Page 54 of Wretched Thorns

The preserve that ran along the back of the property was cypress, live oak and Spanish moss gone purple-blue in the dusk. Fifty yards past the little gate she heard him.

“Chère.”

She didn’t turn around.

He stayed about ten feet behind her. Never crowding. Never falling back. Patient as hell.

Which somehow annoyed her even more.

“Don’t,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m walking.”

“You’re walking behind me.”

“That’s where the path is, chère.”

She stopped. Turned.

Dex stopped a few feet away and shoved his hands into his pockets when Tara finally turned around.

He didn’t crowd her. Didn’t try to touch her.

Which somehow made everything worse.

Tara laughed once under her breath and scrubbed a hand across her face.

“I already know how this is going to go,” she said.

Dex stayed quiet.

“An order will come down from Thornwood that’s gonna say I should stay behind with Delphine, Rowena and my grandmère while you and the boys go charging into whatever nightmare Marcus has built down there.”

Her grip tightened around the new charm.

“That’s not happening.”

Dex opened his mouth.

“No,” Tara snapped immediately. “Let me finish.”

He shut it again.

The anger came easier now that she’d started. Easier than the panic waiting underneath it.

“I came down here for her. She’s family. Her family is all gone, Dex. She’s my pack. Get it?” Her voice cracked hard on the last word and she hated herself for it immediately. “I’m all she has left outside that room.”

Dex’s expression changed slightly at that. Softer. Worse.

“I don't take orders and I am not sitting safely in somebody’s kitchen while the rest of you go after her.”

Silence stretched between them for a second.

Then Dex nodded once.