Page 45 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal

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 threatenedyou.But he didn’t need to.We’re… incompatible.”

“Ihighlydoubt 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 haskilledpeople.”

“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 killedthreetimes, and one of those times hadn’t been in self-defense.His alpha hadorderedme 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 hedidn’tknow?What if hewouldn’tbe 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.”