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“Not for me.” Cadence lifted her chin higher. “For them.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes to slits and backed away slowly. “What is this?”
“No one killed anyone.”
“Yet,” Kru chimed in.
Ignoring him, Cadence slowly stalked forward. “We need someone to take us on. To lead us.”
“An Alpha?” Lucas belted out a laugh. “Cadence, you have lost your damn mind. You know me. I would be a terrible Alpha.”
“We don’t need your leadership, Lucas.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Protection.”
“From?”
Cadence stopped approaching and shrugged up one shoulder. “From ourselves.”
Such truth rang in her tone, Lucas stopped his retreat. Protection from themselves? His gaze drifted from Cadence, the woman he’d tried with before…to the green-eyed Kru, still holding the damn broom handle, to the petite woman in the shadows of the single-wide closest to him.
“Where is Gunner?” He needed to know if that titan was going to come barreling through the trees at him.
“We don’t know,” the petite woman said softly. “We haven’t seen him for three days.”
Lucas studied the woods surrounding the trailer park. “Has he set up territory here?”
“Yep.” Cadence popped the p at the end.
Well, that was a red flag. Gunner’s animal wouldn’t want to stray too far if he’d declared territory. But also…how were these people still alive?
“It’s been a long time,” Cadence said low. “Gunner isn’t like you remember him.”
“And you?” he asked.
She huffed a breath and looked down at the dirt. “We’ve all changed.”
“But I won’t change,” he said carefully. It was best if her animal heard him clearly. “Bringing me here won’t get you what you want.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could see the hurt in her eyes.
This was Cadence’s talent—haunting him.
“I…I didn’t want to see you again.”
She crossed her arms and lifted her chin higher. “The feeling is mutual.” There was truth in her tone.
“Then why me?”
She shook her head slowly, and her eyes were so bright blue…so raw with emotion. “Because I ran out of choices. Gunner has only ever lost to you.”
“You want me to kill him? Is that it? You put the story in the press so it would draw the attention of the dragon? So you don’t have to do it yourself?”
“I didn’t put it in there. Jenna did.”
Jenna? His eyes flicked to the trailer just in time to see the door click closed. Shhhit.
