Page 12 of Tucker's Strike

Karsyn giggles. Corbin smirks. Tucker chuckles.

“I don’t know what’s so funny,” I mutter, leaning back in my seat.

“She’s glaring because she and the others have lost yet another brethren of the club,” Karsyn explains, but I don’t know what she means.

Tucker leans in, tucks my hair behind my ear, and whispers, “She’s a clubwhore, and they don’t like it when one of us finds our mate or decides it’s time to choose one and it’s not them.”

I find it hard to keep my body in check just from him speaking into my ear. Ever so slowly, I twist in my chair to face him and narrow my eyes to tiny little slits. “I keep telling you I’m not your mate. That woman has no reason to look at me because of something as petty as her or anyone else not getting their way. Take this as a warning, keep calling me your mate, and I’m going to hurt you. If she looks at me like that again, I’ll rip her hair out.”

Okay, so maybe she is overexaggerating when it comes to him. I know he’s not lying about me being his mate. I saw the tiger in his eyes. His tiger is always close. It is almost as if the two live together in one body and share life as one.

“I like her.” Another man laughs, and two others chuckle as they all come to join the table.

Tucker cocks a brow, shakes his head, and grins.

“Let’s get back on track here,” Corbin states, shifting a bit in his seat, not in a nervous way or even a worried one. He takes on the cool and calm approach of his movement, taking Karsyn with him.

With the way he focuses solely on me, I get the inkling feeling that he wants to get back on track. He wants to know who is after me.

“I don’t know who’s after me,” I blurt, getting right to it before he can ask.

“How is that possible?” Justice demands, his voice harsh and vibrating with . . . I don’t even know what.

It’s all so . . . so . . . confusing.

“I’ve always left when I felt like it was closing in on me. The one time I didn’t . . .” I trail off, shaking my head. I don’t even want to think about it.

That had been when I was thirteen, and I found myself alone. My family gone.No bodies.No blood.Nothing. It was like their very existence was wiped from the earth altogether.

“So, you’re telling me that anytime you’ve felt a bad vibe, you’ve up and left?” Corbin asks, not hiding his suspension.

“Prez,” Tucker speaks up. “You’d be able to smell the lie on her if she were.”

“All I smell is sweetness. Like sugar,” another of Tucker’s brothers states.

“That’s because she’s Fae,” Karsyn announces.

“I’m not,” I protest. Everyone keeps calling me something I’m not, and I’m getting tired of it.

Getting to my feet, I look at Tucker. “I’m tired and need to be alone right now. Which way is your room?”Tucker starts to stand, but I sidestep the chair I’d been sitting in, shaking my head. “I want to be alone. Just tell me where to go.”

Tucker stares closely. The way he does it, I don’t know whether to like it because it affects me so or hate it due to thereasons for it. He’s reading me like he knows me. He doesn’t. None of these people do.

At this point, I don’t even think I know myself.

Finally, Tucker stretches an arm out, pointing to a hall. “Fourth door on the right.”

Chapter Eight

Tucker

“Your mate is a fairy,” Justice mutters the moment Lake steps into my room.

No one spoke as she left the table. No one said a word until she was securely behind doors.

“Half fairy,” I tell him. Her mother was human. I glance around the table until I meet Abel’s gaze. “Her mother’s mate was Callum Wildthorn.”

“You’re joking.” Abel looks as shocked as I felt when she told me her last name.

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