Big Bad Billionaire (The Woolven Secret Book 1) by Saranna DeWylde

him, to the violence, and the death. The things he used to protect his pack he’d use to please his mate. They’d spend their days marking a bloody swath wherever they went until the Great Council was forced to hunt them and put them down like the rabid beasts they’d become.
    He could see that future. It could happen.
    He hoped to hell it didn’t, but he’d not be separated from Randi for any reason. She was his everything.
    Warner edged out of the room quietly, quickly, and Eleanor did the same, leaving them alone.
    Yet, still, the stench of her fear turned his stomach.
    Still, she held the weapon aloft as if she meant to use it.
    “Don’t come any closer,” she whispered.
    “I won’t hurt you, Randi.”
    “The way you didn’t hurt Hector?”
    “You’re the one who ended his life. You wiped him out of existence. That wasn’t me.” He took a step closer to her.
    “Stop it. Stay where you are.”
    “I can’t.” He shook his head and continued to advance on her.
    “I will shoot you. I will.” She nodded, as if trying to convince herself.
    “That’s your choice, but I can’t have you smelling of fear. My wolf won’t permit it.” He took another small step.
    “You are making me afraid, Blake. Stay. Where. You. Are.” She dropped the gun, but lifted it again.
    “Don’t be afraid of—” His words broke off in a growl. His wolf didn’t understand why she was afraid. His wolf wanted to console her, wrap itself around her and hide her from whatever made her afraid.
    It didn’t understand that it was him who frightened her.
    She was terrified of him .
    He leaned forward and rested his head against the muzzle of the gun. “Do what you have to. I will never hurt you, Randi. Never .”

Chapter Ten
     
    “You think I won’t pull this trigger? I will, goddamn it.” She hated the tears choking her, the heavy weight on her chest and, most of all, she hated the terror in her heart when he leaned forward and pressed his head against the barrel.
    She was terrified of herself.
    That she really would pull the trigger.
    Because then all that made Blake Woolven would be gone. The thought was worse than knowing he was a werewolf. Worse than thinking he would hurt her. It turned in on itself, a sickly snake eating its own tail.
    “I believe you will.”
    His voice was still so low, guttural. She could tell the beast under his skin clawed at the surface, struggled to get to her.
    “Then what the hell are you doing?” The high-pitched tinny quality of her voice made her sound weak and ineffectual. Worse, made her feel weak and ineffectual.
    “Submitting to you.” His hands closed over hers. He held her strong and steady.
    “You’ve lost your goddamn mind.”
    “I’m giving you what you need to feel safe. I will always give you what you need, if you let me.”
    She knew it must be a trick, designed to manipulate her. He’d make her feel like she held some kind of power then he’d crush her. Devour her.
    The gentle way he’d held her when he carried her from the scene and to her room brushed at the edges of her memory. If he’d wanted to be rid of her, if he wanted to hurt her, he could’ve done it a hundred times over already.
    “What if what I need is to bring Woolven down?” It was, after all, why she’d come to Aphelion.
    “Then you’ll have to kill me, Randi. I can’t let you hurt my pack.”
    “How would you stop me?” Part of her wanted him to threaten her, wanted him to prove he was the monster under the bed.
    I’m the king of monsters.
    Yet, here he stood—a monster in fact, but not in deed.
    “What am I supposed to say here? That I’d rip your throat out?” His amber eyes met hers, and they glowed. “No. I couldn’t do that.”
    “Stop it.” She kept thinking about him chasing her in the maze. How afraid she’d been, and then how hot. What it felt like to have his tongue lapping at her wet heat, his growls of pleasure, and what it was like to be the object of his singular