Page 58 of Wolf Hunter

“Ugh!” She grunts, and suddenly, the air in front of me shimmers and moves.

Magic?

Has to be. A witch’s trick to catch me by surprise.

The coven again?

I hold my clawed hand back, ready to strike, but when Tasha stumbles into view, practically out of thin air, I’m left standing dumbfounded in the snow. One second I was alone and the next…

How is that even possible?

Mate.

The word is accompanied by a swell of passion, followed by the worst shame of my life.

“What the fuck just happened?” I ask her and drop my hand. With all those feelings, aggravation and annoyance are close to follow because I could’ve really hurt her.Killedher.

“How are you here?” The questions spill from me in a rush, my pulse a frantic thudding behind my ears. “Do you have any idea what I could’ve done? How did you even know—”

“I shouldn’t have come,” she cuts me off, her spine stiffening. “I’m sorry.”

Then, to my complete surprise, she spins and hurries to leave.

“Tasha! Wait!” I follow after her. “Wait, please!”

Oh man, I’ve fucked up. I don’t know how, but I fucked up.

I push my wolf down hard, feeling the keening wails of his disappointment in himself—in us. We almost killed our mate. My breath catches in my lungs, and when I catch up to her, I grab her arm to draw her to a stop.

I can’t help but wonder how long she’d been there watching me, somehow cloaked in magic to not be seen. I’ve never witnessed another witch do that before. I didn’t know they possessed such magic.

“I’m sorry, Tash. I didn’t know it was you.”

“It’s my fault,” she confesses but refuses to look up at me. Her gaze glides across the many headstones and her shoulders curl in. “I snuck up on you. I…” Conflict wars on her expression, and I’m not sure why. “I should go.”

“Wait, no.” I tug her closer to me. I had come out here to have a private moment, one to gather my thoughts and try to make sense of everything that’s happened recently. But now that Tasha’s here, being alone is the last thing I want to be. My wolf craves her presence. It’s a sense of relief I can’t sate any other way. “Stay with me? Just a little longer.”

She glances around nervously and crosses her arms over her chest. An obvious shiver runs over her, and I realize she’s come out here without a coat or anything to protect her from the frigid air. I close more of the distance between us, trying to block the biting wind with my body. Standing to my full height, I stare her down when I want to crumple.

Has she always looked so small? So delicate?

She peers up at my sheepishly. “I don’t really like cemeteries. Creeps me out.”

That takes me by surprised. “But you kill people for a living.”

“That’s different,” she huffs. “I don’t know what it is, but cemeteries have always reminded me of everything I’ve lost.”

“I know what you mean.”

Glancing over my shoulder at my mother’s plot, my chest aches. I wonder what she would think of Tasha and how my wolf’s taken to her—a witch. She’d probably not be too happy about the whole “trying to murder me” thing, but witch or not, my mother probably wouldn’t care.

My father, though… He’d see it as nothing less than full on betrayal.

And maybe it is. But someone needs to convince my animal of that because it’s obviously not listening to me about it.

Tasha blows out a breath and pushes a piece of hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”

She says so, but there’s still something heavy on her mind.

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