Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“Because I need the most powerful witch ever born,” Killian said. “It’s important to my pack. Trust me, I wouldn’t have risked your life if it wasn’t important.”
At least he needed her, for business.
“Fine. We camp here.” She moved past him and grabbed one of the sleeping bags from the sack he’d been carrying. Rolling it out, she sat down, crossed her legs, straightened her spine, and focused.
The last thing she wanted to do in front of him was cry, but each time he rejected her and her magic, it was like he took a dagger straight to her chest. Dealing with her emotions was easier back at the coven, but not now.
Taking a deep breath in, and a long breath out, she focused on a puppy. A small, tiny, Jack Russell puppy. Ever since she was a child, she had wanted a puppy, but because of how erratic her magic was, she was never allowed to have one. Her main focus had always been magic and controlling it. One of the teacher witches had told her that to ease the troubles of her mind, she should focus on what her heart desired most. At the time, a Jack Russell puppy had been what she wanted, and since then, that was all she had wanted—a small dog of her own.
Once she felt focused and calm, she opened her eyes to find Killian sitting opposite her. Seeing him now didn’t help her thoughts. Averting his gaze, she stared down at the ground to find a brown package.
“Food,” he said. “Eat it.”
She picked it up and opened the package to find a couple of sandwiches. One sniff and she knew it was peanut butter.
“How did you know?” Leah asked.
“I talked to your parents.”
No, she refused to be happy about this. This did not make him in any way a great guy, nor acting like her mate.
“Thank you,” she said, which was the polite thing to do before taking a large bite of her sandwich. She was starving. “What did you have?”
“Cheese and pickle.”
“Is that a favorite?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” So she could learn a little about him while they were on this mission together. Not that she could do anything with knowing he enjoyed cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. “I thought wolves were all about meat.”
Killian rolled his eyes. “Eat your sandwich.”
“You’ve got to stop treating me like a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
“How is asking about your food preferences acting like a child?”
He glared at her and remained silent. He’d gone back to being a dick, this time a silent one.
Leah ate her sandwich and ignored that stabbing pain slicing through her heart. This shouldn’t be hurting, but it was. Being around her mate, the very one that rejected her, was testing her last nerves.
She wrapped up the brown paper bag and handed it back to Killian. Stepping around the perimeter, she stared off into the night, not seeing anything that might freak her out. Leah was not about to tell Killian she had a slight problem with the dark … she was terrified of it.
Without him seeing, she held her hands out and chanted a quick protection spell so if anyone came close to their camp, she’d be alerted.
“It’s time for you to sleep,” Killian said. “We need to rest as we’ll be moving at first light.”
It was moments like this that she realized he was in fact a lot older than his forty years.
“How long have you been alive?” she asked.
He was already inside a sleeping bag. Moving to her own, she kicked off her shoes, stuffing them in a bag so no spiders could crawl in. She shot out another invisible slice of magic, one that repelled all bugs. She was not going to have those little things crawling all over her while she slept.
“Long enough,” he said.
He wasn’t going to add anything to it.
Infuriating man.
She climbed into her sleeping bag, and as she did so, she felt the chill of the night envelop them. He refused to build a fire so they didn’t draw attention to their location. Great, she was going to freeze to death.
Glancing over toward her … mate, she had to wonder if he felt any pain or wished he could be holding her, if he felt anything for her at all.
His instant rejection had stung harder than she could have imagined. Each day and every single night, she would replay his rejection through her mind—the sneer, the glance up and down, and simply telling her no.
****
This was supposed to be easy.
At least, Killian had assumed it would be easy but the past twenty-four hours had been the hardest he’d ever lived, and he’d lived through a lot. He looked over toward Leah, and she was curled up, her gaze not on him as she tried to get warm. He heard her teeth chattering from where he lay.