Page 32 of The Wolf's Kidnapped Mate

I covered my mouth. It felt like I was about to be sick.

Fred closed the space between us and took my shoulders. “Hey, listen to me.”

I stared fearfully at him with my hand over my mouth. Was it vomit? An angry tirade? Sobs?

No clue. And I didn’t want to find out.

“Listen,” he insisted softly as his thumbs scoped the edge of my crop top’s sleeves. His fingers warmed my skin. Theyroved beneath the fabric and captured my attention harder than anything in my life.

I was most certainly listening.

“Iamsorry, Kylie,” he whispered mournfully, “because it was wrong to make you the bait without your knowledge. We should have involved you.”

I glared at him while dropping my hand. “Youdidinvolve me.”

“We should have asked—goddamn it, Kylie. You know what I mean.”

The hiccup that surfaced caught me by surprise. I was about to start crying again. Good thing I had washed all that makeup off right when I got home. I hated it when my mascara ran because of crying. Fretfully, I wiped my cheeks, preemptively trying to wipe the tears away.

No use. They were coming whether I wanted them or not.

As my anger turned into betrayal, I started to shiver. No longer did I have hot waves of agitation to warm me. I was robbed of that warmth, consumed by icy layers of disappointment. In my brother. In Fred.

In my pack.

Despite how much my body protested, I shook Fred’s hands from my shoulders and marched to the table to collect my tea. I plopped in front of the stony hearth, taking deep, shuddering breaths as I tried to collect myself. I couldn’t change what had happened. I couldn’t make it go away either.

I had to think of something else.

If Fred was supposed to protect me—if the mate thing was a setup—then I had to stop reaching for him. I had to stopseeing him as the only person in the vicinity who understood my constant uphill battle of a recovery from being in the black ops. Clearly, he knew many things about me.

But he didn’t seem to know just how big of a mistake he had made.

I choked on a sob. “Where are we going next?”

“We have a rendezvous point set up in Buckhannon, Virginia.”

I nodded at the fire, ignoring the steamy tears that trickled down my cheeks. “10-4, soldier.”

“You can’t hide that you’re hurt, genius.”

“Oh, I’m not going to do adamn thingto hide my hurt, you fucking putz.”

I whirled to face him, sending every aching molecule of anger in his direction. He flinched and stepped back almost like it had worked. But I wasn’t fooled. I knew Fred. He could easily recover from any kind of offense,ifhe felt any offense at all.

In this case, he seemed genuinely upset. However much that was true, it wouldn’t last long. He would erase those feelings in favor of the mission. Because the mission would always take precedence over everything else.

I rolled my eyes back to the fire. There wasn’t much use fighting the pain that took residence in my chest. It would take years to reduce the ache, but I was willing to do it so long as it meant we put Bernadetti in his place. And soon after that, I would have plenty of words for my brother and Fred.

“I assume the objective was to lure him out of hiding,” I said with enough snark to sour the tea in my mug. “Did you catch him? Did it work?”

I knew the answer to that question. Because if it had worked, I would have gone to bed in my apartment without knowing a thing about the situation. Maybe my brother would have called and debriefed me.Maybe. So long as it didn’t compromise any ofhisplans, of course.

Fred sighed as he walked toward me. I could feel the prickling sensation of my irritation inflaming my skin. It was a lot like my instinctive awareness of proximity which was sending red alarms through my brain the closer he got to me. A mixture of defiance, fear, and longing swept through my body fast enough to bring the nausea back.

I closed my eyes.

After all that crap, all that uncertainty, all that joy that came from yesterday and the resulting disappointment today, I still wanted Fred to hold me. I still wanted to feel his soothing touch, his attentive and tender gaze. I wanted the problems to just go away so I could just sit with him here in front of the fire and—

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