Page 68 of Ignited

Thanatos said, “Let me explain it in simple words. Maximilian is connected to the tiger. The tiger is bonded to you. You are bonded to the pack. The pack is bonded to their territory—this mountain. And therefore, indirectly, to me. When the patch the dragon created around the pieces of the Orb in that box fails—and it will—Maximilian will have access to the power of every single creature on this mountain.”

Boomer felt the blood draining from his face. The idea of that was so shocking that it took him a minute to realize what Thanatos must be saying.

“You want to break the bond between us,” he whispered. Inside him, his wolf howled. No! No! She is ours!

It would destroy his wolf. But if it was the only way to protect Karisma? To protect the pack? What would he do then?

“On the contrary,” Thanatos said. “I want you to claim her.”

What? And then it exploded on him like a load of TNT. “You want her power. You want her connection to the Orb.”

Thanatos sidestepped his accusation. “If you bonded, the healing powers of the bond might restore more of her strength. Also, it would make her a very enticing morsel for Maximilian. One he would not be able to resist.”

Boomer resisted the urge to walk up to Thanatos and punch him right in the hood. “Let me get this straight. You want me to invoke a sacred wolf bond with her, essentially caging her for life, so that you can use her for bait?”

Again, Thanatos didn’t deny it. “Once we take down Maximilian, she would have her revenge. And her connection to him would be severed. Isn’t that what she wants?”

“It’s not going to help her if he kills her. Or sucks the rest of her soul out.”

“We will make every endeavor to keep that from happening.”

“Every endeavor?” The growl in Boomer’s chest had turned to a snarl. “You’re real piece of work, you know that? And I’m not claiming her. Not like this, so you can use her as your tool, just like the rest of it. You can go to hell.”

He strode across the room, shoved everyone out of the doorway, and walked out.

The room went silent. Then Karisma rose to her feet, staring Thanatos in his dark invisible face. “Dude,” she said, as she heard him take a breath. “I do not want to hear another word from you. You are a complete bastard.”

He said, “I’m well aware of that, Ms. Karisma. But the fact remains, Maximilian must be defeated.”

“That doesn’t mean you get to play with all our lives to do it.” She walked up to him and poked him in his stony chest. “Get this straight,” she said. “I don’t work for you. I don’t work for anybody. And nobody’s doing anything with my pieces of the orb without my say-so. So you can just stand down, or whatever it is you soldiers say when you need to just fucking stop.”

She shoved past him went after Boomer. But by the time she got to the front porch he was already gone, his tattered clothes lying in the snow, his pawprints disappearing into the forest.

She slammed her hands on the porch railing in frustration.

Then she felt a presence behind her, and whirled around. Bro was standing in the doorway.

A growl rumbled in her chest, and her claws sprang out of her fingers. “You,” she snarled.

Chapter 28

He just gazed at her, with that shuttered face that gave away nothing. “Aren’t you going after him?”

“Not without ripping you a new one first. How could you do this to him? Go behind his back, to Thanatos and DB? Tell Thanatos where my pieces of the Orb are? Bring him here to fucking tell Boomer he has to claim me?”

“It’s what Boomer wants,” Bro said. “He wants you to be okay, free from Maximilian, and he wants you to be his mate.”

She took a step back. “How do you know?”

Bro gave a little huff, that from anyone else would have been a full-on ‘Are you an idiot?’ snort. “It’s what he’s always wanted, before he even knew it. He’s in love with you. He’ll never love anyone else. Hell, he never has.”

“He’s never loved anyone else?” She was floored by that.

“He never stopped thinking about you. Never stopped looking. How do you think we found you? He’s had an internet crawler going for years. Any mention of a female white tiger, he was there.”

“He saw the club flyer,” she breathed. That’s why he’d come to The Wild Side.

“I saw it. I showed it to him.”