Page 77 of Wolf Hunter

She deserves to die.

“He’s not dead.”

Her body vibrates as her anger grows. “So you didn’t kill him?”

“I didn’t kill Reid.”

I close my eyes, and the images begin to swim in my vision. The way Reid stood in the snow surrounded by his family’s graves. How he nuzzled against me once he realized who I was, his heart calling to me in a way I couldn’t ignore. How we moved against each other instinctively.

“Reid is alive,” I say.

At this moment, I want to kill the entire coven, even if it means leaving the wolves without a magic source.

The moment the truth airs, pain crashes through my skull so intense I swallow a scream.Punishment.Punishment for all the happy memories I made.

“Tasha, tell us why you didn’t kill the alpha.” Mae’s voice reaches me through the agony. “You seemed ready to take him out the last time we spoke. A personal vendetta. A warranted retaliation.”

She doesn’t deserve my truth. None of them deserve to know. No matter how hard I grind my teeth, no matter how I set my jaw and struggle against their magic, it’s no use.

“Do you have feelings for the wolf?” Mae presses. She tuts like this is a mild inconvenience for her, and she has so many other, better, things to do. She moves to look down into my eyes, and although the urge to spit in her face is keen, I don’t have the willpower to follow through.

Fuck her and the broom she rode in on.

“Yes.” The word comes out in a rushed garble.

“Is that why you were unable to kill him?”

It takes a great deal of effort, but I clamp my mouth shut. At least for a second.

Mae’s growing impatient. “Tasha, you will tell us! Is this why you didn’t kill him? Because you care for him?”

My lips rip open and the answer flies from them without my doing. “Yes!”

Oh my god. What am I saying?

The psychotic witch barely even flinches, but her eyes darken as she reaches out to brush a stray lock of hair away from my face. “Yes, what?”

Her voice sounds like a ringing bell in my ears.

“Yes…” I pant as the pain slowly subsides. My thoughts muddle together, but I know one thing. “I’m… I’m falling in love with him.”

The reveal rocks through the room. It shocks me because I never expected to hear myself say those things. I wasn’t sure I felt them in the first place—

But they have to be true, because I’m physically unable to lie, even to myself.

ChapterTwenty-Two

Reid

Isit in the kitchen alone, remembering the day Tasha sat on the countertop with me. I have to admit: I miss her. I never took the opportunity to tell her, but the house feels less full without her here.

Certainly less alive.

Maybe there is a point to everything we’ve been through, seeing as the strange assassin I was stupid enough to let live turned out to be my mate. I could practically hear my brothers giving me shit for it. I’d sworn, mostly to myself, that I’d never take a mate, because no one should have to deal with my family. Most specifically, my father.

No one should ever have to live in constant worry about whether they’d live to see the sun rise.

And look at me now.

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