Page 60 of Wolf Tamer

“I don’tknowyour sister!” This dance between us has to end, because I’m way too fucking tired to keep it up. One wrong move and I’m dead. “Never met her before. I’m telling you the truth.”

“Did you touch her the way you touch me?”

She’s lost her damn mind.

I step out of the way before she can slam the knife directly through my heart. “Never. You are the only one.”

“Asshole! Lying asshole.”

I cock my head to the side as we circle each other, contemplating her next move just as much as mine.

Her anger flickers over her face as she steps forward and jabs the knife toward my midsection. My breath rips out of me as I dance away just in the nick of time. I slam a hand at her chest to knock her off balance, and she staggers back a step. I blink.

“Shit, Tash, I’m so—”

She snarls and her face shifts to icy calm. “About fucking time,” she hisses. “Fight me!”

Then she kicks me in my hip, hard enough to nearly break my bone. She moves to shove me again, but I somehow manage to duck and roll.

She storms after me, slashing the knife in midair.

I can’t turn myself inside out for her, and I’m not sure if this will prove it or not. We move in circles around each other. Neither of us is the victor. Time somehow slows around us.

I see her, even in the shadows of the room, until she appears to step just out of reach and I pounce, reaching for her, hoping to knock that knife out of her hand—

And somehow I drop hard onto my back.

She pounces on me with her teeth bare and the knife at my throat, ready to slice and dice. She’s breathing hard, panting, driving the blade against my skin with a hoarse laugh. I catch her around the wrists in time to keep from dying on the spot and tighten my hold hard enough to feel the way her tendons bunch. It takes all my strength to hold her at bay, and at this point, we don’t move.

Stalemate.

“Don’t ever lie to me.” She tries to push the blade deeper yet.

My entire focus goes into keeping her still, even as the point of the knife becomes a tiny point of agony.

“I’m not lying,” I insist. “Why are you acting this way?”

“Because you’ve used me as a pawn. I’m nothing but a piece to move on your board, and I’m done working for you and getting nothing out of it. I’m done. Do you understand me? A contract might have brought me into your life, but we agreed to do this together, and now I come to find out that you’re keeping secrets from me.”

I wonder if she’d feel this strongly if the name in the book had been any other that she recognized instead of her sister.

Probably.

Maybe.

“I would never use you that way. I love you, Tasha. I love you.”

But that only seems to anger her more. “How-How dare you! Don’t fucking say that to me!”

“I’m not lying when I tell you that. I love you, Tasha. You’re my mate. I would never hurt you like that. Never. I’d rather die.”

At that statement, she stops, stunned. Her eyes go wide, and I have to be the only one to realize that she’s on top of me, our bodies flush and close. The heat inside me shifts lower in a clear demand to actually claim my mate as my own. Not just her body but her heart as well.

“Did you hear me? I said I love you,” I repeat. “And I don’t know what happened to your sister. I swear it on my life.”

Pain reflects in her gaze, her eyes shining with pending tears. Her hand that still clutches the weapon shakes in her grasp. “You’re lying…” Even her voice is ladened with agony, and my heart clenches at the sound of it. “How am I able to trust anything you say? I saw her name, Reid. Carmen’s. In the book. It belonged to her. You must know where she is.”

“Dozens of witches passed through this territory. I never had a need to get to know them, not until you came into my life. To me, she was just another—” I stop abruptly when I realize I’m only making things worse. I regret the words the second they leave my mouth.

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