My gaze drifted to his lips, which were parted with surprise. I could part them with lust, too. I could make him breathe my name like a prayer, like a goddamn invocation. I could make him beg for me. Longing and lust ignited like fire in my blood—a strange mix of sweet yearning and heat. Feelings I had never consciously experienced for another man.
“How long did you know?” I demanded, forcing myself to stay put, to ignore the almost magnetic pull between us.
“Look, there are things you don’t understand. It’s not safe to be—”
“How long?”
Reed winced, dropping his gaze. “Since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
For a long moment, I experienced nothing at all. Just total emotional blankness. He could have commented on the weather, for all the reaction I had. But my body responded first, going rigid with anger. My hands tightened into fists. And then the room narrowed down until it was just him—even if there had been a gun to my head, I couldn’t have described a single thing except the handsome dark-haired wolf watching me with wide eyes. I began to tremble with fury and something a lot hotter and more raw-edged than that: hurt.
This was confirmation. Reed had known the entire time. Which meant he had been—what?
Watching me from the shadows?
Knowing I was his other half and letting me be alone?
Completely fucking alone, living a kind of half-life where I was yearning for a connection I had no way of understanding, thinking I was going batshit insane the entire time.
Even Cole hadn’t been that cruel. And he hadn’t had even a trace of human emotion until Eli entered the picture. Hell, he used to hunt humans without even a shred of remorse. Granted, they were serial killers—but still. And even he hadn’t toyed with me like that.
I needed to get out of here. The words I wanted to say were burning in the back of my throat, lodged under the weight of my emotional reaction, but they wouldn’t stay that way for long.
I needed to think—to decide how I felt about this—before I ruined everything. And most of all, I needed to get away from him. Reed, who had known all along and hadn’t breathed a single fucking word of it.
“I’m leaving,” I managed to croak out.
Then, without waiting for his reply, I turned and opened the bar door with more force than I meant to and stormed out onto the street.
Only a few people were on the sidewalks. None of them paid me any mind when I bolted out of the bar and down the street, without even thinking about where I was going, only that I had to get away from the wolf.
Strange, how I had been so certain I’d be able to stay calm in his presence. Or, at the very least, to give him a piece of my mind. But I hadn’t been able to do either of those things.
“Harris—wait!”
I heard Reed’s footsteps behind me on the pavement. Even if he hadn’t said anything, even without turning around, I still would have known it was him. I could feel his proximity. Something that had never happened to me before.
More supernatural bullshit I’ve been mixed up in. Lovely.
“Leave me alone.”
“What? No! Are you out of your mind?” Reed demanded, falling into step beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him casting me a reproachful look—which was rich as hell, coming from him. The bastard. He added, “I’m not leaving things like that!”
I stopped dead in my tracks, forcing him to stop too.
Turning to face him, I said, “Oh, so now you’re interested in making sure things are cool? Now that it’s you who might experience a little fucking emotional discomfort?”
His lips parted with surprise. “I didn’t realize you knew anything was going on. I—I kept my distance.”
Wrong answer, pal.
“Right, because I wouldn’t notice the nightly lucid dreams I’ve been having for three months straight about a Hallmark movie knock-off town I’ve never been to in the Cascade Mountains?” I let out a laugh containing zero percent humor. “Or the fact that I could sense you, but I could never actually see you, because you werehidingfrom me?”
His face fell. “Oh. Right. Well, I guess I should have known you’d be able to feel me.”
“Of course I could feel you! I can feel you right now!”
He cocked his head to the side, his brows drawing together. “You can?”
