Page 31 of The Wolf's Kidnapped Mate

“Operation Paragon.” Fred closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and then resumed holding my gaze. “Bernadetti was never captured, right?”

“Right.”

His brows twitched together and then parted just as quickly. The way his lips parted and the way his tongue squirmed around the corner of his mouth made me shudder again. “He was spotted in the States recently. So, Liam called with a plan. If he got close enough to Beaufort, if he was spotted in town, then—”

My vision tunneled. “No.”

“I swear, Kylie. I tried to tell him it was a bad idea.”

“No, no,no.”

I gripped my knees while lurching forward. Nausea had abruptly slammed into my gut, making it feel like I was about to lose every ounce of tea I had just consumed.No, this wasn’t happening right now. It couldn’t be real.

Uncomfortable memories floated to the front of my mind as I stared at the ground. “I know exactly what you did, Fred.”

“Your brother wanted me to protect you while—”

“While you both used me as bait.”

Silence crowded the space between us, so thick that I would have mistaken it for a curtain given how hazy it made my vision. My heart was slamming against my ribcage. My lungs were burning with the air I was forcing into them. My back ached while I dug my fingers into the flesh around my kneecaps.

Bernadetti was in every single one of my nightmares. Ever since that explosion, I hadn’t been able to sleep without seeing his smug smile and hearing those disgusting things he used to say to me whenever no one else was nearby.

Fred dropped to his knees in front of me. It was weird seeing his stern demeanor break into pure guilt.

Ah, sothatwas the guilt he was feeling earlier. He couldn’t handle deceiving me so badly, could he?

I sneered. “You did this.”

“I told him it—”

“But you stilldid this.”

Fred bowed his head as he slouched forward, collapsing onto his haunches. “Kylie, I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You don’t know that.”

I practically catapulted myself from the chair—then stopped when I realized I was barefoot. I wiggled my toes. I stared at them the same way I did after a lengthy shift in my wolf form.

Fred didn’t miss a beat. He drifted to a pile of black bags I hadn’t seen from my vantage point in the chair and dug through one of them. When he returned to me, he slapped some socks into my hand.

Grumpily, I yanked on the socks and went to the cot in the corner of the room. That wasn’t a whole lot of distance, but it was enough to make me feel like I was getting some space from Fred.

I was livid with himandmy brother. This whole time, I had trusted my brother to protect me. I’d trusted the pack he had dropped me in to keep me out of danger’s way.

Yet apparently, there had been an end goal to my presence there.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You gave me hope.”

Fred looked lost. Even with his height, he somehow appeared to make himself smaller by slouching. As if by doing that he could absolve his guilt. “About what?”

“Aboutus.” I pointed to my chest where my heart was currently breaking into several pieces. “You gave me hope about being my mate, and then you rejected me. I knew it was suspicious when you tried to snap it right back. You were using me.”

I tightened my arms over my chest to hug the hurt away.

“Oh, goddess,” I whimpered. “Everyone was using me. Blake set the whole thing up, didn’t he? That’s why he announced us as mates. That’s why—”

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