Page 26 of Wolf Tamer

Or ever.

Now, however, Reid doesn’t try anything. He doesn’t push, even though I’m naked and he’s…mostlynaked. We simply sit together in the shower and enjoy the closeness, the company, under the soothing pulse of the hot water.

He must have a massive hot water heater, and a utility bill to go along with it.

“Are you ready for this?” he asks eventually.

At first, my mind goes immediately into the gutter, and my stomach flips. But once I realize he’s not talking about surprise sexy-time in the shower, and instead, is bringing up the public punishment I must endure, the butterflies spinning in my gut quickly turn to acid.

“Already?” I toss the comment out at him, catching a glimpse of massive shoulders and half a dozen long scratches across his chest and torso. Those are too deep to heal immediately, I realize with a start and instantly dive into a pool of guilt.

Well, shit.

He had focused all his attention on me after my near-death experience and had forgotten about his own wounds.

When I see Emily, if we ever manage to find her, I’ll rip her throat out myself with my bare hands. The pleasure willcertainlybe all mine. Emily staging a coup and trying to kill her alpha didn’t surprise me one bit because I’d always gotten a weird sense from her.

Not like I suspected she’d act on anything, but given her vile personality… And to think, Reid had me wearing her clothes! Fucking gross.

Crane, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. Because I hadn’t gotten any bad juju off him at all. So either he knew how to hide it well or my intuition has gone wonky, haywire, bad.

Probably the latter.

And the weird vibes I’ve gotten from the house don’t seem to fit with the attacks either. Because that one time I tried to escape, I got serious chills-up-the-spine bad feelings.

Back while Reid tried to help me find out what happened to my sister. Or rather, when I’d been trying to make my escape and he tackled me.

But it had felt like a presence. A malevolent energy permeating the walls of this house.

Which means we have that same problem now, and wealsohave the added the shit with the escapee, Emily, plus Mae, to deal with.

And my missing sister.

Things are really piling up.

No wonder I just want to stay in the shower for the rest of my life.

Reid finishes washing my shoulders and moves the bar of soap down to my hips, my waist, the back of my neck, my hair. He touches my wound there gingerly, and although it still aches, I bite down on my tongue.

No one has washed my hair before.

Not since I was a baby. But there’s Reid, swirling and scrubbing gently until the last of the ashes and blood disappear down the drain and I’m a new person.Ish.

“I want to stay here forever,” I admit, resting my head against the wall of the shower, but then realize he may take it wrong. “In the shower, that is.”

I can practically feel his scowl, spearing me through the back. “I wish we could.”

“But?” I fill in for him.

His hands still. “But the pack is expecting my explanation for your disappearance and mine. They’ll be expecting me to punish you for disobeying, like I would do to any of them for going against the rules here. There’s no way around it.”

“You’re still going on with this punishment kick?” I try to crack a joke, and Reid is not having it.

I know it has to be done. For his image, for the good of his people. If they don’t believe in him, then he loses more than just respect and standing.

He must have noticed the way I stiffen, and he lets out a deep groan. “Tash, you know—”

“There’s no need for you to sugarcoat this for me, reidy-poo,” I interrupt. “I understand what’s expected and why you need to get it done.” Wolf politics are strange things, and although I know next to nothing about them, I see no way out of this situation.

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