Page 14 of Wed Or Dead

Kayla dug her nails into his back, and he almost shuddered. Did she know he liked that?

Later.

Billy shook his head. “No.”

“Good,” Gage all but purred the words. “Now go stand guard.”Because company will be coming.Soon.

Davis dogged Gage’s steps as he made for the cabin. Kayla was yelling now, at the top of her very powerful lungs. Yells wouldn’t do her any good. The ones close enough to hear her weren’t exactly the helping sort.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Davis’s voice was low. “Maybe you should just kill her and dump her?—”

Gage knew his lethal gaze had stopped the tumble of his enforcer’s words. Davis had always been too quick to kill. Gage had recognized that weakness, but he’d still taken the shifter into the pack. He’d needed Davis’s strength, and he’d thought that the pack bond might temper the beast’s savagery.

Maybe I thought wrong.

Kayla stopped struggling. Even over her own screams, she would have heard Davis’s dark words. Figured.

“I’m not done with her yet,” Gage said, and that was all that he’d say to the enforcer. “Now guard the fucking perimeter and make sure we don’t have any uninvited guests.”

A muscle jerked in Davis’s jaw, but he didn’t argue. Good. Gage took Kayla up the cabin steps and inside. He kicked the door closed and dropped her on the floor. Not too hard, but, shehadpulled a knife on him.

Drop.Her sweet ass slammed into the old, hard wood.

“This makes two times,wife,” he said deliberately as he leaned his shoulders back against the doorframe, “that I’ve carried you over the threshold.”

She shoved the hair out of her eyes. Oh, yes, those golden eyes blazed with fury. “I’m not a sack of fucking potatoes!”

No, she wasn’t. He didn’t want to fuck potatoes.

Kayla leapt to her feet. “Iprotectedyou! Dumbass wolf! I. Protected. You!”

The anger in his own gut burned. Gage lunged forward and made sure he towered over her. “You set me up.”

“I—” Kayla snapped her lips closed then gave a curt nod. “Fine, I did.”

He blinked at the easy admission. He hadn’t quite been expecting things to move so fast.

“But…” Her chin tipped up. Every time she did that, he wanted to kiss her right on that stubborn, sexy chin. “But I didn’t go for your heart when I had the chance.”

Didn’t she? Why the hell did she think they were in this mess? “I saw the knife. Most wives don’t exactly go around bringing silver knives into bed with them.”

Her arms crossed over her chest. Did she huff? Sounded like it, and then she said, “I’m not most wives.”

No, she wasn’t. Gage stepped away from her and paced around the room. The place was pretty bare as far as furniture was concerned. An old, sagging bed. A wooden table. Two chairs. A dark brown refrigerator that hummed.

The cabin wasn’t a place of comforts. He used this area for only one reason—interrogation.

It was the perfect place to learn the truth from his enemies. And the desert was perfect for making unwanted bodies disappear.

He’d buried his share of enemies out there. Vegas could be vicious. Only the strong survived. The weak? They fed the animals in the desert.

He circled around her and headed toward the fridge. Gage grabbed a small bottle of water and drained it in just a few gulps.

The wooden floor creaked beneath Kayla’s feet. “So you really knew who I was, the whole time?”

He sat the bottle aside and turned back to her. “Yeah, I did.”

Her chin was still up, but he saw the move for the defense that it was more than anything else. “Then why marry me?” Kayla asked.

---