Page 100 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal

Something in his tone cleared away my sleepiness.I moved enough to see his face.“You’re leaving.”

He smoothed back my hair.“I don’t want to.I didn’t plan on this.”

My eyebrows rose.

He laughed.“Okay.I’dhopedfor this but thought you’d push me away again with all the reasons we shouldn’t be together.”

I pursed my lips, then said.“Fair.”

He leaned forward and kissed me.I pulled him close.For a moment, everything was perfect again—we were together, I was happy—but then he put space between us.

“I have somewhere I have to be,” he said.

A tendril of uneasiness curled in my stomach.I don’t know if it was because he was leaving so quickly, if it was my nervousness over the spell, or if something else bothered me.I just knew I didn’t want him to go, and I couldn’t ask him to stay.For this relationship to have any chance of lasting, I’d have to accept him running off to do pack business.

“Hey.”He sat up straighter.The blanket fell to our waists.I grabbed its edge and pulled it up to my chest.I didn’t mean to make it a wall between us, but it looked like Blake took it that way.

“It won’t always be like this,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

“I have to deal with a few pack members.It’ll die down soon.”

“I know.”

“I should be able to come back in a few hours.”

In one hour, I would be meeting Astrid and the coven.It was actually good that he had to leave.

“It’s really okay, Blake.I get that there are things you have to do and things you can’t tell me because Lehr,” I tried not to snarl the name, “or the pack or werewolf-dom in general wouldn’t want me to know.I can’t tell you everything either.”

He searched my eyes.His face was too serious, his body a little too tense.I didn’t think he believed me.Then his mouth twitched.“Werewolf-dom?”

“It’s a word,” I insisted.

He chuckled, then made a big deal of scanning the library.“In which dictionary?”

“Shut up.”I slipped a hand behind his neck and pulled him in for another kiss.And another.I let the blanket fall and turned in to him.His hands dropped to my ass.

A phone vibrated.

Damn it.

He cursed.Kissed my neck.“I have to go.”

Biting my lower lip, I nodded and moved off him.

He cursed again, found our clothes and tossed mine to me.I pulled on my shirt while he pulled on his jeans.He’d accidentally given me his shirt too, so I started to hand it back, then stopped and frowned.The material felt odd.I looked closer, saw a dark stain across the middle.

“Is this blood?”

He looked over at me, then at the shirt.Blinked.

“No?”he replied in a way that translated intoyes, definitely.“It’s not mine.”

“It’s not mine,” I said.My bandage was still completely white.

“I know.It’s um…”