Page 25 of Wolf Hunter

What if my powers never come back and Reid keeps me trapped here? There are worse things than death. Slavery. Sex.

My stomach lurches at the thought of torture.

A dead me doesn’t stand a chance of getting Carmen back, but neither does a me with missing limbs and PTSD. I rub at my eyes long enough to get them blurry and then curse under my breath.

The bedroom lies quiet with the curtains open and sunlight sifting into the room. Beyond the glass, the rest of the world begins to wake. The sweet pre-morning light is deceptively peaceful.

“And another thing.” Reid suddenly storms into the room and shatters whatever peace I’d managed to find. Judging from his eyes, I see he has no plans to leave again soon. Rage shimmers in the depths, and I half wonder if he wants to show me his teeth.

An animal ready for a fight.

“What?” I snap, and breadcrumbs drop from the corner of my mouth down to my lap.

If it comes down to a battle, I can’t fight fairly with someone like him. I set the sandwich aside and lift from the chair, tense, legs wide and posture stiff. If I somehow manage to get past him, I might be able to use him to get myself through the door. Like a decoy. I’ll trick the magic using Reid’s body one way or another.

Seems like a safe bet.

“You’re a guest in this house,” he says with a finger pointing at me through the open air. “You should show a little bit more gratitude.”

“Guest?Gratitude?” Is he serious? “You want me to thank you for kidnapping me? Wow. Like you did with all those others?”

Wrong thing for me to say.

His anger with me grows by the second. “If I were any other man, you wouldn’t be here right now. I should have slit your throat the second I learned what you wanted to do to me.”

“Then why don’t you do it now?” I taunt. “Be the big man and take out your problem.”

“You really don’t think I will?”

I hold my arms out to my side. “There’s nothing stopping you. Kill me. You’ve got a better chance of walking on water than me thanking you for putting me up in this room.”

“Why do you want to kill me? I haven’t done anything to you.”

“Bullshit.”

Suddenly, his shoulders deflate and he rolls the stiff muscles in his neck, looking exhausted. “I don’t get it. Why are you constantly doing that?”

“What?”

“Rely on sarcasm rather than have an actual conversation with me.”

“I’m not in the habit of having a conversation with a dead man.”

He’s put the pieces together. Does he want a prize?

“So there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” he asks. “There’s nothing I can say to get you off this murder bit?”

“You deserve it.”

“You know what? I don’t need to know why,” he murmurs.

“Right,” I agree. “You don’t need to know.”

He isn’t satisfied. No, he’s got to play the big man, and since he’s still so close, he reaches out to grab me and wrap his arms around my waist. So warm. I resist the impulse to push my chest against him, focusing instead on the frustration bubbling beneath my skin.

“I don’t need to know. And I don’t care,” he whispers against my ear.

His lips graze my neck and send tingling warmth down to my fingertips.

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