Chapter 18
EMLYN
Thatabsolutesonofa bitch.
I can’t believe he would lie to me like that. I mean, it shouldn’t come as a surprise—he told me himself that he was the kind of guy to put his own judgment above the rest of his pack. He told me he wasn’t a team player. And all he really wanted was to get out of the cage he was locked in. Of course he made up a story.
What really pisses me off is that I let myself fall for it enough that I was willing to sleep with him! I definitely shouldn’t have done that.
I don’t exactly regret it. Itwasgood for me. And to be honest, I probably would have done it if I had known the truth because he’s really hot and I’m attracted to him. I just wish he hadn’t lied to me. It makes me feel like an idiot.
He’s probably off laughing at me right now.
I don’t know why he didn’t just come clean as soon as he was out of the cage. That’s the weird part. Why did he hang around all this time, acting as if he really was going to take me to find a Moon Caster coven when he knew all along that he wouldn’t be able to do that?
I really don’t understand men at all.
At first, I think it’s just the memory of sex with him that’s making me feel aroused. But the feeling is building, not diminishing. It’s almost as if I’m being pulled toward something magnetically.
Oh, no.
I recognize this. It’s the same feeling I had in the department store when Bruce was looking for me. When Victor was close, waiting to kill me, and yet my body ached to go to him.
Is it possible he’s near me now?
I sniff the air.
There’s definitely something. A hint of wolf. I don’t know if it’s a threat to me, or if it’s something completely unrelated, but I do know it’s not Nate. For better or worse, his smell is completely familiar to me now. I would know it anywhere. He’s woodsmoke and the scent of the sun baked into skin. This isn’t him.
This is something much less pleasant.
I hurry down an alley between two buildings. The pressure inside me is building up now. If I hadn’t been with Nate, I don’t know if I would recognize the urge to fuck as what it is, but I have.
That urge shouldn’t feel sodangerous.
Then a shadow appears at the end of the alley.
For a moment, I’m positive it’shim. That Victor has found me.
Then the figure steps forward, and it’s not Victor at all.
It’s Harley.
Jess’s mate.
I stare at him for a long moment, and he stares right back.
Is he going to kill me? My best friend’s mate?
But she’s not my best friend anymore, is she? She probably hates me now that the whole pack knows I’m part Moon Caster. She’s probably horrified by the fact that she used to be friends with me, that she used to spend time alone with me. She’s probably dying for Harley to come home and tell her that she doesn’t have to worry, that I’m not going to be a problem anymore.
I find my voice. “Harley,” I say.
“Emlyn.”
He sounds like a stranger. Not like the guy I grew up with, the one I used to tussle with when we were children, the one who used to save me bits of his river trout because he didn’t really like it. We used to be as close as brother and sister. Now it couldn’t be more obvious that he just doesn’t give a damn about me.
“So this is how it is?” I say.