Page 45 of Cold Foot Revenge
She swallowed hard and pulled the neck of his t-shirt to the side. “You did that.”
The make-up she’d camouflaged it with was long gone, and she could feel the throbbing mark there.
“What is that?” he asked, tracing it with his fingertip.
“You bit me.”
“Gently.”
“I think my body took it differently.”
He blinked and lifted his bright blue gaze to hers. “I know what claiming marks are. I didn’t think humans could make them.”
“Me either,” she whispered, replacing the neck of her t-shirt. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. You aren’t bound to me or anything. I just showed it to Grave when he was angry. It’s why he was chasing me down.”
Dylan just nodded thoughtfully. “Anything else?”
She swallowed hard again. “Grave is going to find something in my bag that is going to make him even angrier.”
Dylan relaxed into the seat and pursed his lips, nodding. “What is it?”
“I stole a dose of the Turn.”
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up. “Come again?”
She cleared her throat and said it louder. “I found out Grave was storing doses of the Turn in the office at the Rabbit hole, and I stole one.”
“For what?”
She chewed the corner of her lip, not wanting to admit it aloud.
“For what?” he asked again, louder.
“For you.”
Dylan dragged his attention to the front window, staring at the check-in office blankly. “What the fuck, Roxy. Why would you do that? Were you going to Turn me like you were Turned? Like my brother was Turned?”
“What? No! Not at all, I would never do that!”
“Then why are you getting a Turn for me.”
“Because…fuck…” She squeezed her eyes closed and tried again. “Because if you ever wanted to be Turned, your Makerwould be the same as your brother’s Maker. Your bears would have a brother bond.”
Dylan jerked his attention to her and his mouth fell open. “Wait.” He ran his hand down his beard. “Wait. How do you know it would be the same Maker?”
“Grave uses the same underground dealer with the same shifter’s Turn for all of the bears in the Grit-Bron Crew. It’s written right on the packaging. His maker is identified as Subject One-Zero-One-Zero. Chocolate grizzly, twelve and a half feet tall standing. Maybe they’re taking the Turns from him, I don’t know. Maybe he’s being experimented on, or maybe he’s getting paid a lot of money for doing this. It’s the same grizzly shifter for each Turn dose Grave buys. Garret would be the same. His Maker is Subject One-Zero-One-Zero. If you went grizzly, you wouldn’t just be a human outsider anymore. You could be in the Cold Foot Crew, with your brother and your friends. You would secure safety. And before you hate me, you should know I wasn’t going to put pressure on you. I was just going to give it to you and let you do whatever you wanted with it. If you needed it in a pinch or wanted to have a brother bear, you could. I don’t think Garret should ever Turn you, or your dynamic would be different. You could flush it down the toilet if you wanted. It would be your choice.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Maybe don’t say anything. Doesn’t matter anyway. Grave will go through my bag and find it. He’ll hunt me forever. It didn’t feel like stealing and I’m not sorry, just so you know. He used one of those Turns on me without my permission. He changed the course of my life. He’s charged me so much just to live for years, just gobbling up all my money. I wanted a dose of the Turn to do good for once. If you want. It’s okay if you’re mad at me. I understand.”
Dylan looked like he wanted to say something more but changed his mind and got out of his truck. Overwhelmed, she inhaled as deeply as she could and held the breath in her lungs as his words flashed through her mind.Just breathe. Her throat still hurt from Grave’s forearm, her face had a pulse where he’d slapped her, and her lip was healing, but the split would scar. She had a claw mark on the back of her leg from Kristy, but she didn’t need to be whining about that stuff when Dylan’s life was being turned upside down, all because of her.
This nagging sense of guilt was slowly eating her alive. She’d never stolen a thing in her entire life, and tonight she’d made a big move and been caught, and it was going to change the way Grave would hunt her down.
This was all bad timing.
Dylan had met her at the wrong time.
