Jared (River Pack Wolves 3) - New Adult Paranormal Romance by Alisa Woods Page B

didn’t look at her. He wanted her to stay away.
    She came closer.
    He could see her bare feet in the grass.
    Then she touched him again, a whisper of softness against his arm. The melting feeling was back, and he couldn’t move, as if liquid cement had trickled through his body and glued him in place. Slowly, very slowly, he raised his gaze to her brilliant blue eyes.
    “Why did you really come back?” she asked, softly. Gentle as the breeze kissing the grass and bending the stalks. She searched his face with those eyes, then gave him a bashful smile. “I had this silly hope that maybe you came back for me. That maybe I’d be getting my first kiss from a shifter—”
    “You don’t want me as your first for anything.” The cold was seeping back into his bones. Freezing him tight. Sealing up the seams. “I’m a bad man, Grace. I’ve killed people.”
    She frowned but didn’t pull away. “You’re military, aren’t you?”
    He squinted to see her better, backdropped by the rising moon. Did she know who he was? “Ex-Marine. Sharp-shooter.”
    She nodded. “Fighting for your country doesn’t make you bad.”
    “Sometimes it does.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
    She frowned again, but this time like he was a puzzle. “You came back because you wanted something. What is it?”
    He pulled away from her. “You know about your father’s shifter legislation, don’t you?”
    She nodded.
    “Do you understand what it means? What it will do to shifters everywhere?”
    She scowled and caved in more on herself, wrapping her arms in front of her chest. “I know it’s bad. I’ve fought him on it. There’s nothing I can do.”
    He gritted his teeth and scooped his shirt off the ground. “Fight harder. People’s lives are at risk.”
    Her arms dropped to her sides, fists clenched. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? I’m a shifter, too. You know, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s going to kill everything I’ve worked for.”
    He glared at her. “Then stop him.”
    “I can’t!” Her lips pouted, and she suddenly looked young to him. Too young to really understand how much would be lost in this.
    He stepped back further. “Then we’re done here. Get your clothes.”
    She growled and spun around to stomp after her clothes buried in the grass. He watched as she tugged on her silky blouse and narrow skirt. They had ditched her fancy, politician’s daughter shoes before they snuck out of the house. When she was done dressing, she stomped off toward the trees, on her way back to the estate.
    He hesitated, but only for a moment, then he jogged after her. The icy chill inside him was stitching him back together again. He should escort her back to the house, return to his perch, and end this thing tonight. But as she picked her way through the brambles, cursing at the branches as they tugged at her clothes, he knew—he wasn’t killing her father. Not tonight. Not until he had done everything he could to win her over.
    And he’d done a really shitty job of that so far.
    She stopped at the edge of the forest, still out of sight of anyone happening to glance their way from the estate. Only then did he see the tracks of tears glistening on her cheeks. It gave him that loose feeling again, like the world was tipping.
    She turned to him, eyes glassy and angry. “We have a week.”
    “A week. What happens in a week?”
    “In a week, my father announces his run for re-election on a platform of requiring shifters to register on the grounds of public safety. He’s going to criminalize every last one of you.”
    “Every last one of us.” He held her gaze.
    “Every last one of you,” she said, harshly. “Me, he will disown and kick out on the streets.”
    “You’re his daughter,” he said softly. “If you tell him—”
    “He hates you! Loathes you with every fiber of his being. Trust me, when he finds out, it will be far easier for him to get rid of a daughter than to abandon