Page 67 of Moon Kissed

“And how did they thank me?” he spat. “They forced me to walk into the police station and say I stole the car of a man I’ve never met in my life. With the car burned up and their bruises and bones all healed, it was my word against theirs. Guess who the cops believed?”

I didn’t have to guess.

“And then when I was twenty-three,” Paxton whispered, leaning in close, “I was beaten within an inch of my life and thrown out of my pack because Luame gave me an honor that aworthless fish like me didn’t deserve—my pack alpha’s words, not mine.

“So don’t walk in here, looking down on me, and saying I need to stand up for myself. Omegas learn early when to fight, and when to survive, and Badr’s not the fight I’m gearing up for.” He jerked his chin at the guy. “Believe it or not, he’s one of theraregood ones. He’s never forced me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“No, he just knocks you out and leaves you drooling on the floor,” I shot back.

“Oh?” He arched a brow. “Oh, I see what’s going on.” Inexplicably, a smirk spread across his lips.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You were worried about me. You got yourself all twisted up in knots last night, stressing and worried and wondering if I was okay. Aww.” He cuffed my chin. “How cute.”

“Excuse— I—I didn’t—!” Outrage strangled my tongue tighter than arousal. Blast my fucking wolf! She liked him smirking at me with that wicked, wolfish grin. She liked it a lot. “I didn’t say any of that!”

“Look, yummy, you don’t have to worry about me.”

I gaped at him.Yummy? Did he just call me yummy?If I thought my wolf liked the smirk, it was nothing compared to her reaction to that nickname. My body flooded with such heat, my core melted and dampened my panties.

“I can take care of myself, and I can damn sure take a little punch,” he said, erasing so much distance between us a gnat didn’t have space to shift into a grain of sand between our chests. “But if it’s that important to you that I tell people what I want, then let me tell you, and make this very clear, I am more than interested in those sexual benefits”—Paxton kissed the shell of my ear, making me whimper shamefully—“so I’ll take that truce and I’ll take you—I mean,ithard.”

My jaw cracked, hanging open as a reply stuttered through my brain before making it to my mouth. Since when did men talk like this? Had I missed the entire era of men getting sexy as hell while I was locked away playing princess priestess?!

“B-b-but—” I felt my badass status burning up and flushing down the drain, never to be found or scented again. “But what about Castor?” I blurted. “All of a sudden you’re okay with porking your homicidal fiancée?”

Paxton chuckled. “Twelve hours ago I wasn’t. I was fighting my wolf harder than I ever have in my life, but that was before it spread through the omega wing that you saved Nia from an alpha.”

I stilled, sliding a sideways glance to Nia, who was in a corner talking with her friends. “What do you know about that?”

“Not much,” he admitted. “Only that after I was forced to take my nap, they got tired of torturing you, and decided to torment the fish, and even though you were hurt and messed up, you came to Nia’s rescue.”

I just nodded. If that’s all Nia chose to share, I wasn’t going to fill in the blanks.

“Not the first time they’ve treated omegas like party favors,” Paxton growled. “But it is the first I’ve ever heard of an epsilon risking herself to save one of us. And of all the epsilons in Wolf Nation... it was you.”

Still, I said nothing as his gaze turned assessing.

“I don’t know why you killed Castor, but it occurs to me that an evil, twisted sociopath with a crater where her soul should be, doesn’t go around saving omega girls she barely knows.” The finger sending shivers up someone’s thigh was his, and the odd sensations it was causing in my stomach was all me. “You had a reason for killing Castor. I’m sure of that now. I’m also sure I can wait until you’re ready to tell me. But I’m not so sure I can wait another second to bend you over and take you like a wild animal.”

I’d never been happier to be Black than I was right then. No one could see me blushing.

“Truce,” he whispered into my ear. “We’ll seal it with a kiss.”

Unbidden, my lips puckered and my eyes fluttered closed.

Something bonked me on the nose. I opened and saw it falling. Quick reflexes snatched it out of the air as Paxton strolled off laughing. Lying on my palm was a Hershey’s chocolate caramel kiss.

“Soooo...”

I wiped away the smile that snuck onto my lips. “What?” I snapped at an approaching Nia. Her knowing grin pissed me off even more.

“Did that go the way you thought it would?”

I flashed her an obscene gesture and walked off to the tune of her howling laugh. As good as it was to hear her laughing after her ordeal, I wanted to kick her in the throat for doing it at my expense.

The answer was no, that did not go the way I thought it would, but whose fault was that? I picked Paxton out as the weakone. The one I could exploit. And part of that, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, was due to my own prejudices about omegas. Of course the omega had to be the weak one in a group of alphas. Of course he was eager for any crumbs of affection, because he wasn’t going to get it anywhere else.

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