“Then why waste your time like this?” She stared back at him somberly. “You confuse me, Tanner. What do you want? A few hard fucks before you turn me over to your pride leader?” Her lips turned down sadly. “Why don’t you go ahead and do it? Stop torturing both of us. ”
“Do you think I want to see you dead, Scheme?” he snapped back, enraged that she would accept death so easily. “I didn’t waste my damned time bringing you here just to see you executed under Breed Law or by your father’s hand. ”
“So why did you waste your time?” She moved to the sink and picked up the salts before turning back to the tub and pouring a healthy amount into the water there.
She acted as though dying meant nothing, as though her life had no worth, and it was pissing him off.
“You could turn evidence against your father,” he stated. “Sanctuary would protect you, Scheme, for that information. ”
She paused, biting her lip, her expression concentrated as she stared back at him. “I wish it were that easy. ”
“Scheme, time is running out,” he urged. “I can’t stay here forever, and neither can you. ”
“Then let me go. ” She turned back to the cabinet, pulling towels, a washcloth and a bottle of bath gel from it before laying them on the small stool by the tub. “The answer is pretty easy, Tanner. I didn’t ask you to bring me here. ”
“You’re asking me to let you die,” he snarled, furious. “You could live. ”
“For how long?” Her expression enraged him. Cool. Composed. They might have been talking about the weather rather than her life. “If you truly want to see me safe, then prove it. Give me a secured cell phone and let me go. I’ll be safe. ”
Her words made him crazy.
“Are you Jonas’s spy in your father’s organization?”
He watched her tense, pale. “You have another spy in Father’s organization?” she asked hesitantly, almost fearfully.
His teeth locked together. He could smell neither deceit nor guilt, but he did smell fear.
“Trust me, Scheme,” he whispered.
“Trust me first, Tanner,” she rebutted. “Just take me out of here and drop me off far enough away from the Coyotes searching for me, and give me a cell. I’ll contact you within hours. ”
If she were still alive. And there wasn’t much change of that.
“I can protect you, goddammit,” he snarled. “Give me that much at least. ”
Her gaze flickered with indecision, with hope and fear and a flash of agonizing pain.
“I can’t. ”
“I won’t let them fucking kill you. ” He was surprised to hear his voice rise. His voice never rose. He was the calm Breed, the playful one.
She stared back at him, a cynical twist to her mouth that told him more than words how little she trusted him.
“I can’t give you what you want, Tanner. ” Desperation filled her voice.
“I don’t have what you need. ”
“Why do I have to keep telling you that I can fucking smell your lies?” he growled.
“Have I ever mentioned how little I care?” she cried out, the lie obvious not just in her scent, but in her voice and in her eyes. “You seem to be under the misconception here, Breed, that I’m willingly playing this little game with you. I’m not. I didn’t ask you to bring me here, and I didn’t ask you to interrogate me. All I asked for was a bath. ”
The tiger he fought to keep hidden awoke with a dangerous shift within him. He could feel the warning snarl in his chest, the opening of extra senses, the added determination that nothing ever hurt her again.
“You’re still protecting him. ” He clenched his teeth against the knowledge. “That bastard has beat you, buried you alive how many fucking times, and killed your child. He hired his own man to be your lover and used him to find reasons to punish you, and you still protect him?”
She turned back to the tub, her hand running beneath the water again before she gripped the lip of the high, claw-foot tub and moved to lift her leg over the side.
She didn’t make a sound, but he saw the discomfort the effort was costing her.