Page 30 of Crave

She glared back at me, eyes hard as steel. Out on the street, sheets of rain began to blow in from the northwest.

“I’m not apologizing for a damn thing. You and I weren’t together, and you’d made it perfectly clear that option wasn’t on the table.”

“So why—"

“Because you need to get it through your thick skull that it was never about Ethan. That night, when we all showed up at the bar, I was with someone else. You were with someone else. And something about seeing you there with your brothers, surrounded by them, celebrating with them, another girl on your arm… I realized that it was going to be more nights like this. Graduations. Cookouts. Weddings. Housewarmings. And eventually, maybe not that year or even the next, one of those girls would become permanent, and it would never be me.”

She stalked over to the window. Lightning illuminated the sky.

“Watching you with her hurt in ways I can’t even begin to describe. You and I couldn’t be together. And having that rubbed in my face everywhere I turned… I just wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to stop feeling. It was never about him.”

And at those words, my wolf arched within my bones.

Mate.

I looked down, breathing hard.

“I didn’t go home with her.”

Lacey tore the wrapper off a cupcake. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

I thought back to the night she’d TP’d my house, to the blood-red Blair’s frosting streaked down my front door. She believed there were no more lies left between us. When the truth was, I’d only gotten better at telling them.

“And I’m telling you the night you were infected was the last time I went home with anyone. Until two days ago.”

She froze mid-bite, a dollop of creamy coconut frosting smeared across her upper lip.

“You, um,” she mumbled through a mouthful of cupcake. “I mean, you haven’t—”

“No.”

“You’ve dated, though.”

“Your point?”

“I just assumed—”

“I infected you when transmission should have been impossible. I couldn’t risk that happening to someone else. Or letting my wolf break free from its cage. Not after the way I hurt you.” Not when we both knew I was too unstable. That I couldn’t be trusted.

Her brow furrowed. Like she couldn’t decide whether my insta-confession was more disturbing or just plain pathetic. “Dallas—"

My phone went off, blaring Kenny Chesney. Brody. Cursing, I dug it out of my pocket.

“Can I call you back—”

“Something’s come up. Where are you?”

Instantly, Lacey pushed away from the counter. I switched things over to speaker.

“We’re at Blair’s. What’s going on?”

A dispatch radio crackled in the background. “August texted. Two of our cameras just went offline on the highway coming west into town.”

Lacey met my eyes. “Any chance it’s just the storm? It’s blowing like crazy out there.”

“Could be coincidence. But given the fact that two undeads breached our perimeter the other day, I’m not taking any chances. Can you two check it out?”

Lacey squeezed past me, going to shut off the ovens. I caught her shoulder, spinning her around. Dragging up the sleeve of her hoodie, I examined her arm. The slash marks had closed, the dark pink scars scabbed over, but her flesh from wrist to elbow was mottled with old bruising. She was healing now, but sluggishly. From the way she kept gripping the counter for support, I was pretty sure the fatigue and disorientation hadn’t improved either. Whatever the fang-heads had done to her, her system was still fighting it.