Page 21 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal (Kennedy Rain #4)

“You’re always saving me.” Blake’s words broke the night’s silence.

I slowed half a step to look at him. He didn’t say anything else, didn’t look at me, just continued our walk across the field toward the decoy house.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around,” I said.

The dark clouds overhead shadowed his features.

There was something unreadable in his expression, something quieter than usual.

The violence that had sharpened his aura and defined every muscle in his shoulders and torso had finally faded, replaced by something else, something pensive yet significant.

“When Jared tried to provoke me after erasing the cop’s memory, you came between us when you should have fled.”

Yeah. That had been incredibly stupid. “I didn’t want you and Jared to kill each other.”

“You came between my wolf and Malachi outside your apartment.”

It took me a second to remember that night.

Arcuro had shown up first, threatening my friends with his presence.

That was the first time I’d met Malachi.

He’d thrown an emaciated vampire, one of the unsanctioned I’d saved, at my feet, a test to see if a crazy, deranged paranorm could attack me without triggering the treaty.

Blake killed the vampire before he had a chance to reach me.

Then he’d set his wolf’s eyes on Malachi.

And again, I’d acted without thinking, grabbing a handful of his fur to keep him from attacking.

“Are you admitting you couldn’t take on Malachi?

” I lightly bumped his shoulder and painted a grin on my face.

He responded like I’d hoped he would, narrowing his eyes at me.

Somehow his expression managed to look both amused and irritated at the same time while clearly communicating the thought: Don’t be ridiculous.

My grin widened.

He focused ahead again. Waited a few steps. “The mountainside.”

Heat coiled around my core and simmered there, all restless and wild and wanting. “You needed a distraction. And I was saving myself.”

His gaze slid to me again.

Subject change. I needed a subject change STAT.

“The compound just now,” he said quietly.

“Blake. Please.”

He looked forward again, and my next breath came a little easier. The muscles in my shoulders relaxed. A few more steps, and the need rioting low in my stomach would fade too.

“You’ve saved me more times than you know.”

I stopped walking. Closed my eyes.

“What changed, Kennedy?”

I felt him standing close to me. Wanted him to move closer.

“Something happened,” he said. “When I saw you after the mountain, you were cold. Distant. I didn’t know if you regretted kissing me, if you’d somehow faked your scent—which hits me like a goddamn spell—or if I’d been so completely fucked up I’d misinterpreted everything.”

I opened my eyes but didn’t meet his gaze. I couldn’t lie to him. He already smelled the truth, probably already sensed the heat burning in me. “Lehr will kill you.”

“He threatened you?” Blake’s voice hardened.

I lifted my gaze. “He threatened you. But he didn’t need to. We’re… incompatible.”

“I highly doubt that.”

It was impossible to miss the low, sexy rumble in his voice, but I rushed on, filling the air with words in an attempt to cool the space between us.

“Your world is violent. The powerful use the powerless as pawns and tools. That goes against everything I believe in. I’d judge you, you’d resent me, and that doesn’t even take into account the fact that I’m a Rain—”

“You’re a human.”

“A human who has killed people.”

“Twice,” he said. “Once out of mercy and once in self-defense.”

“The number should be zero.” I stumbled over the last word.

Then quickly neutralized my expression. He’d said I’d killed twice, but I’d killed three times, and one of those times hadn’t been in self-defense.

His alpha had ordered me to kill Shelli.

She’d been unarmed and helpless. More than a dozen of Lehr’s wolves had been there.

They’d massacred Shelli’s coven. Blake had to know all that.

The way his brows lowered said he might not.

I started walking again, needing some movement and some time to think.

“What is it?” Blake demanded, falling into step beside me.

“I’m tired of this conversation.” What if he didn’t know? What if he wouldn’t be okay with Lehr’s order?

“That’s why your presence went cold?” His tone said he absolutely didn’t believe me.

Death and violence were par for the course with werewolves. I’d held Blake’s lack of reaction in the back of my mind as another reason to keep my distance from him. What would his reaction be if I told him I’d been forced to slit Shelli’s throat?

