Page 59 of Wolf Hunter

All I do is wait silently, staring at her, until her inner timer to counts down and the bomb goes off. As expected, it doesn’t take long.

“Well, yes!” She finally throws her arms all the way up in the air. “If you’re going to go for it, then you can’t hold back. You’ve got to strike. Play dirty.”

“If I was a smart man,” I continue with a cocked brow, “…I’d think you were here to try and kill me again.”

A small smile creeps across her lips. “You’re still alive so maybe you’re not as smart as you think.”

“Maybe not.”

Being so close to her is fogging my thoughts. I can feel her nearness, her presence in my blood. My bones.

Everything inside me leans toward her, waiting to see if she’ll actually do it—kill me—and put me out of my misery, or if she’ll admit that there’s something else going on here between us.

I need to know if she feels even a shade of what I feel for her, what my wolf recognized before I did. Does she feel the pull of mates? Or is she too stubborn to allow herself to recognize it? Like I want to be.

She surprises me by sighing and stomping her feet. Her boots beat down the snow, and tiny flakes surge up into the air around her with her mini tantrum. As she runs her fingers through her hair, exasperated, I realize it may not be me she’s frustrated with, but herself.

She paces away from me and throws her hands in the air. “You’re infuriating! I hateeverythingabout you! I’ve hated your kind for years!”

Okay, that stings a little. Definitely not what I want to hear from the woman who’s supposed to be my fated mate.

She growls and points her finger at me accusingly. “I don’t get it and it’s driving me insane. I’ve never wanted to kill and kiss someone so much in my life. You’re supposed to be a monster, like your father. A ruthless killing machine. But then you do things like this—come to a cemetery to visit…” She glances around me to my parents’ headstones. “Your mother?”

I nod. So she had been watching me for some time.

“Then I’m thrown for a loop every time,” she continues. Her body buzzes with her aggravation, and it may be my imagination, but I swear her eyes are glistening with impending tears.

“What kills me even more is that you’re alone,” Tasha says, stumbling over her words. “Even as their Alpha, even surrounded by your pack, you’re alone. Like me. And you can’t let anyone see your truths.”

Without thinking, I step up and take her in my arms, stilling her movement and capturing her lips with mine. She tastes like a perfect mixture of spice and sweetness. Of destruction and peace, and everything forbidden but that I crave.

I have to make this real. I have to show her.

Tasha lets me hold her and kiss her, her lips parting to let my tongue slip inside. Moaning, her arms slide up my back and she presses fully against me. Despite our size difference, her lithe body seems to fit perfectly with mine, and my heart beats faster.

Right there, with the frozen wasteland around us and the songs of the dead echoing on the wind, I want to make our lie something honest. The others are right when they tell me a witch and a wolf cannot be mates.

It’s never been done.

Is that going to stop me from trying?

“Come back to the house with me,” I mutter against her mouth. “Come back and stay with me tonight. Be with me. Please.”

Tasha tenses.

In this place, with my mother’s grave at my back, I know I want to be with Tasha in whatever way she’ll have me. And maybe I’m a fool for thinking she feels the same way, but my wolf can scent her need, her arousal, after the kiss. It wants me to take a chance.

“Please don’t tell me this is a terrible idea,” I say quickly. “I already know. Iknow.But I can’t stop feeling like this—us—we’remeant to be together.”

Pulling back slightly, I search her face and find things I had expected and didn’t expect in her eyes. Like shock and disbelief, but there’s guilt and anticipation there too.

“Reid…” The conflict in her tone is a knife to my heart. “I…I can’t.”

“Tell me you hate me then,” I say.

Her eyes widen in confusion. “Wait, what?”

“Tell me you hate me and you want me dead, if you do. I need to hear you say it from your lips, and then I’ll know my wolf is out of its damn mind and I can back off.”

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