Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

And then he pressed a kiss to my abdomen, and I stared down at him, enraptured.

“I could lose myself entirely,” I admitted. I tried to smile, to reassure him—but the smile wouldn’t come. I was just…too damn exhausted. I probably should’ve waited to find him, but the second I’d managed to shift back to my humanskin I’d begged Theo to let me go. Because I’d needed Jeffrey. Needed to hear his heartbeat and know he was safe—for as long as I still could.

“I’ll fix this,” he promised, murmuring against my flayed torso. “I don’t know how, but I will.”

He couldn’t.

But I didn’t tell him that.

I had already made my choice.

His eyes said, I’m sorry.

They said, you deserve better.

They said, don’t be scared.

“I’m sorry,” Jeffrey said, tipping his head up, his lips still pressed to my sternum. I shuddered, my eyes burning as I stared down at him. “I’m so sorry you were hurt.”

I shook my head, my eyes pinching shut.

This was more painful than the wounds.

Keeping the full truth from him.

If he could smell my scent or hear my heart he’d know. He’d know I was withholding something. But he couldn’t, and he didn’t.

It seemed fate was offering me some mercy today.

“Come back up here,” I commanded, heart aching, tail thumping. Jeffrey complied, climbing my legs with his hands and sliding into my lap with a quiet little oomph. “Jeffrey.” I stroked a hand over his cheek, running my fingers across the fuzzy fur on his head, and near the half-healed cut on his brow.

“Yeah?”

“I’m also sorry you were hurt,” I said, watching his pale lashes flutter, and his whole body begin to quake.

“Yeah,” Jeffrey’s voice cracked. And this time when he looked at me there was strength in his dark, lovely gaze. “Me too.” His hands were shaking, shaking—but they stilled as our eyes met and a soft, lovely little smile wobbled across his lips. “It sucks.”

“It does.”

He’d told me things. Things I got the feeling he’d never shared with anyone else. About his childhood, about the woman who had stolen it from him. I couldn’t understand, not fully. And I wouldn’t insult him by pretending I could. But I could love him anyway. Could admire him. Because there was nothing stronger than surviving, and Jeffrey had done just that.

I’d offered to kill Lydia for him—as we lay curled up beneath my blankets in my bed. And he’d laughed, like he thought I was joking. When I’d doubled down, he’d simply shaken his head and told me, “She isn’t worth it.”

He was the bravest, strongest person I’d ever met.

And that was only proven even more true as Jeffrey spoke again, his hands finding my cheeks for the second time, all that lovely lanky muscle settled in my lap where it was meant to be.

“It sucks,” he repeated, “But…” his smile grew stronger, his dark eyes brighter. “Things get better.”

My heart thumped, my hand suddenly sweaty. That look was just…wow. He looked so sure. So…confident. And the comfort was appreciated, more than he knew. I had only given him the tip of the iceberg but…I could admit I needed his warmth more than ever right now. The silvery threads of our incomplete bond throbbed and flickered, and I grasped onto them, starved, begging whatever gods were listening that Jeffrey would be an exception.

That he’d be able to reach back, that we’d twine together the way we were supposed to. That I’d know I could keep him, before I was forced to step away.

That peace I’d felt was gone as quickly as it had come. The flickering twists of the bond I’d felt fell away. Because I knew it was false. Reality was a cold, bitter thing.

I couldn’t pick Jeffrey.

He wasn’t a wolf.