I didn’t want to find out, so I made myself shrug. “I don’t want Lehr to kill you.”

Blake snorted. “He won’t.”

“He’s already demoted you for going to Nora’s wedding.”

“I disobeyed him. He had to do something.”

“If you disobey him this time, he’ll really have to do something.”

“Lehr can’t kill me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“I’m the better fighter.” He made the statement as if it were an obvious fact.

“Oh my God,” I said, much more comfortable with this conversation. “You’re such a werewolf. You think you’re invincible.”

“Yes, I’m a werewolf and no, I’m not invincible. You destroy me with your touch.”

I groaned. “Stop.”

“Stop what?” The smirk in his voice was downright blatant.

“Stop talking like that. Between your words, your…” I waved at his shirtless chest, “you-ness, and your magic manipulating—”

“I’ve been extremely careful to keep my magic caged.” The atmosphere around us changed again, roughening the air and casting dark shadows across his face. Damn it. I hadn’t meant to offend him.

“Blake.”

“This way.” He jerked his head toward the right. We were still about a hundred yards from the decoy house. He was leading me toward the thick line of brush and small trees that separated the property from the road on the other side.

His strides lengthened. I tried to keep up without jogging but fell a few paces behind until we reached a break in the bushes.

Blake held back the one stray tree branch that crossed the path so I could step through.

The way he released it behind me said he was still upset I’d accused him of manipulating me with magic.

I knew his magnetism affected me some, but I also knew my attraction to him wasn’t due to his werewolf influence.

I wanted him inside the Null. I wanted him when he wasn’t anywhere near me.

“Blake.” His name turned into two syllables, the first starting as an apology, the second ending as a drawn-out groan.

Blake’s truck was parked carelessly on the side of the road.

I kept hoping it would break down, forcing Blake to drive one of his other cars, but the damn thing clung to life despite the number of pieces that kept falling off it.

I kept my thoughts to myself though. I’d asked Blake once why he kept it.

He’d replied that it was the only thing he had left from his human life.

It was something that meant a lot to him, a memory, and I wasn’t going to insult that.

He opened the passenger door for me, which I appreciated since he had to punch it just right to get it to budge.

“You know this can’t work out.”

“We don’t know that,” he grated out.

“You have to stop coming to The Rain. You need to stay away.”

He gripped the open door with his right hand, the frame of the truck with his left, sandwiching me between his body and the scarred and torn passenger seat.

“You don’t think I’ve tried? You defy me.

You don’t back down. You interfere in pack matters, and Lehr hates you.

My wolf should want to kill you, but he fucking prances when you’re around. ”

Prances? I tried to stop the corner of my mouth from quirking up—should have stopped it given the amount of gold that now shone in Blake’s eyes.

I pressed my lips together, trying to flatten my smile. Too late though. He definitely noticed.

“Get in,” he growled.

I hopped backward onto the seat.

His eyes narrowed. He slipped his arm under my legs, lifted, then plopped me down facing the windshield so he didn’t hit me when he slammed the door.

He walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel. He’d left his keys in their usual place, the small cubby in the dash. He slid the truck’s key into the ignition and turned.

Nothing happened.

Blake turned the key off, then back on. Another pitiful series of whirrs faded off like a sad trombone.

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

A click indicated a third turn of the key. This time, the engine choked, coughed, and spluttered to life.

I side-eyed Blake. He saw, and the tight line of his mouth curved upward into a smug smile.

My shoulder slammed into the passenger door when the truck bucked over the smallest pothole in the universe.

“You drive this thing whenever you think you might see me, don’t you?”

“Go on a date with me, and maybe I’ll choose something else.”

“I’m not dating right now,” I said flatly.

“Why not?”

“I’m just not.”

“No, I mean it.” He took his eyes off the road to look at me. “Why aren’t you with someone?”

I flung my hand in the air. “Have you seen my life lately?”

“Fair enough. Before this then. Why didn’t you date when you were in college?”

“I did.”

“Not for a significant amount of time.”

