This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,124

shrieks in my ears.

Tristan believes he’s going to hurt and kill everyone he loves. He believes that his ancestor’s curse will become his curse. He saw his father succumb to the darkness and now he thinks it will happen to him too. He chose me because he thought I’d be strong enough to kill him, like he had to kill his father. Jace tried to warn me; he told me I didn’t know whose bed I was keeping warm, but I didn’t understand his meaning. Helen tried to warn me too, when she told me that even the old magic of Hidden House couldn’t control Tristan, that Tristan was more dangerous than I could imagine.

Tristan wanted me to hate him so that I would find killing him easy.

But there’s a difference between him and his father.

His father didn’t have me.

There has to be another way through this, a path that hasn’t been walked before, a way to destroy the deceiver, the coward, and the killer before they take control.

I just need time to find it.

Right now, there’s only one way I can buy that time, one choice I can make.

Just as I move toward Baxter and Tristan, Cody steps between me and them, blocking my path. His gaze flickers between my bloody chest and my angry eyes. “Come with me, Tessa.”

“No!” My fist flies out.

Cody dodges the blow, but his evasive move allows me to duck around him.

Baxter prepares to grip Tristan’s head with one hand so he can slash his throat with the other.

Tristan’s emotional walls are back up, and now I’m getting nothing from him, no darkness, not even a shadow.

I slip between him and Baxter just as Baxter raises the knife.

My emotions are a volcano of anger and rage and fucking violent wrath, but I keep myself in check. My arm flies up in front of my chest, prepared to take the slash of the knife as I shout, “What will it take for you to leave Tristan and his pack in peace?”

“Tristan’s death.” Baxter snarls, gripping the dagger in his white-knuckled fist, ready to slash me with it.

My lip curls. “Don’t lie to me. You lost your daughter—one of the few people you actually loved. You suffered without her. You’re still hurting. So tell me again—what will it really take?”

Baxter’s jaw clenches. “I want Tristan Masters to suffer what I’ve suffered.”

My breathing is under control, more in control than I’ve ever been. “Then take me.”

Tristan tenses behind me, his emotional walls suddenly slipping, revealing a fiery mess of anger and fear within him.

Baxter laughs. “You’re his possession, Tessa. Tristan hasn’t marked you. He has no love for you. Why would it cause him pain if you’re taken away from him?”

My voice lowers, my speech careful, because I need Baxter to understand exactly what I mean. “It’s the nature of my wolf that I can’t bond,” I say. “I will never have a true mate. But Tristan can.”

“No.” Tristan’s whisper behind me is so furious that my gaze is pulled to him. His chest rises and falls rapidly as he shakes his head at me, growls rumbling in his chest. “Don’t do this.”

Only Tristan could make a plea sound like a threat.

Baxter’s gaze narrows as he takes glances between us, a curious light entering his eyes. “What are you saying, Tessa?”

My human heart is in pieces. I saw the truth in Tristan’s eyes when he nudged kisses all over my body, preparing me for his mark. I heard it in his voice when he told me that he couldn’t ask me to kill the three-headed wolf. I felt it in his kiss when he told me never to beg. When he pulled down all of his walls and let me experience his true nature, the darkness that he allowed to rush through me nearly suffocated me—I felt it when we melded and I felt it again tonight—but his true nature also revealed the truth he’s been hiding from me.

“I’m saying that Tristan Masters is bonded to me. I am his true mate. Even though he can never be mine.” Tears burn in my eyes because even if my human heart loves Tristan, I will never feel what his wolf feels.

Tristan flinches, and then he becomes still, frozen as stone. His shoulders are hunched but it only serves to make him look more dangerous. He is the most powerful shifter I’ve ever met who is willing to give up everything for the safety of his pack but can’t