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She sucked air between her teeth while trying to hold my gaze—shakily, barely. “I… don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I scooped her hair back from her left shoulder and held it taut in my fist. The shivering hiss that escaped her told me everything I needed to know about her attraction to me. She was dying to have me, but she wouldn’t admit it, and the way she wanted to have me was too taboo for her to accept.
But it wasn’t an issue for me. I was acting on instinct now, allowing my wolf to guide my firm touch as I traced her throat and loosened the collar of her shirt with my unoccupied fingers. “The truth is you want me so badly that you can’t help poking the bear.”
“You’re not a bear. You’re a wolf.”
I shook my head. “Don’t start getting sassy.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll have to do something about it.”
The slightest whimper came through the ragged beating of our hearts. At this point, the way my blood rushed through my veins was loud enough to be mistaken for a raging river. And hers seemed to match the pace of mine, a roaring chorus that might have been mistaken for hatred if I hadn’t known better.
Hate, love—weren’t those two things intertwined? I loathed her influence on my wolf, but I couldn’t deny my attraction. That didn’t mean I hated her or that I loved her. But it must have meant something for me to be so resistant and willing at the same time. That was what I hated most—the fact that I loved the chase.
“I don’t think you will,” she challenged, “because you didn’t pursue me when I ran this morning.”
I breathed steadily, trying to calm my racing heart as I thought about the way she had disappeared from me. Theworry, the concern, had been so much that it nearly broke me to consider she was gone. “You hid from me.”
“But you’re such a skilled hunter. Can’t you find me anywhere?”
My grip on her hair tightened enough to raise her gaze to mine. “Don’t tempt me, Faye.”
“Then don’t treat me like I don’t have a choice.”
“You do have a choice. I’ll prove it to you now.”
She licked her lips, the motion so indulgent that I leaned in to taste her tongue—and stopped just inches from her mouth.
Her next breath was shaky. “I don’t want to be in the same room as my parents.”
“That’s impossible. They’re the ones who organize the rituals.”
“Then I won’t participate.”
I released her. “You don’t have a choice in that.”
“But you said Idohave a choice.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She set her angry glare on me, bowing her head slightly to intensify her gaze like she was a huntress preparing to launch herself at me. “Then explain what you meant.”
“I want you to choose your place at my side.”
“And if I try to run again instead?”
No.That wasn’t an option. That could never be a possibility again. To relive the terror of her temporary absence was infuriating enough to send me right back to her, to pin her to the wall in the landing and cup her throat. Though there wasn’t any pressure from my fingers, I could sense her arousalimmediately, noticing how her eyelids fluttered while her irises disappeared into her skull.
I rested my chin on hers, teasing her mouth with a kiss that never quite came to fruition. “I’ll catch you. I’ll follow you wherever you go. You’ll never escape my attention.”
Her hips bucked—a sweet gesture that coaxed my cock to harden. “And what happens when you catch me?”
I smiled mischievously. “You’ll find out during the ritual, won’t you?”
***
