Page 22 of Brock’s Mate

Leave her car here and go off with a stranger? No. “You really think I’m going to just abandon my car and let you take me away to some undisclosed location, while you have my phone? I admit I’m a sucker for getting myself into bad situations, but even I’m not that dumb.”

Brock gave a little huff—half laughter, half frustration. “It’s not like I’m a loner stalker. You met all my friends at the bar.”

“They could be a cult. A sex cult. All those Dirty Drinks? Setting up an event where there’s lots of single women? Dude.” While she talked bullshit—or was it?—Desi was surreptitiously feeling around for the unlock button on the car door.

Brock said, “You’re not in danger from me, but you are in danger. More than you know.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Not judging by the way your wolf tried to attack half a dozen guys on ATVs with rifles.”

She did? Wow. Desi didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled. “Well, that’s my problem, not yours.”

“Untrue. Our survival depends on humans not knowing we’re here. Not hunting us down. Not killing us and then potentially having us autopsied and finding out about our DNA anomalies. You running around in a blackout state is a danger to us all.”

All? Hell, how many werewolves were there in the world?

She said, “So, either I let you keep me captive, or you’re going to… what? Have to kill me?”

He didn’t say anything.

Oh, fuck. That’s exactly what he meant.

Brock put his hand on her arm again. “You just need to learn how to control your wolf. I can help you. Please let me help you.”

She looked into his eyes. For a moment, she actually believed him. It was like something between them formed a connection—a spiderweb strand that ran from the middle of her chest to the middle of his.

She could feel their kiss back at the bar as if it had just happened—the heat of him, the taste of his lips. The way he made her want to be close to him.

And then she felt something else—that prickling sensation in the back of her skull that told her he was trying to hack into her brain. Jered had done it with fear, and domination. Brock was trying to do it with kindness.

But it was still supposed to keep her contained—make her do what he wanted.

Fuck that shit. Nobody controlled Desi, and nobody kept her in a cage. Nobody at all.

She put her hand on top of Brock’s. She wondered if he really was a decent guy. If he really did want to help her.

It didn’t matter. Captive was captive, and she was never going through that again.

Desi reached deep inside her, to the place she tried never to go. The bottomless well of pain that lived within her, where the people who had used her all her life had put all the things they couldn’t handle. All the things that kept them away from God.

They gave them to her, so she’d never be clean, never be loved.

They hadn’t known she could give them back.

The pain passed through her, through the channels she’d trained over time, so she didn’t feel it. She gathered it in the palm of her hand.

“Sorry, Brock,” she whispered, and kissed his mouth. Then she pushed the pain through her palm, out of her body into his, like an electric charge.

He stiffened, his eyes growing wide in shock and agony. She was out of the car and across the road before he even slumped in his seat. She fished in the wheel well of her own car for the spare key, opened the door, and started the engine.

As she drove away, she could see Brock struggle out of his car and stand there, staring after her. The faint word “Fuck” rang through the frosty night behind her.

She expected to feel relief, but all she felt was sadness.

Chapter 9

Brock stared at Desi’s taillights as they disappeared into the night. Then he lowered his forehead to the roof of the car and banged his head on it repeatedly.