Page 27 of Wolf Bitten

“I love you, too.” He squeezed my hand and smiled at me tenderly. Then his expression became stern. “I need you to tell me what happened.”

So I did, leaving out the pictures. Once I started, the words spilled from my mouth. When I mentioned Dave drugging me, a murderous glint entered Raffe’s eyes, but it turned to concern when I informed him about the Veiled Circle and the members I knew of. I added what Slade had told me and explained why we’d been scared when the five of them had found us.

When I was done talking, the moon was descending, and we were twenty minutes from campus, which was saying something since I’d been taken to Silver Falls State Park, over an hour away.

“I’m going to hunt them down and teach every one of them a lesson.” Raffe’s knuckles blanched, and a growl laced every word. “I’ll force them to give me the names of every member.” His chest heaved and his nostrils flared. “They will pay tenfold for every twinge of pain they caused you.”

Doubt crowded my mind. Though I didn’t want the Veiled Circle to succeed, maybe not all the members believed in that same view and only the extremists had captured me. I wanted to calm him down. I hated seeing him this upset.

I turned to him. “Look, what they did was wrong, and the people who took me should pay.” They’d drugged me, kidnapped me, and locked me up. No one deserved that treatment. “But the others … they might not have known. You can’t punish people who only want their freedom and the knowledge of their past and their heritage back at their fingertips. Besides, every group has extremists, and you shouldn’t persecute them all based on a few.”

His forehead creased. “I can see how it looks like we aren’t being fair, but it’s up tousto make sure humans never learn of our existence and keep the species in line.” He glanced at me. “I would never do something to hurt someone just because I could.”

My stomach tensed. He’d given me the perfect opportunity to ask him the question I’d been dreading. “Are you sure?” I murmured.

He glanced in my direction. “Yeah. Why would you ask that?”

“Because Glinda and Warin showed me pictures of you leading the slaughter of a group of vampires in an abandoned warehouse.” I bit my lip. “And the picture didn’t show any humans.”

His expression became strained, and the color drained from his face.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to hear the answer.

CHAPTER NINE

My blood jolted, and not even Raffe’s presence could calm me. His answer would fundamentally change certain things between us, fated or not.

Now, I wished I hadn’t asked the question. There was safety in not knowing, but that wasn’t fair to him or me. The question would always linger in the back of my head. I wanted to understand who I was mated to.

He licked his lips and scoffed. “So that’s what you think of me?”

A vise constricted around my heart, but the damage was done. “I’m asking you about it, right? Instead of taking their word.”

“Because kidnappers are ethical and would never lie or bend the truth.” He arched a brow as his eyes darkened with hurt.

The spot in my chest radiated his hurt and disappointment, which pissed me off.

“If I thought all of that wastrue, would I bother asking you about it?” I rolled my shoulders, the dried mud driving me insane by how badly it itched. “If someone would’ve told me that in August, I wouldn’t have evenconsideredasking you because I would’ve assumed it was true. Remember when you labeled me a social pariah in class? That wasn’t out of the kindness of your heart.” He didn’t get to be upset with me for wanting his side of the story, and worse, the longer he deflected, the more I feared itwastrue. Why else would he be so defensive?

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, and his jaw cracked from how hard he was clenching his teeth. “I hated every second of that. Do you know what it’s like to have to do something like that to your fated mate? Even then, I knew who you were. I knew it the second you ran out of the woods the night you arrived. I felt your presence as you jogged into the woods, and the only reason I didn’t follow you was because you moved like a human. When you ran out, you became the very person that Ihadto protect from any pain and harm.”

I shook my head, my blood increasing to a slight fizz. I needed to calm down, but he didn’t get to turn himself into the victim. “Yet you did each one of those things to me.”

“Dammit, Sky.” He hit his palm against the steering wheel. “That’s not fair. You weren’t the only person struggling. It wasn’t easy for me to want to be with you and have to pretend I couldn’t stand you while you were being attacked every second or damn near imploding. Not to mention how Slade hovers around you like a dog in heat.”

I tensed. I hated the way he spoke about Slade, but I was wise enough not to say anything about it. I didn’t need to add to our already tenuous moment, but I felt like I was betraying Slade—especially after he’d risked his life to save mine—by letting Raffe talk about him that way. “I don’t want to argue. I was just asking a question. I get that you’re risking a lot to be with me. That’s why I walked away from you when Keith found out we were secretly together.”

That was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t be with someone who was struggling over whether to stay with me. I didn’t want him to resent me later.

I huffed out a breath. “I wasn’t trying to dredge up the past, but clearly, that needs to happen. To be clear, Iwantedyou the entire time, even when you were being an ass.Iwasn’t the one fighting you or trying to make others view you as less than a person. You don’t get to paint me as the instigator. That was all you, Keith, and your father.”

Even after Raffe had claimed me and I’d been kidnapped, Keith still looked at me—even in wolf form—like I was worse than scum.

“But that picture looked bad, so I wanted you to be aware they’d shown it to me, and I need to hear your side of the story. If that makes me a bitch, so be it.” I stared straight ahead, the familiar roads coming into view. We were about five minutes away from campus. I placed my hands on my … well, mud since I couldn’t even feel the jeans underneath with how thick the mud coated me. I tried to regulate my breathing. If my emotions got stronger, my blood would surge close to a hum while we were in a car. I didnotwant to find out how that would go.

He hung his head slightly. “I’m not trying to make you feel that way. I’m sorry. And yes, that’s good information to know because they could be recruiting people by using that image depicting me as a monster. It also means they had someone watching and taking pictures.” He grimaced and blew out a breath. “That particular attack haunts me.” His voice thickened with regret, mirroring the heaviness in my chest.

I wasfeelinghim.

---