Page 66 of Ignited

“Well, I’d say ‘Go light a match in a grain silo and see,’ but don’t. On account of you’ll die. But one of these days I’ll blow up some flour for you. Remind me. It’ll be fun.”

Boomer watched Karisma eat her crepes, trying to ignore the weird wobbly feeling in his chest. He’d always liked doing stuff for her, seeing her smile, but this morning he’d woken up fucking obsessed with the idea of making her fantasy breakfast.

It is good to bring our mate food she likes, his wolf said.

Mate. The word sent a surge of warmth through him, followed by a surge of sheer terror. He couldn’t be someone’s mate. He couldn’t keep this up for long without fucking it up totally.

Hell, he couldn’t even tell her how he felt. She didn’t want to be anyone’s mate. She was a tiger, for fuck’s sake. A loner, and one who’d been conditioned by life not to trust anyone.

How would she ever be able to bond with anyone, let alone someone like Boomer?

It wasn’t going to happen, and that knowledge made him feel like he was being stabbed with a broken beer bottle from the inside out.

“Hey.” She stopped eating. “Everything okay?”

“Sure.” He ruffled her hair in the way she absolutely hated, just to annoy her.

She flinched away. “I will cut you.” She took the last bite of crepe and swallowed. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Is Thanatos on his way here to confiscate my toybox? Because I’ll take him on.”

“Relax,” he said. “Eat your sausage. Everything’s fine.”

A gravelly voice said from the doorway, “I’m glad to hear that. Because I have, indeed, come to take your… toybox.”

They both looked up, startled.

Fucking Thanatos.

Chapter 27

Boomer got slowly to his feet, growling. “What the hell are you doing in my cabin?”

Thanatos glided inside, his hood as inscrutable as ever.

“It is on my mountain, so technically it is my cabin. More importantly, you are concealing dangerous magical items you do not know how to handle, which make this base a target.”

“And why would you think that?” Boomer said.

From behind him came Bro’s voice. “Because I told him.”

He appeared in the doorway, with DB behind him.

Boomer felt like the blood stopped in his veins—like he’d been standing in the cargo hold of a plane and the floor just dropped out, leaving him falling through empty space with no parachute.

Bro had betrayed him.

It felt like the silence went on forever, wind rushing in his ears—but it was the roaring of his blood, racing with pain and fury.

“How the hell could you do that to Karisma? To me?” His voice cracked on the last word.

Bro didn’t answer. Thanatos, unmoved as always, said, “Perhaps he is once again protecting you from the consequences of a reckless decision?”

Boomer rounded on him. “Reckless? I was looking out for her—because apparently, no one else is going to.”

He couldn’t even look at his brother; he just focused on Thanatos and tried to keep his heart from shattering. “You always do what you want, and you don’t explain shit to anyone. She’s not a member of the pack. You wouldn’t care if she got killed. Hell, we don’t know if you care when any of us get killed.”

Thanatos didn’t bother to answer that accusation; his voice was as dry and dispassionate as ever. “I have been preparing for this mission for years. It is imperative that the tiger carry out her role. Believe me, if I could do it without her, I would.”

Boomer had no doubt of that. Thanatos would do pretty much anything to avoid dealing with a woman. Or explaining himself. And there was no guarantee, during his fight with Maximilian, that he’d make sure that little piece of Karisma’s magic the sorcerer was holding didn’t get destroyed.