” I said. “They kidnapped her and are now holding her, saying they’ll kill her if I don’t help. I tried explaining all that to Rand, but he was too angry to listen. He just assumed it was all a trick.”

“Can you blame him?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “But I didn’t want to kill him or let any of the rest of you die, either. So I told him because I thought he would help.”

Tannen’s jaw clenched as he chewed over my words, looking me up and down as he tried to figure out if I was lying. I waited, my stomach a pretzel as I wondered how he would react. He hadn’t tackled me or tried to attack, so there was at least still some hope.

“Don’t get me wrong, but how am I supposed to trust you?” he asked eventually.

I gritted my teeth. Were all the Silver Wolves this stubborn?

“If I really wanted you or Rand or any of the others dead, do you think I would have told Rand any of it? Don’t you think it would have been a hell of a lot easier for me to just kill him after we had sex?”

His eyebrows shot up. So Rand hadn’t told them everything, then. “I was wondering about that,” he admitted. “I had a feeling.”

“If you come a step closer, I won’t hold back,” I said. “I took a massive gamble. It failed. Now my sister is in danger because of me. She’s going to die unless I do something. So believe me when I say that the only way you’re bringing me back to Brixton before I’ve helped my sister is in a body bag.”

Tannen regarded me with an intelligent, studious look. “There’s going to be hell to pay if they find out I found you and let you go,” he remarked.

“Right now, I’m pretty sure you have bigger fish to fry,” I retorted. “Specifically, the fact that Brixton is about to be run over by a bunch of apparently murderous shifters bent on killing all the Silver Wolves so you won’t be a threat when they go after the council.”

He drummed his fingers on the side of his leg. “Tell me what you know,” he said, “and I’ll make my decision on whether to bring you back after.”

It was as good a conciliation as I was likely to get. I lowered the knife, trying to make myself as unthreatening as possible.

“The attack’s tomorrow night,” I said. “There will probably be about twenty of them. Ansel mentioned midnight, but there’s a chance he’ll move earlier if he sees an opportunity or if he thinks I’ve been compromised.”

“Do you think he knows what happened?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” I said. “The guy has spies all over the place. That’s why I have to go now. Every minute I waste here is another minute when they could kill Thea.”

He scratched his chin, frowning at me. “And I’m just supposed to take your word on all this?”

I clenched my teeth to avoid screaming in frustration. “We could do this song and dance for a month. Either trust me, or don’t.”

Tannen stayed silent, as if he was still debating. This time, the quiet and stillness was too much for me.

“It’s my fault,” I choked out. “Thea said she thought something was off about that group years ago, but I needed the money. If I’d just listened to her back then, none of this would have happened.”

Tannen listened, nodding. I couldn’t tell if he believed a word of what I was saying or thought I was full of shit and was preparing to grab me when he thought he had a good shot.

“Do you realize how much faith I’d be putting in you if I just waltzed away right now?” he asked. “Because it would be a lot.”

“I know,” I said. “But please, take my word for it.”

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