Page 68 of Never Fall for an Angel

And then he stalks past me, making his way toward the greenhouse to shoot the only thing worth saving on this godforsaken island.

CHRISTIAN

If someone had asked me five years ago where I saw myself in this very moment, it wouldn’t have been stalking into a desolate greenhouse to shoot a dog that bit the girl who shot me.

It also wouldn’t have included the burn in my chest from the tears in her eyes.

Who the fuck does she think she is? What happened to me? As if I’m some damaged replica of the man she used to know. The mansheshot.

Like she’s some fucked-up little Mother Theresa, running around and rescuing whatever she can. I don’t need her rescuing. My soul was damned a long fucking time ago.

The man she knew is dead. She killed him when she fired that bullet in my chest.

It takes a monster to kill a monster, and that’s exactly what I’ve become, regardless of what little Mila Carpenter has to say about it.

I shove past Mila, ignoring the lead filling my chest from a few simple tears, and make my way toward the old, broken greenhouse. When I enter, I shut the door behind me, and a growl sounds from somewhere nearby.

“Fuck off, dog,” I murmur under my breath, only to turn around and find the dog in question isn’t even a dog. It’s a wolf. Or a mix of one.

His fur is black, a strange white coloring around his eyes. There’s no doubt he’s hurt by his inability to move right when he stands.

“I swear that woman and her soft fucking heart,” I growl under my breath when the dog attempts to take a step towards me, only to fall back to his stomach with a whimper.

I run my thumb over the grooves in the grip of my pistol, staring at him as he stares at me. Both of us probably thinking about the same fucking girl.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I grumble under my breath, scrubbing a hand over my face. Consequently, some of Mila’s blood is still on my cheek.

It’s obvious the dog needs help, and guilt washes through me, but I know part of that is just the girl I left crying in the center of the clearing. The need to go to her pulls at me like a magnet, and I hate the fucking feeling. She gets under my skin and makes mequestion myself and why I am the way I am. Makes me want to dry her tears, even if I’m the one that caused them.

“Let’s get something straight,” I murmur, dropping to my haunches in front of the mutt. He cocks his head to the side, his brown eyes boring into mine as if he understands what he did. “You bite my girl again; no amount of her tears will save you.”

He lays his head down on the old quilt I’d stripped off the bed inside when we arrived, looking up at me through soft brown eyes.

I shake my head, standing.

“That was your only strike,” I reiterate. And then I head to the door.

As expected, Mila’s in the same place I left her when I exit the greenhouse.

What’s not expected is the hot and unpleasant feeling that slides down my throat when I see her sitting there dejected, like she has nothing left in the world.

I don’t like it.

No . . . scratch that.

I fucking hate it.

I wish I would have just used it on myself . . .

She doesn’t look up at me when I approach, and I don’t say a word, silently bending down, lifting her into my arms, and carrying her back toward the cottage.

“Did you do it?” she asks softly. Something dark settles in my chest, where she lays her head, her eyes closed against the tears clinging to her lashes.

“I didn’t shoot him.”

She lets out a shaky breath, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth despite the cut from her chewing on her lip.

Ever wanted to feel like the world’s biggest douchebag?

---