Page 52 of Wolf Tamer

“You’ve got my coffee ready and everything.”

I definitely put a stop to Reid coming up to the room with platters of eggs or bacon or sandwiches of every variety. Not that I don’t appreciate a man having a meal made for me, of course. This is a way for me to assert my independence without snubbing my nose up at Reid. Not to mention he’s had me sleeping in his room with him…

Yeah, I need a little breathing room.

So for the last week, eating with the youngest Holden brother has become my routine.

Once I finish my breakfast with Liam, I stand on the rear deck in the bracing—okay, downright frigid—autumn air. Thin clouds make their way lazily overhead, and even the sunlight seems chilled. Winter is coming, and I’ve never minded it much. All those snowy days are kind of an enforced downtime for me. The cold today, though… it’s a little much. As though the breeze is doing its utmost best to drill beneath my skin and frost the inside of my bones.

It must just be my imagination.

Inevitably, my mind cycles right back around to Reid, because if he were here with me, I wouldn’t need a jacket.

The future is open for sure, I think as I stare out across the equally frostbitten landscape. How much longer will I actually be here in the mansion?

Long enough that Reid has started to incorporate my own things from the motel room into our room.

He thinks he’s being sneaky, but I’ve seen things. Not like I’ve got a lot, but suddenly the wardrobe is filled with my clothes instead of the ones I’ve borrowed from Emily, and my favorite knives are on the bedside table.

Sneaky, right? The man can’t do sneaky. He’s too tall. And yet he somehow managed to get the jump on those witches.

And remembering it has the area around my heart melting.

Uh-oh. Bad. Refocus, readjust.

I push away from the edge of the deck and clear my throat like it will somehow help me focus on literally anything else.

Winter is around the corner, and I do most of my best jobs during this time of year. Except this year is completely different, and now I’m dealing with an alpha wolf who has me completely off guard.

Whatisit about him?

See? There I go again! Thinking about that man.

We have found a tenuous peace between us that I know won’t last, and for some reason, that has my stomach flipping and my hands clenching into fists before I know it.

Reid Holden is not the bloody alpha of the Redcliff Pack that I’d been led to believe, and no matter how often I try to remind myself that Edmund was his daddy dearest, and the moniker most certainly fit him, the sins of the father haven’t seemed to extend to the son.

There has also been quite a bit of negative feedback from the rest of the pack, if Julius is to be trusted. Which is definitely up in the air as far as I’m concerned.

I really haven’t thought about a way to make this work in the long run, and a part of me wonders if there even is a long run for people like us. He’s an alpha. I’m a mercenary. That’s the black and white of it. We each have our obligations and mine, if I set aside my job, is finding my sister. She’s the only family I have left, so what business do I have getting involved in any way with Reid?

None.

I push away from the deck and head back inside while Reid is busy with his alpha “business.” He won’t tell me what it means, and I’m a little too worried about other shit to ask him.

Which leaves me plenty of time…

Thinking about Carmen has me reconsidering the damn book of spells and what else lurks inside the binding. Reid has pretty much pretended it doesn’t exist since first showing it to me. He tossed it across the room, complaining about it being useless—no comments on my own failure, which I appreciate—and since that night, he hasn’t brought it up.

Not that he’s kept me from looking at it, per se. He just hopes that in not speaking about it I’ll somehow forget.

Well, this girl has a mind like a steel trap. I don’t forget shit.

Except my sanity around Reid, but that’s an entirely different matter.

Alone in the bedroom, I grab the spellbook from where Reid stashed it in the nightstand and crawl on the bed to sit cross-legged with the mound of pillows at my back. Immediately, his scent winds around me, digging beneath the skin in such a delicious manner that I want to rub myself all over the sheets.

Focus!I’ve never had a problem before. “The book, Tasha,” I say out loud, using the harsh syllables of my spoken warning to focus. “What about the book?”

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