Page 10 of Cold Foot Revenge (Wreck’s Mountains #7)

She sniffed and pushed off of Dylan. “That’s what happened to your brother. There’s the information you needed. You should know something though.”

“What’s that,” he asked, his nostrils flaring with the deep inhalation of breath. The fire was back in his eyes. The anger.

“Leech got the wrong brother. He got Garret mixed up with you. I heard them talking about it. Grave wanted to kill Leech for the mistake. He was so mad. They had to Turn Garret then or the drugs would’ve just killed him. You can’t survive the first step without the second.”

Dylan was shaking his head, confusion swirling in his eyes. “Wait, I don’t know anyone named Grave or Leech. Why would they be after me?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

“Why me, Roxy?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t talk about that part in front of me.” She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “They’ll kill me if they find out I betrayed the Crew and told you.”

“Why didn’t they Turn me after Garret then? We were here for a few weeks after. Garret was loud. He had no control of the animal. It would’ve been easy to find me.”

She shook her head again, starting to regret telling him.

“A dose of the Turn is expensive. You have to get it illegally. It’s ten thousand dollars a dose.

That’s why Grave was so pissed.” She frowned, trying to remember that Crew meeting.

Grave and Leech were fighting a lot back then, and loudly.

“He said something like he’d had to put up the down payment on the bar for that dose and it was wasted.

Garret couldn’t be controlled. I remember he said he couldn’t be controlled. ”

“And I could?” Dylan asked.

“I don’t…I don’t know,” she said. “Garret was Turned before I was. I wasn’t around for all that.

All I heard was an argument that flared up later.

I was a new Turn and trying to get used to being in Crew meetings with a lot of really dominant bear shifters and it was hard to even pay attention.

I remember I went and did an internet search on you and your brother’s names after the meeting, trying to figure out what happened.

I found your social media pages. Your last post was the night Garret was Turned, and then you just went quiet.

Garret too. I was scared Garret hurt you, or something happened to you. ”

“Why did you care?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I think I was just trying to figure out how Garret was doing, because I knew I wasn’t doing well at all.

I went straight to hell and didn’t rebound after I died.

And that’s what it feels like, Dylan. The old you dies, and the new one wasn’t your choice, and everything falls apart.

I wanted to know if it had done the same to Garret.

I hoped it didn’t. I kind of hoped I would find out that he was doing well, and then it would give me some hope or something. ”

“And Grave?” he asked low.

“What about him?”

“Are you and him…are you together still?”

“Hell no. I broke that off the second I figured everything out. He had me locked away in his house when I was first Turned, and went into control-mode immediately. He kept trying to convince me that if I did every single thing he said, I would be okay again someday. I found out he was the one who Turned me. I heard him talking about it with Nick.” She tapped her ear twice.

“The coyote hearing is something else.” She wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand and leaned her back against the back window of her car.

“You asked who hurt me.” She lifted her gaze to his. “That’s who.”

The cool rage on Dylan’s face was something she’d never witnessed before on a human. It brought chills up her spine. He nodded, his eyes ice cold on hers, unblinking.

There was a heaviness to him that she hadn’t felt before. It felt like when she was in Crew meetings with all the big dominant bruins, and it struck her.

This was why. Dylan wasn’t lashing out or throwing shit. He wasn’t loud. His anger was heavy, and quiet, and promised revenge.

That would be exactly what the Grit-Bron Crew would’ve been looking for, back when they were building their numbers.

They needed enforcers.

She didn’t know why they’d thought he would be controllable, but she would pay attention now.

Dylan felt huge for a human when he was angry, and even inside of her, the coyote shrank and wanted nothing to do with him.

Huh.

Interesting.

“I really have to go to work,” she said. “They’ll wonder why I’m late.”

“Are you good there?” he asked.

“I can do whatever I want to,” she said defensively.

“No, I mean are you safe?”

She shrugged. “Safe enough, I guess. I can take care of myself.”

Dylan ran his hand down his short beard and looked off to the side, inhaled deeply. “Can I have your number?”

“I can’t date anyone. I’m not good at that kind of stuff right now. I won’t ever be good for that stuff.”

“That’s not why I’m asking for it.”

“Then why?”

“So, you have someone to call in case you ever need anything.”

She searched his eyes, but there was no fear there.

Only resolve. Only confidence. “Helping me would only get you killed. I’m serious.

I think you should go back to Wreck’s Mountains before the Crew figures out you’re here.

Grave and Leech don’t like missing marks, and you were the only one they fucked up.

The Rabbit Hole is doing well for them. They get a huge cut from it. They have Turn Doses. I’ve seen them.”

“Where do they keep them?” he asked cooly.

“Grave’s house.”

“You’re a watcher, aren’t you?” he asked.

“A watcher and a grenader.”

“Mmm.” He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You want to ream me before you leave, so you can feel good about it?”

And she thought about it. Her emotional meltdown had drained her, and already she was thinking about so much. Already she wanted to change things about herself. Not to please him or any man…but to please herself.

So, instead of poking at him, and hunting for a reason to get angry with him, she closed the distance between them and stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.

He stood frozen for a three-count and then softened and slowly eased her back against her car. He angled his face the other way and took control of the kiss, and inside her mind, Roxy melted into the blissful silence.

What did it mean that a man could quiet all of her thoughts. That he could settle her demons. That he could make her feel safe like this?

His hand gripped her waist, then the back of her hair as he dragged his biting kisses down the side of her throat to her collar bone. He sucked there and a groan escaped her. God, this man knew how to touch her.

She rolled her hips toward him on instinct, and he moved to the other side of her neck, to her other collar bone and sucked there. And then he did something that had her body going crazy for her. He grazed his teeth there. Gently, but she felt his canines.

Oh, human, human, playing with fire.

Playing with the idea of claiming marks.

He moved back up to her throat and kissed his way up her jaw to her lips and then consumed her once again.

I have to stop existing. She’d said those words aloud to him, and he’d hugged her until she’d felt better, and what a powerful creature Dylan was.

What a powerful creature that he could hear her say those words and then kiss her and give her that freedom.

Here in his arms, tasting him, none of the bad existed.

“Number,” he rumbled as he eased away, pulling his phone from his back pocket.

Lips throbbing, she took his offered phone and typed her number into it and saved it under the name Wolf Mask.

She wasn’t shaking as she sank back down into the driver’s seat of her car. She wasn’t angry. A soft buzz was humming through her body, like she’d had a couple drinks, but really, she was just tipsy on Dylan and the way he’d touched her body.

That man was something else. Something she had never known. He was a lighthouse for ships lost at sea. He was smart, and honest, and considerate, and most of all…most of all…she’d seen it…he was protective.

He leaned against his truck and watched her as she drove off.

Twice she looked in the rearview and he was still just standing there, watching her go.

A strange sensation filled her middle. She didn’t want to leave. The farther away she got from him, the more alone she felt. It was an uncomfortable pressure in her chest as she lost sight of him completely.

Forcing herself to focus on the task ahead, Roxy drove straight to the Rabbit Hole.

Nothing had changed for her.

Nothing except for everything.