Page 73 of To Hunt A Wolf
I don’t know what to think. Everything I know about Levi—about what he did—paints him as an asshole. A villain.
“And you believed his threat?” I can’t help but scoff.
“You think I’d risk it?” he asks, eyes blazing with intensity. Before I can answer, he adds, “I knew he’d do it because he did it to Jadick first.”
“Right. Lacey.” I almost forgot. “But Jadick rejected her,” I say. “And Thiago still killed her.”
“Exactly. Imagine what he’d do to you if we mated.”
His words are laced with pain, and I know he’s done exactly that: imagined all the ways Thiago would have hurt me. Still, I can’t simply accept this explanation. After three years of hating him, I can’t just turn it off.
“You could have told me—”
“I cannot lose you,” he roars.
He’s out of his chair in the space of a blink. Rounding the table, pressing rough hands to my cheeks. “I love you, Mac. I have loved you since the moment I first laid eyes on you in seventh grade when you punched Pete Bolling in the nuts for stealing Tripp’s lunch money.”
“He was a bully.”
He smiles. Or tries to.
“You are more than my mate, Mac. You’re my whole fucking heart. I couldn’t possibly have done anything other than what I did. Telling you would have risked you. Defying Thiago would have risked you. Coming back for you would have risked you. Don’t you get it by now? I will never, ever do anything that could hurt you.”
“Except that you did.”
His brows dip. Confusion mars his desperation.
I pull free of his grasp, and he lets me. His hands drop to his sides. He’s never looked more lost. I’ve never felt so angry.
I fist my hands, pacing in front of the whiteboard now.
If Levi’s not the enemy, who is? Because I have to find somewhere to put all this rage. I don’t even have to ask. I already know. Thiago.
All that pain. My life, my happiness, my mate—stolen from me.
For what?
A family feud?
Power?
A fucking title?
“Jadick’s going to challenge him,” Levi says, obviously reading where my thoughts have taken me. “It’s the only real way to end this.”
“Jadick’s right about Thiago,” I say. “He has no honor. He won’t fight fair. Not even in a challenge.”
“Then we’ll all fight,” he says.
“Thiago already has Crigger’s entire army,” I say. “They’ve pledged their loyalty. They’ll fight.”
“I have an army too.”
“That’s why you created the Jades? To fight for Jadick?”
The name, it fits.
But he shakes his head. “I didn’t create the Jades. I may have brought us together to this place, but I didn’t create them. To be a Jade means you’re tired of the way things are in Blackstone.”
