Page 28 of Soul Bound

True.

“A vegetarian, huh?” Ranger picks at a piece of lint on his long-sleeved black Henley. The shirt is tight and showcases all the corded muscles I know hide beneath. I don’t even have to imagine what he looks like under his clothes because I’ve already seen him in all his naked glory.Lucky me.I may still be bitter that he locked me up last night and carried me to his car like a caveman, but I can still appreciate that Ranger Weylyn is a fine male specimen.

“Yep. Have been since I was ten, I just decided one day I didn’t want to eat meat and never looked back. I’m assuming there aren’t many vegetarian or vegan wolf shifters?”

His lips twitch. “That’s a correct assumption.”

I shove my hair over one shoulder and settle back in the booth. “Okay, I still have questions.” He inclines his head, motioning for me to keep asking. “If Thalia was part of the breeding program, we have no idea what her baby could be. If they were creating hybrid babies, she could literally be anything.”

“You don’t have any idea what Thalia was?”

“Not a single clue,” I tell him. “We don’t have full conversations, it’s all broken and garbled. The most I got out of her was on the bus ride out here when she tried to tell me about you and how you were with her in her last moments. And even then, it was like playingMad Libs, I had to fill in a lot of the blanks.”

“You rode a bus all the way out here?”

“Yeah, itsucked. But I don’t have access to my driver’s license, so I couldn’t fly here. That’s another reason I need to talk to my friend, he knows somebody who can create new identities.”

“I have a computer you can use back at Pruitt’s house,” he assures me. “This friend? You trust him?”

I snort. “I don’t trust anyone, Ranger. I’ve been betrayed one too many times for me to consider anyone trustworthy.” I trusted my parents to not let anyone hurt me, and they failed. I trusted the wrong person in New York, and they gave up my location to my parents’ goons, and I ended up locked in a psych ward because of it. So, no, I’m not a trusting person, I will always assume people have ulterior motives because that’s human nature. We’re all out for ourselves.

Ranger’s face pinches, but he doesn’t say anything. So, I ask another question. “You said Nicolaiwasin charge of the breeding program, does that mean you guys stopped it?”

“No.” His face grows dark with anger, his already sharp features become sharper. “He’s dead now, Pru ripped out his throat, but Nicolai wasn’t the mastermind behind the operation. He was just another pawn. The real leader is a man named Sterling. We have no idea who he is or where he is, so we can’t stop him yet. According to Jax, there are facilities all over North America like the one we cleared out in Vancouver.”

“Jax? Pruitt said something about him last night.” I recall her saying she considered the demon a friend of hers now.

“He’s a demon who is a product of the breeding program. He worked with Nicolai, but he was a double agent. He wants to destroy Sterling just as much as we do. He’s the only reason we were able to get Pru out of the facility.”

“I can’t imagine being raised in a medical facility like Jax was. I would take my mausoleum-like home any day of the week over that.” I shudder at the thought. “So, demons are real?”

My grandmother’s voice fills my head suddenly.“You wicked little bitch! The demons may have you in their grasps, but for not much longer. I’m going to make sure of it.”She was so convinced a demon had possessed me. I hadn’t known she was looking out the window when I resurrected Poe. At the moment she decided she was going tocleanseme of the evil that holds me. I wonder how she’d react if she learned I was in fact, a witch.

Pfft,I take that back, I know exactly how she would react. She would burn me at the fucking stake like thelunaticshe is.

“They’re real, yes. Jax is the first one I’ve met and honestly, they’re nothing like I expected.”

“They don’t go around possessing people then?” I just have to double-check.

“No.” Ranger’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t smile. I notice he never does. I’ve seen him smirk, but not once have I seen his face break into a grin. Granted, nothing in the past twenty-four hours has been smile-worthy—well, other than learning about my birth mother and finding out I have an aunt, but that doesn’t count. That had nothing to do with him. I wonder how long it’s been since he actually smiled. Was it before the stuff with Thalia went down? “Demons are notoriously mischievous and are all-around pains in the ass, but they don’t—more likecan’t—possess people. They are master manipulators and do have the ability to get into people’s heads though. I’m pretty sure that’s where the possession myth came from. Jax’s demon skill is the ability to control the fire of hell. He can even use it to teleport, which Remi is immensely jealous of.”

“That’s actually pretty cool, I wish I could have teleported here instead of taking the bus,” I joke, trying to keep the conversation as light as possible. Everything the past few hours has felt so heavy and intense, and I’m desperate to alleviate some of the anxiety I’m feeling.

The waitress comes back with our food, dropping the plates in front of us she turns to us with an open mouth grin. “Anything else I can get ya?”

I look at her name tag for the first time. “No, I think we’re good, Jackie.”

“Just holler if you need anything!” she tells us over her shoulder as she walks away. I notice that even the socks she wears in her black sneakers have frills around the edge.

Ranger dives into his cheeseburger that I’m pretty sure has a half a cow on it, while I pick at the crust of my grilled cheese. I won’t admit it to him, but the chocolate milkshake is the best I’ve ever had.

“Why aren’t you eating?” he asks after swallowing a mouth full of French fries.

“Not hungry.” I shrug, taking another sip of the shake.

“You need to eat something.” He narrows his eyes. “If you don’t like what you ordered, we can get you something else. If I’d known you were a vegetarian, I would have brought you to the café around the corner, they have soup and salads. We can still stop there if you’d like, but you have to eat something. You’re almost skin and bones.”

I ignore the comment about my weight because I’m fully aware of how much weight I lost while being held in Cresthill Psychiatric. “We don’t have to stop anywhere,” I assure him. “I’ve never been a big eater, but after living on the streets for a while and being stuck in the mental institution for months, I guess I’m even less of an eater than before.”

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