Page 55 of Bad Blood Wolf

She sat up slowly. Bad plan—she was now sitting butt-naked in the mud and snow.

Jasmin yelped. “Fuck, Xander, aren’t your balls freezing off?”

“Yup, they are, thanks for noticing. My scrotum is somewhere up near my belly button, and my dick wants to burrow inside headfirst and become a vagina. Can we stand up?”

She tried to laugh, but it became a sniffle. There were tears running down her face and dripping off her chin, and how was that happening? She never cried.

Xander clasped her hand and helped her to her feet.

“What happened with you and Brody? I thought you were all lovey-dovey fuckapalooza.”

“He loves me,” Jasmin said. “And he left me. And he wants me to be his mate.”

Xander ran a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

“And I told him I didn’t want him to love me, and now he hates me.”

“I hate love,” Xander muttered. “I hate emotions. All love does is fuck you up.”

“Exactly.”

He sighed. “Do you want me to kill him?”

“No!” Jasmin’s jag snarled.

“Well, don’t get all homicidal about it. I’m just asking.” Xander paused. “Do you love him?”

“I can’t love him,” Jasmin said. “Love makes you soft. All that happens then is that people hurt you.”

“News flash,” Xander said. “Considering the way you were running and your jag was yowling, you’re in serious pain right now. So that keep-from-getting-hurt thing really didn’t work out for you.”

He brushed a clump of muddy snow off his butt before he went on.

“And I shouldn’t even be saying this—because I hate love—but please note that you’re hurting because you’re not with Brody and you think he hates you. When you were with him, you were happy to a barf-making degree. In fact, you may not know this, but there is a school of thought that actually equates love with happiness.”

Jasmin didn’t answer that. She couldn’t answer it. He was right, and she’d been so stupid. She’d tried so hard not to love Brody. Not to love anybody. But even with no love, the hurt was still there—it was always there. It was the dark tsunami she tried to run away from. It had never left her.

“You should go after him,” Xander said.

Jasmin shook her head, feeling cold at her core. She couldn’t. Not again.

“I don’t chase after men. My mother chased after my father every time he was angry at her, which was a lot. And he let her. He stood there and watched while she groveled and apologized and begged for forgiveness, even for things that weren’t her fault. And then, when she’d groveled enough, he graciously allowed her to get up and serve his whims.”

“Whoa,” Xander said. “Sorry to diss your family, Jungle Kitty, but that is fucked up to the max.”

No argument from her. “I swore I’d never do that, and I won’t.”

“Well, I’m down with leaving the begging part out, because like I said, fucked up,” Xander said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go find Brody and tell him you’ve changed your mind about falling in love.”

That was terrifying. The very idea was terrifying, and yet, Jasmin’s jaguar was pacing. Wanting. Wanting to make Brody not hurt anymore. Wanting to rub her face against his muzzle and scent his wolfy scent, to curl up next to him and purr herself to sleep while he held her.

She wanted to learn his secrets and share his burdens, to show him he didn’t have to be alone.

“I don’t know where to find him.”

“About that,” Xander said. “I happen to know that Flynn planted a tracking device on his car.”

A tracking device?

Jasmin stared at him. “What? Why would Flynn do that? We already know about the drugs.”

Xander rolled his eyes. “The dude has an escape tunnel in the basement, and enough military-grade weapons to invade a small country hidden under the dining-room floor. And somehow you’re surprised that he’s paranoid enough to keep track of your wildly secretive Nashville-traitor drug-buying boyfriend, who you know perfectly well has not told you everything?”

Well, no. When you put it that way…

“Can you get the locator software?” she asked.

Xander grinned. “Already did. So let’s get our paws on the ground and go get it before my dick freezes and breaks off, and then we can turn this Christmas into one of those sappy Hallmark movies Lissa loves so much.”