Page 23 of Ranger's Justice

He’s lying. I know he’s lying. And he knows I know he’s lying.

My hands clench into fists as I take a step closer, ignoring the way my body is still pulsing with adrenaline. “Don’t play me, Rush. I saw you. I watched you turn into a damn wolf.”

He shuts the truck door harder than necessary. “You saw what you think you saw.”

That sets me off.

I march straight up to him, not caring that he towers over me, not caring that he’s the very definition of dangerous. “Don’t you dare try to gaslight me,” I snap. “I saw you shift—change—whatever the hell you want to call it! And I want answers, and I want them now.”

Rush doesn’t react, not at first. Then, slowly, he turns toward me, the air around him moving in a way I can’t explain. His presence thickens, like the very space between us bends to his will.

“You want answers?” His voice is low, controlled. Too controlled.

“Yes,” I grind out. “I deserve to know what the hell is going on.”

He steps forward, cutting the distance between us to nothing. “You don’t want answers,” he murmurs, his breath warm against my skin. “You think you do, but what you really want is to make sense of something that isn’t supposed to exist in your world.”

I don’t flinch, even though part of me wants to. “I want the truth,” I say, holding his gaze.

“At the risk of giving you a cliched movie quote, ‘you can’t handle the truth.’”

“Give it a shot.”

His lips press together. His jaw is so tight it looks like he’s about to snap the bones straight through his skin. “Truth is a dangerous thing, Marlow.”

"Try me."

He stares at me, measures me, and I swear something flickers in his expression—something that’s almost torn.

Then, suddenly, he grabs my wrist, yanking me flush against his body.

My breath catches.

His grip is firm but careful, like he’s fighting himself. “It’s dangerous to think you know the whole truth when you don’t. There are some truths that must remain secret. If they aren’t, innocents could be killed.”

A shiver runs through me, but I refuse to let him see it.

“You say Hollister put me in the cartel’s sights and marked me for death the moment he did so,” I challenge. “Knowing what you are will not change that.”

Rush lets out an indistinct sound, something close to a growl. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mutters, releasing me so abruptly I have to catch myself. He runs a hand through his hair, his body vibrating with barely contained frustration. “Damn it, Cassidy. This isn’t some fucking thriller novel where you uncover a big secret and suddenly everything clicks into place.”

I narrow my eyes. “I know that.”

He shakes his head. “Do you? Because if you really understood, you’d be running right now.”

That makes my blood boil. I step right back up to him, poking a finger into his chest. “Oh, you don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t be afraid of, Ranger,” I hiss. “You think you scare me? You think whatever the hell just happened is enough to send me packing?”

His nostrils flare. “It should.”

“Well, it doesn’t.”

Silence falls. The wind moves between us, cool against my overheated skin.

Rush looks down at me, his gaze unreadable, but there’s something in his expression that tightens in a way that shouldn’t make my pulse quicken. But it does.

“You’re impossible,” he mutters.

“And you’re infuriating.”

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