Page 20 of Taming His Vampire Mate

Weird.

“Fine,” I said before I could stop myself. “Tell Emma she wins. But after this, I’m done. Reed will challenge me, and I’ll let him win.”

Lindsey didn’t flinch, but her expression darkened. “You’d be asking him to kill you.”

Generally, wolves retain most of our human intellect when we shift. But when threatened, instinct takes over. If it’s our life or theirs, the wolf will do anything—even fight dirty—to survive.

I shrugged. “He might not. I’m only asking him todefeatme.”

“Youmight killhim.”

“I won’t,” I said flatly. A wolf’s survival instinct is for those who still have something to live for. I was already a ghost—my body just didn’t know it yet.

A flash of the vampire’s too-blue eyes ripped through my memory. I shoved it away. I’d be doing both of us a favor.

“Jer, this is nuts. You can’t ask Reed to—”

“I’m not asking. Those are my terms. Take them back to the pack. Reed and Emma can accept or not.”

“Listen to me, Jer,” Lindsey said thickly. “If you do this—if you make Reed do this—I won’t forgive you. You’re the only family I have left. And I can’t lose you too.”

Guilt punched me square in the chest. I almost caved. Instead, I looked away, scowling, eyes burning, so I wouldn’t have to feel like more of a monster than I already did. Fate had chosen well to pair me with a vampire—a creature as selfish and messed up as I was.

But this wasn’t selfishness. The pack was connected in ways that ran deep. They drew strength from each other and theiralpha. I couldn’t be that anymore. I couldn’t be trusted to make decisions that might get them killed.

If the bleeds really were starting again, they needed a real alpha—with hope still in his heart, not crushed by despair. Without that, they wouldn’t stand a chance. And they were still my people.

Now that it came to it, I still cared whether they lived or died. And Crescent Springs was still my town. I’d grown up there with Ian, learned how to love there. It was where I’d opened my bar, listening to locals and ski lodge guests drown their troubles. I knew every inch of it the way I knew this forest, the way I knew my own body.

Crescent Springs was my home.

I couldn’t allow anything to happen to it. Or to the people in it.

“You and Reed will meet me in an hour,” I said harshly, my voice thicker than it should have been. “Then we’ll go.”

“What if Reed and Emma say no?” Lindsey asked, clinging to false hope.

I felt the grim smile curve my lips. Nothing about this was funny. “They won’t.”

CHAPTER SEVEN || THIERRY

“Ican’t believe he agreed to come,” Pierce muttered hours later.

We sat at the long mahogany table, polished to a brilliant shine, waiting for the joint supernatural council session to begin. For the first time in the city’s history, every faction of supernatural creatures—and a select handful of influential humans, including the mayor and police chief—would sit together to make decisions that affected us all.

“Who, now?” I asked, shooting the dark-haired vampire a sideways look.

As usual, Pierce was extra-broody. Now that he’d met James, though, there was an odd sparkle in his amber eyes—as if he’d figured out a way to be both pensive and impossibly happy at the same time. He’d clearly had one too many glasses of the fated mate Kool-Aid.

“Be nice,” James chided his mate. “I’m glad he’s coming. When I called, his pack said he’d been gone for months. Living in the woods.”

Something lurched in my stomach. I looked at them sharply.

“The question stands. Who are we speaking of?” I demanded, even though I was pretty sure I already knew.

“Jeremy,” James said, irritatingly earnest. “Alpha of the werewolf pack in the mountains by Pierce’s cabin. You know, the one who—”

“Tried to force you to become a werewolf without so much as a word of explanation?” I demanded, appalled. My voice rose. “The wolf who tried to kill Pierce? Why yes, James. I’ve heard of him.”