Page 47 of Operation Wolf: Hunter
CHAPTER 24
Hunter
IT WAS NEARLY TWOin the morning by the time I trudged up the stairs to check on Kia. Dread weighed me down, making each step seem like an eternity. Part of me didn’t want to see her at all, to have to face the look of horror and loathing in her eyes. But the other part of me ached to make her understand that, while I was a monster, I would never hurt her. I wanted her to look past my beast inside me to the man she’d known all along.
“Kia?” I knocked softly on her bedroom door. Light seeped into the hallway through the crack in the door, so I knew she was awake, but I didn’t want to barge in on her, not in the state she was in.
“Come in,” she said dully.
The dread increased to the point that it took everything in me to turn the knob and open the door. The sight of Kia sitting up against the headboard, her knees drawn into her chest, as she stared off into space didn’t do anything to ease my anxiety.
“What did you do with Jason?” she asked, not looking at me.
“I let him go.” The bed creaked under my weight as I perched myself on the edge. I tried to meet Kia’s eyes, but she refused to look at me, intent on staring at the wall. “He was a desperate rogue who was starving with no money, and he didn’t bear any real ill will toward us. I gave him a bit of money and pointed him in the direction of a wolf-shifter pack.” My heart lightened a little at the reminder that I had in fact done a good deed today.
Kia did meet my gaze now, but her eyes were blank, devoid of their usual spark of emotion, and that worried me.
“I see,” she said.
I waited for her to say more and then let out a sigh when she didn’t. “Is that all you have to say?” I demanded. “You’re not going to address the humongous elephant in the room?”
“You mean, that you’re a . . . wolf-shifter?” Something flickered in her eyes then, but it was gone so fast I wondered if I’d imagined it. “I don’t know what else there is to say about it, Hunter. You are what you are.”
“Okay . . .” I said slowly. Then I sighed when Kia returned to staring at the wall. “Look, Kia, if you don’t want to be with me anymore, I understand. The bet is over in two days, and since the ranch has turned a profit, we can set up Johnny to take over, and you can be out of here. But we have to address the fact that Samuel Bradley tried to sabotage the ranch, and he needs to be brought to justice for that.”
Kia turned to look at me, and this time, there was emotion in her eyes—a slow, simmering rage that caught me off guard. “And just how do you propose we do that?” she asked in a quiet, deadly voice that told me she was about to rip into me.
“My brother, Eric, has been looking into him,” I started to say. “With his resources—”
“Samuel has resources too!” Kia shrieked, slapping her hand against the bedspread, her eyes wild now. “You can say whatever you want, but there’s no getting around the fact that we can’t prove he hired a . . .wolf-shifterto come after us. The authorities would laugh in our faces, just as they laughed in mine when I told them about my mother.” She laughed bitterly. “If only they knew what I know now.”
My heart ached at the pain in Kia’s voice. “Darling . . .” I began, reaching for her hand.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, snatching her hand away. “You knew all along about the wolf-shifter, didn’t you? And you never once told me. That’s why you were guarding the stables every night. Because you knew he would come back.”
“I suspected,” I admitted, shame flooding me. “I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you would react like this.”
“And so I have,” Kia said. She was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t want anything to do with this mess,” she told me. “I tried my best to put this crazy stuff behind me when my mother died, and I won’t let it ruin my life.”
“It doesn’t have to—” I started to say, but she cut me off.
“There’s no guarantee that Samuel won’t send someone or something just as deadly after me to get what he wants,” Kia snapped. “As long as his sights are set on the ranch, neither I nor anyone who works here will be safe. I don’t see any reason I should hold out on selling the ranch to him besides simply honoring the memory of someone who isn’t around to appreciate it, especially not after the offer he made me.”
“You mean, the hundred thousand dollars?” I scoffed. “Kia, if you’re that concerned, then I’ll buy the ranch from you right now for that amount. Take it off your hands, so you can move on and never look back.”
“He offered me five hundred thousand,” Kia said flatly. “And ten percent of all future profits.”
“He did not.” I waited for Kia to tell me it was a joke, but as the seconds ticked by in silence, I realized she was dead serious. “He came to see you again, didn’t he?”
Guilt flickered in Kia’s eyes for a moment before they turned to ice again. “Last week,” she admitted, “while you were out delivering those horses. He claims there’s an oil reservoir beneath the land.”
“And you’re going to sell it to him?” I asked, a tidal wave of rage building inside me at the thought of Daniel’s beautiful ranch being turned into an oil field. “Even after he’s proven himself to be a degenerate piece of shit?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Kia!” The wave of rage burst over me, and I seized Kia by the arms and shook her. “After everything we’ve worked so hard for, after everything I’ve done for you, and you’re just going to throw it all away? For money!”
“Let go of me!” Kia cried.
But I was past hearing her. My fangs slid out, and even my wolf wanted to sink them into her jugular and rip out her pretty little neck. Only the horror in her wide eyes held me in check.
“You didn’t do this for me. You did it for Daniel. Are you really going to kill me for going against your wishes for something I wanted no part of?”
I suddenly let go and backed away from Kia, flattening myself against the wall next to the broken window. “No,” I said slowly, my fangs and claws receding. I wasn’t going to kill Daniel’s last relative, not even for something like this. I knew I could never hurt Kia. “No, you’re right. I guess I was a fool to think there was any kind of decency in you. If I learned anything during my time in the Army, it’s that no amount of force can make someone truly believe in doing the right thing if they don’t want to.” I shook my head in disgust. “And you say I’m the monster.”
Hurt sparked in Kia’s eyes, but I didn’t feel a damn thing. I moved past her without a word. Then I paused in the open doorway before looking back at her. “I hope the money is worth it, Miss Nash.”
I closed the door, leaving my heart behind me in that room, and headed for home.
