Page 67 of Wolf Tamer

“Why did you run?” he asks me, and the suddenness of the question takes me off guard. “Am I really so horrible that you’ll believe such terrible things about me? Tell me. I deserve to know. I thought we were in a good place. What do you need me to do to convince you—”

I shake my head. “That’s the worst part, Reid. You’re not horrible at all. You’re actually…”Good?Kind?Amazing? “That’s why I felt so betrayed. I saw Carmen’s name on that book, the book you handed me, and I flipped. I lost it.” I lift my arms into the air before letting them drop, thudding heavily against me. There’s nothing I can say, and I have a feeling it will be hard for me to listen to him, too.

“As I told you before, I don’t know your sister. I’ve never met her, and I certainly haven’t touched her.” He seems to hold himself back from closing the distance between us. “If you refuse to accept this, then do it. Finish what we started and kill me now. It will solve your problems, won’t it?”

He’s testing me now and my loyalty. I know it.

But killing him won’t solve anything. Not really. I can see that now. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just listen to me. If your sister really owned that book, then she must have had some connection to my father that we haven’t discovered yet. Because that’s where I found the thing. Okay?” He pauses. “Maybe we can try to figure it out together, if you promise not to kill me.”

I shudder. “I’m not sure I can go back in that house.”

“Why?”

This choice I’m about to make feels huge. I’m drowning in my thoughts and emotions, and the next word I speak out loud will make or break whatever relationship we have going forward.

I’m just so tired.

I can’t make sense of anything anymore.

And I want Reid to be that one constant, the person I can lean on without worrying about whether he will be there.

“What’s going on?” he presses. “You’re hiding something from me.”

“I do want to clear the air.”

His frown deepens. “Then fucking do it because I’m exhausted. And my raging headache is making it harder to want to stand around in the woods talking in circles right now.”

“Your brother was the one who pulled me off you,” I start.

“Liam?”

“Guess again.”

Reid’s eyes narrow as I hurry through the rest of what happened, with Julius and the portal. Although I keep the whole part about seeing Emily’s face a second before the thing winked out of existence to myself for the time being.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions again, but I think Julius is in on it,” I say. “He was there in the hallway when they tried to get in, and when we put that together with the note you found in his room, he might be deeper into this whole thing than we first thought.”

At least, that’s my conclusion. I have no idea whether Reid will agree with me or not.

When I finally manage to lift my gaze to meet his, he’s still staring at me, only now I see a brief glimpse of the Reid from before. The one who told me he loves me.

Remembering it now has my insides shaking.

He loves me… and I’m accusing his brother. Of what, I’m not sure, but there’s some duplicitous shit going on, and I’m not inclined to trust anyone.

Not even…

I stand in front of Reid with my fingers twisting in knots around each other, trying to figure out where we go from here. I shiver under the bite of the wind now that the adrenaline has left my body, and Reid takes one look at me and steps forward—a single great stride that brings him within touching distance, and at once his arms are around me, drawing me into the safety of his embrace.

Safety, I finally realize.

That’s how I feel around him.

Safe.

Well, shit. I know what that means for me, and it’s nothing good.

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