Page 43 of Okay, I Regret a Little
Chapter 29
Faust
T
hat fucking mate stealing witch wasn’t scared of me, and she should be. I didn’t get any sleep last night. I shifted and ran all night as my wolf trying to figure this whole situation out. I thought I had a sensible solution. Rei would suspect it was me if Wren died. She could think it was the witches too, but they were all proving themselves way too stupid to live. If Wren had shown Rei a single ounce of her cunning, Rei would know it took a specific kind of beast to bring her down—a wolf.
One fact would not change as long as I could help it. Wren was a lifer, and Rei wasn’t. The witch wasn’t a threat to me. Rei clearly needed comfort while she was in here, and I couldn’t give that to her yet. Let the witch have her fun. Rei would be mine when she got out. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill the witch if she didanythingto get Rei’s sentence extended.
And if she fucked my mate.
I had a big problem with that. I knew all about what the witches did with their temple when they weren’t getting yard time. It was supposed to be this sacred place for them, but they rented it out for commissary cookies to horny inmates looking to get laid. Rei hadn’t set foot in the temple, and I didn’tthinkshe would have sex where the entire cellblock could hear.
I’d never press her for anything before she was ready to give it to me, but Ineededto know that.
We didn’t speak as we walked to my office. We never did. It was too dangerous. Everyone had to think she annoyed me until we got to my office, where there were no cameras. She whirled around and faced me as soon as I shut the door. I didn’t even have to ask. She volunteered the information.
“I’m sorry you found me with Wren like that. I like her, but I care for you a lot too. We did nothing but sleep. Prison isn’t exactly a romantic setting, and I would have had running commentary from every single fox in Silverhold.”
“But you would have otherwise?” I growled.
What.the.fuck?
Rei blew out an enormous sigh and collapsed in one of my chairs.
“Can I be honest about something?”
I sure wished she would because there was a whole fucking lot she was keeping from me. I nodded and took the other chair. I was hoping she was about to tell me something that would make sense. We knew she didn’t fuck the witch, but my wolf definitely wanted to kill her now.
“I’m bad at this, Faust. I can steal from literally anyone, but I’m probably worst at relationships than I am at cooking. Hauser always told me to keep what I am a secret, so I dated no one supernatural. I had dalliances with humans, but I always ran and changed my number when things got complicated. I shouldn’t be doing any ofthiswith any of you. If I were on the outside, I would have taken a job in another country and gotten rid of the burner phone I gave them to contact me on.”
I cocked an eyebrow at her. That was a lot to take in. I had this feeling whatever she was, it was from another realm. But seriously?
“Why in the world did you give your boyfriends burner phone numbers to contact you on instead of your real number?”
I could get staying away from supernaturals and sticking to humans, but not the whole phone thing. I didn’t particularly like humans, and I wouldn’t be caught dead dating one, but if I did, I’d give them my phone number. Rei just shrugged.
“I guess I got scared when feelings started getting involved. I ran as far as I could. Getting a new phone number every time was a pain in the ass, so I started giving them one of my burner numbers. I told you I was bad at this.”
My mate went to great lengths to be a commitment-phobe. That didn’t bode well for me. I could spend the next seven years protecting her and letting myself get vulnerable with her, and she could break her parole and run just because of the whole mate thing. Why did this shit always have to happen to me?
“Faust, I don’twantto be bad at this. I’m not avoiding you because of the whole mate thing. If I really wanted to get out of it, I’d ask for an audience with the warden and tell her, so I didn’t have to see you again. I don’t want that. The idea of it pains me. I don’t know why, but I’ve started being able to sense your wolf. He’s confused right now and still wants to kill Wren.”
Well, fuck. She wasn’t wrong. We both wanted to kill Wren. It had to mean something that she could sense him, and she hadn’t ratted me out and gotten me transferred. It could have just been the protection I could give her, but she didn’t smell like she was lying. She’d opened herself up to me and was being brutally honest.
But there was still something bothering me.
“Then what is the deal with Wren?”
“She’s a little crazy and a little dangerous, but I like her too. I know wolves don’t share. Hauser would have killed her the first time he found her in my bed. If he didn’t, he would have been sneaky about it and left her in the laundry room, so the witches did it, and I couldn’t blame him. I’m just trying to let you know I care for you, and I don’t want to run from this. But I care for other people too.”
Throwing Wren to the witches had certainly crossed my mind. My wolf was all for it. I thought just like Hauser did. If the witches did it, I’d be blameless. I couldn’t do it. My rational side won out over my wolf. Wren didn’t deserve to go down like that. Even though she was sidling up to my mate, I still had professional respect for her. If someone killed Wren, she deserved a good death, not a bunch of angry witches with sharpened toothbrushes.
That shit was going to be my downfall one day.
“I get it, Rei. You need things here that I can’t give you. It bothers me she can touch you, and I can’t. I think that bothers me more than the fact that you care for her too. I hate it.”
“I know what I’m asking, Faust. I don’t know why I’m trying to do this with the four of you when I couldn’t even make it work with one person on the outside.”
