This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,56

flannel shirt and jeans, to my booted feet, and back up again. “I can’t trust someone who lied to me.”

I relax my hands at my sides, restraining my wolf’s energy, which is rising inside me, ready to be released if I need it. “Then trust that she had good reasons for protecting me.”

Tristan closes the gap between us so fast that I fight to catch my breath.

“Helen protected you at the expense of others,” he says, his accusation burning deep in his eyes and in the angry downward pull at the corners of his lips.

I tip my chin, verbalizing a belief I’ve only just acquired. “My life is worth just as much as theirs.”

He snarls, leaning close. Whispers, “Not to me, it isn’t.”

Oh.

I press my lips together. Slowly. I try not to react to his harsh statement, even though it feels like he cut through my fragile self-belief before it was even fully formed.

He’s agitated, maybe even hurting, but it doesn’t excuse his choice to hurt me right now.

The old me would try to escape at this point, retaliate with force, compartmentalize my hurt, and take myself off somewhere to harden my heart. But the new me…

Pain has a meaning in my life and it has to be faced head on.

I breathe it out, the slowest exhale, expelling it as gently as I can, giving my heart the care it needs. From myself. I don’t need care from him.

Tristan is silent, standing so close to me that every inhale he makes threatens to bump his chest against mine. If I were to try to strip back his defenses as badly as he seems to be trying to strip back mine, I might imagine he already regrets what he said.

It hits me with striking clarity that despite his claim that I’m worth nothing to him, the real source of his anger is that I wasn’t there when the girls were attacked. Sure, he would rather lose me than them, but he needed me.

He needs me.

My lips are dry—a condition that would have made me feel even more vulnerable before—but I pull my bottom lip between my teeth to moisten them before I sway toward him.

His gaze drags from my lips to my eyes before I close the scant gap between us. I dare to brush his jaw with my lips, grazing my skin with his sandpaper growth, my position forcing my upper body to press against his.

His shoulders tense, arms twitching as if they’re going to rise around me, but he otherwise remains still.

He said my life wasn’t worth as much to him as the girls’ lives, but…

“Now who’s lying?” I whisper.

I draw back, cast my own challenging glance at him, and glide to the side before he can react.

Helen continues to work behind us, but the other little girl is still distraught and her cries continue to tug at my heart.

Jace has nowhere to sit, so he leans against the wall, his breathing only now beginning to slow after his rush to get here, sweat dripping down his face. Unlike Tristan, he’s not bare-chested and I’m guessing he didn’t shift—the same way he avoided shifting during the fight with Baxter and Cody on the night I came here.

He holds Becca against his chest. Her weeping is a little quieter now, her eyes wide and scared as she watches Helen. If the other girl is her sister, then Becca will be afraid for her.

I have to assume Becca’s wounds aren’t life-threatening because Jace hasn’t drawn Helen’s attention to her, but the pitch of her soft sobs tells me she’s in pain.

I wish there was something I could do for her while Helen is busy.

Jace watches me closely as I approach, his focus flicking between Tristan and me. “Tessa?”

I break eye contact with Jace, focusing on Becca.

She whimpers and I sense her wolf, cowering and frightened inside her. My wolf’s energy flickers inside my mind, asking to be released. I’m not convinced that’s a good idea yet, so I hold my wolf’s energy back, cautious for now.

I reach out to Becca, brushing the hair from her clammy forehead.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I whisper. “I’m Tessa. You’re safe now.”

Her eyes come to rest on me, soft cries releasing from her lips.

“I’m going to look after you,” I say. “Where do you hurt, sweetheart?”

“M-My arm.”

I run my gaze along her left arm from her wrist to her elbow. Deep, red bruises mark her forearm directly below her elbow as well as around her wrist. The dirty