Page 15 of Mated in Darkness

I swallowed hard and looked at the others.

“Let’s talk to our Alphas,” Rio whispered, and Kaylee cursed.

“You let him cut open your wolves? What secrets are you letting him know?”

“I’m not like that. I’m not a monster.”

She met my gaze and growled. “I never said you were, but I’ve met the monsters. I know what they do. I’ve seen their depravities. You don’t smell of darkness and sickness, but I don’t know you. So why don’t you take a fucking step back and let me think? Because you are not touching this man. You’re not touching my Pack.”

“I need to see what killed him. I want answers. For all of us. I promise I will treat him with the respect and kindness that is owed to him. I promise you I’m not going to hurt him any more than he already was. Whoever’s doing this is hurting my friends as well. I promise you I don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize the treaties with your Pack or harm him at all.”

“He’s helping us figure out who is bringing on the black death.”

“You already have a name for it?” she asked, her voice ice.

“No, that’s the problem. We don’t know what’s going on. I’m not going to disgrace your wolf. I’m not going to learn your secrets. I promise you. I want to protect this Pack, and I want to make sure no one else gets hurt.”

“I need to talk to my Alpha,” she growled as she stared at me.

“We all will talk to our Alphas,” Dane put in. “Jason is a friend of a Pack. He’s a good man.”

“And I don’t know who he is,” she whispered.

“You will,” I promised, wondering why the hell I said that.

Both Rio and Dane gave me odd looks, but Kaylee just tilted her head, and a small smile played on her lips, but it didn’t meet her eyes.

“Perhaps.”

“But first, you’re going to tell me exactly what the fuck is going on before I rip your throat out.”

And even though I knew the warning was all truth, and the other wolves might try to stop her but wouldn’t be able to, I couldn’t help but wonder who the hell this woman was and why her strength turned me on.

And when I had turned into the lunatic I was becoming.

Chapter 7

Jason

I couldn’t stop lookingat Kaylee Jamenson. There was no one like her. The fact that we were about to look at a dead body told me I shouldn’t keep staring at her, but I wasn’t able to stop. She’d glare at me, Rio and Dane would give me an odd look, but then I’d ignore them all and keep my gaze on her.

There was something genuinely wrong with me, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about it.

“You’re not Pack, but you work for them?” Kaylee asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I shook my head, doing my best not to stare. There’s something wrong with me. We’d moved to my lab after we’d been introduced, and I still felt off. “I work with them sometimes, but my company doesn’t work for the Pack. If that makes sense.”

She studied me in that wolf way of hers, her gaze piercing, the gold showing slightly around her irises, as if her wolf was watching me too. Her head was tilted, her long hair falling over her shoulder. I wanted to reach out and touch that hair, to wrap it around my fist, to discover what it felt like.

Maybe I needed more sleep, or a fucking shower, since I was still covered in the other man’s blood.

I swallowed hard, bile rising.

She looked at me then, reached forward, and grabbed my arm. “What’s wrong?”

I froze, staring at her. “Why would you think something’s wrong?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice steady.

“You just looked pained. Is there something I need to know?”

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