Page 121 of The Piece You Stole

But I don’t run when I know I should. I peer up into his emerald-green eyes as he observes me from his towering six-foot-plus height, and then I turn to go back inside.

“I didn’t mean what I said.” His voice is toneless and controlled, the way it always is when he speaks to me. If there’s any emotion inside him, he never wants me to see it. Or hear it.

I halt, and then immediately ask myself why I’m stopping at all. “Which thing didn’t you mean? Because I can think of a few things you’ve said I wish I could forget.”

Briefly, I squeeze my eyes shut and fold my arms across my chest, biting down on my lower lip and hoping it’s enough to silence any more words I should keep to myself.

Why are you antagonizing a shifter who's already tried to kill you twice?

“You’re right,” he says.

If this is what an alpha’s apology looks like, it’s lacking. Seriously lacking.

Anger bites at my ankles, forcing me to turn when I know the last thing I should do is confront this alpha who likes to wear expensive tailored shirts, hides his emotions behind a mask, and bares too much of a resemblance to Rylan for me to want to spend even a second around him.

Arms folded, I press them against my chest like a shield and meet his verdant green stare. He stands with his hands tucked into his pockets, training those intensely bright eyes on me. “It’s not what you said that pisses me off the most,” I toss out across the one foot of garden that separates us. “I saw what you did to Kade’s back.”

He blinks. Just once, but I know I’ve surprised him. “He’s a shifter. He heals—”

“Fast.” I interrupt, letting him hear—and see—the coldness in me. The anger. “I know. He told me before. So, I guess it makes it okay to claw up his back because he’ll heal soon enough, right?”

Silence.

A sudden, mild wind whips hair into my face. Just like when he opened the Cerberus’ front door to me, his eyes track my fingers as I tuck the dark strands behind my ear.

“I don’t like you,” I admit. "So you can keep your lame-ass alpha apology. I don’t want it.”

For a single second—no, a split second, I’m almost positive something that resembles amusement flits across his eyes.

“Is that right?” He angles his head, his gaze a little more probing than it was a moment before. “Even after I caught you last night?”

I tilt my chin up. “If I’d known you would expect me to drop to my knees and kiss your feet in gratitude, I’d have told you to let me fall.”

“Dropped to your knees, huh?” A new note enters his voice. Something that could almost be male interest. But his gaze, that vivid green stare, never warms. Not even a touch.

Nothing. That’s what he called you. Whatever it is you think you hear, you’re wrong.

Spinning on my heel, I stalk away.

“Kade doesn’t need anyone to fight his battles for him,” Dariel calls after me, his voice trailing me like the wild ivy which nearly trips me on my way back to the house.

I close my palm around the back door handle. “If that’s the way you treat him, then maybe he does.”

Inside, I slam the door shut harder than I need to. I don’t realize I’m not alone until I lift my head to find Aden and Kade standing in the kitchen doorway, their expressions impossible to read.

“You’re right,” I tell them. “He’s not crazy. He’s a jackass.”

And then I go looking for a vase of water, so my roses won’t die.

CHAPTER 29

SAIGE

They’re keeping secrets from me.

I’ll go down to the kitchen where Kade will be talking with Aden, and when I’m within earshot, suddenly they’re talking about football or a fault with one of the security cameras Kade watches from his laptop.

While it’s a relief to know therearesecurity cameras all over the house, they won’t stop Rylan and the rest of his pack from attacking.

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