Page 17 of Targeted By Temptation
I remembered watching a horror movie with my high school friends and being shocked by how there were always these stupid people who would go toward the danger and then just accept everything as it was. No questions asked. That was, if they survived.
They would go toward the danger, and the vampire would be there and say,Hey, you’re gonna be one of us now,and they’d be like,Oh, vampires, cool. Let’s do this.
Or they would follow the noise and get eaten by a monster from the underworld or cut to pieces by a serial killer. In any case, it never ended well for them. It had caught me as odd at the time that there was always someone naively following along and just accepting everything as it was. Who would do that? No one, right?
Only looking back on recent events, that was exactly me, just walking into danger and pretty much going with the flow. I went from hiding in a closet, a glorified closet, but a closet nonetheless, to leaving with a man I didn’t know and who looked every bit as lethal as he was, and then disobeying my father in such an over-the-top way by staying with that man, the rival of the person he’d promised me to. There was no going back.
And at one point, I second-guessed whether I’d made the choices or if they’d been made for me, but that was as close as I came to a critical thought.
Now here I was, in the middle of the woods with a wolf who also was objectively a pretty bad guy based on the whole mafia thing, and I was happier than I could remember being in years.
I finished brushing my teeth and washing my face. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I’d looked better, but I’d also looked worse. “I guess this is what it is.”
As presentable as I was going to be without a shower and new clothes, I went back to the bedroom. When I got there, my wolf wasn’t there anymore, but Ezra was. He was sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but his boxers. If he wanted us to have a full-on conversation, he was going to need a shirt, because damn, he was delicious.
“I thought you were still gonna be where I left you.”
“Oh.” He grabbed the back of his neck. “I thought you just meant stay in the room.”
Wait. Was he really just going to obey the things that I said? Was that what he was implying? No. That made no sense.
“I did.” I sat beside him, averting my eyes from the defined muscles of his chest and abs. “I didn’t want to come out of the bathroom and have you run into town or something.”
“I promise you,” he took my hand in his, “I’m not leaving you unless I have to. And if I do, you will know, and you’ll never be left unprotected.”
“They’re gonna come looking for me.” Might as well lay it out there.
“Yeah. That’s why I downloaded something my brother created to prevent your phone from being tracked onto your device.”
That was something I hadn’t even noticed or knew was possible. “They’ll still find me. My father’s kind of powerful.” There were no other words for it.
“You mean corrupt,” he corrected.
So, apparently, there were some words for it.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean. And he promised to marry me to Stravon, and I don’t know what they want from me. I don’t understand how I’m a good bargaining chip. I’m not part of the family business. I’m an academic nerd. What can I bring to the table?”
That had been the wrong question to ask.
A growl built in his chest. “You. Bring. Everything.”
“Possessive much?” I rolled my eyes.
“You better believe I am.” He didn’t even pretend to deny it. Sexy as fuck.
“I don’t understand. Why don’t you just mate me, then?” It was something I hadn’t understood from the time I discovered mates were a thing. Not that I fully understood them still. “It will mean there’s no… that I’m not up for grabs anymore. My father can’t make his deal. They can’t expect me.”
He turned slightly and waited til I met his eyes. “There is nothing I want more than to mate you. To show the world that you are mine and mine alone, and that you are protected, loved, and cherished, and to have shut from the rooftops that they need to back the fuck off you.”
He closed his eyes.
“But if you do that—if we do that—it won’t work, because it’s just going to put a target on your back. And mine. If they have their eyes set on you specifically, the only way to break that mating bond is to kill me.”
I wanted to puke. I refused to let that happen.
“But also,” he continued, “a lot of wolves… once you’re mated, they think your value is gone. And they might shoot you just to show me that I attempted to take something that wasn’t mine and now neither of us can have you.”
I rubbed my eye with my heel, my hand giving the pressure I needed. “So basically, we would both have huge bullseye’s on our backs.”
