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He smiled good-naturedly. “Yeah, I thought so. Don’t worry, I’ve got the patience of a saint and the stamina of a thoroughbred.” He waggled his brows.

I made a sound of disgust.

But my heart didn’t stop galloping. Because what I didn’t tell Dante, what I would never tell Dante, was that I already trusted him with my life. Maybe not my secrets, but my life.

And I’d never trusted another human with that.

But considering his mysterious explanation about his heritage, perhaps he wasn’t entirely human.

He pushed to his feet, dusting off his jeans, looking to me.

I stared at him from my spot on the ground, eyes roving over his tall form. The dark jeans, worn boots, leather jacket, tattoos snaking over every part of exposed skin. The angle of his jaw, the scar running through the top of his lip. Hair falling over his left eye. My body tingled in appreciation of his male form. Not just that, though. His company. His willingness to share with me.

I tossed the weeds I didn’t realize I was still clutching, disgusted with myself for having such fond thoughts about a man who was supposed to be my rival.

The man who was starting to feel like … my friend.

“We’ll meet at your place to go over what we’ve learned about the witch. Maybe drinks. Maybe some world-bending sex. Then we’ll kill the witch and a prince of hell.” Dante extended a hand to help me up.

I was burning with questions about what he knew about demon princes, about his heritage, but I held my tongue, stubbornly unwilling to defer to him as some kind of mentor. It was bad enough to stomach him as a partner.

I ignored his hand, rising on my own. “Definitely drinks, definitely no sex,” I snapped at him. “We are not going to become anything but reluctant partners for one hunt. That’s it.”

Boundaries. I needed to establish them. Despite how keyed up my body was and desperate for the release that Dante could provide.

I couldn’t deny the strange heat I felt in my blood whenever he was near now, since the kiss. Attraction. Pure, visceral attraction.

“My place. Two hours. Bring a bottle of Blue Label.” I left before he could reply.

It wasn’t until I got in my car that I realized I’d called my parents’ home “my place.”

nineteen

I didn’t make it in my parents’ house.

Instead, I found myself at Mercy General Hospital.

The hospital was the last place I needed to be. I fucking hated hospitals. Hated them even more when the person in the hospital bed was someone I liked.

It hadn’t happened often. Because I didn’t like many people, and the ones I did like usually ended up in unmarked graves rather than hospital beds.

A reminder of why I didn’t socialize, why I didn’t get close to people. Especially not with people who had known me since I was a kid.

Sharon’s makeup-free face was etched with worry as she embraced me.

I stiffened with her arms around me, forcing myself to remember that she wasn’t who I thought she was. That she was a wolf. A monster. The alpha of her pack.

My enemy.

Even if she said she wasn’t.

Did it make me an asshole for not smothering her in comfort as her husband of thirty-seven years lay in a hospital bed? Maybe.

But she was an even bigger asshole for lying to me about being a werewolf and knowing who killed my parents. We were nowhere near even.

I didn’t even know why I took her call, why I went straight there instead of continuing back to the house to strategize with Dante.

But there I was.