“Were you stalking me?” I tried to make the question sound like an accusation.

He replied with one of his nonchalant shrugs. “The pack keeps tabs on you.”

“That is just… wrong,” I said.

The corner of his mouth lifted. That little half smile was sexy as hell, which made him dangerous. It was hard to dislike him when he was like this.

He probably knew it.

“So,” he said, glancing my way again. “When was the last time you were with someone?”

Yeah. He definitely knew it.

“When were you?” I countered.

“We’re not talking about my love life.”

I snorted. “We’re not talking about mine.”

“But I like talking about you.”

“Oh my God. You just can’t quit, can you?”

His grin widened. “I think I already established that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. It’s been over a year.”

“Who was it?”

“Really?” I said, giving him an incredulous look.

He chuckled. “It’s always been easy to get under your skin.”

“Oh, now you’re calling me easy?”

“I’m calling you impossible.” He took his attention away from the road again, looked at me, and God, that smile. It wasn’t fair how easily it stripped away my resolve. It felt too good to do this, to let my defenses fall and just be here with him.

My shoulder rammed into the door again.

Okay, maybe not here.

“If you moved closer to me, you wouldn’t bruise that arm.”

I immediately stopped rubbing my shoulder. “You’re not very appreciative of someone who keeps saving your life.”

His hand went to his heart. “Using my confessions against me. You’re vicious, Ms. Rain—”

His voice went tight at the end of that sentence. The smile fled from his face. He placed both hands back on the steering wheel and focused straight ahead.

A knot tightened in my stomach, and I focused on the windshield too. A handful of seconds passed, then Blake reached for one of the two phones in the dashboard cubby.

He lifted the phone to his ear. Didn’t say anything.

Pack business. Had to be.

“Understood.” He tossed the phone back into the cubby. I kept my attention on the dark clouds in the distance. A thunderstorm. How appropriate.

“I’m not going on pack business with you,” I said. He’d taken me once before. He’d ended up shifting to kill a moonsick wolf and her brother.

“I know.” His hands tightened and loosened on the wheel. Tightened and loosened again. He drove maybe a quarter mile farther before he cursed.

“I can’t drive you to The Rain. I can’t take you with me.” He shook his head, slowed the truck, then shifted into park on the roadside. “You’re going to have to drive home.”

It took a second for one specific detail of that plan to sink in.

“Drive… this?” I laughed. “No way.”

“It’s just like driving any other truck.”

“It’s not. If I hit a bump wrong, it’ll shatter into a billion tiny pieces.”

“A billion is overkill,” he said. “And the pieces would be bigger than that.”

“You would no longer have sides on the bed.”

“I’ve reattached them before.”

My eyes widened.

“Kidding,” he said. “She’s fine as long as you don’t turn off the engine, and Nichlathan can’t get to you when you’re moving. Don’t stop until you get to The Rain, and when you do get there, park inside the Null.”

“So you want me to ram your truck into my hotel.”

“That’s not—”

“The Null ends on the front porch.”

“Take the access road around,” he said.

“Road? You mean that overgrown trail that your Jaguar barely made it down? This won’t make it ten feet.”

“Why are you arguing?” He finally sounded as irritated as I was. “You just said you didn’t want anything to do with pack business.”

All I could do was shake my head.

“I really can’t take you,” he said.

“It’s fine.”

He sighed. “I know what fine really means.”

“Do you—”

He opened his door and grabbed my waist at the same time, then he exited the truck and hauled me across the seat.

“Blake!” I grabbed the steering wheel, which is exactly where he wanted me: in the driver’s seat.

“She’ll get you home,” he said. His eyes were a dark and human obsidian brown, intense and focused.

What choice did I have?

“Fine,” I said, this time just to be difficult.

His mouth twitched into a brief smile, then he leaned back into the truck to reach under my seat. When he straightened, he held a screwdriver in his hand.

“In case the storm breaks,” he said.

Glaring, I grabbed the stupid tool. He didn’t let it go though. Instead, he held on and brought his lips so very close to my ear. “I haven’t been with anyone since before Beltane.”