Fever (Blood Moon Rising, #1) by Lola Taylor Page B

love him.
    Yet .
    Could she grow to love him? Could he
grow to love her?
    She didn’t know what scared her most:
the fact he could someday leave her, or what would her life be like
if she decided to walk away from him. Would she regret
it?
    More anxious than she was when she got
in the tub, Danica got out and dried off after pulling the plug.
She dressed in another pretty white silk bathrobe and was drying
her hair while mulling things over when the door creaked
open.
    “ I’m glad you’re here,” she
said, walking into the bedroom. “I need to talk to you.”
    That’s when she looked around and
realized it hadn’t been the door that had opened. It had been the
window.
    Inhaling a breath, she started to
scream when a gloved hand clamped down on her mouth.
    “Good. You’re here,” Onyx said. “We
needed to finish our conversation.”

Chapter 12
     
    “ Gage, are you
listening?”
    “ What?” Gage blinked,
snapping back to reality as Nik’s concerned face came into view
once more. They were seated in the conference room, the same room
Gage had first gotten a glimpse of his lovely Danica half
naked.
    Nik looked over his shoulder, at the
place on the wall where Gage had been staring. A knowing smile
spread across his lips. “Ah, the girl. You were thinking about
her.”
    “ Maybe,” Gage said gruffly,
crossing his arms.
    Nik leaned back and stretched his arms
above his head. “It’s all right. You don’t have to hide your
emotions around me. I won’t make fun of you for being a lovesick
pup.”
    “ Shut up.”
    “ You like it.”
    Gage smiled, but the motion seemed
wrong. Like he shouldn’t be smiling with so much death and tragedy
hanging over his head. Clearing his throat, he sat up and leaned
his elbows on the table, his hands clasped together in front of
him. “I caught the part about the funerals being in two days. I’ll
call their loved ones in a moment so they can make arrangements.
Good thing Tony, Erik, and the kid were all locals. At least their
families won’t have to travel far.”
    Gage tensed, staring at his
hands. He could just imagine the blood of his brethren on
them…. He had led
them to their deaths.
    “ Stop blaming yourself,”
Nik said quietly.
    “ Who else is there to
blame? I was their leader. I should have been there.”
    “ You can’t be in two places
at once.”
    “ Then I never should have
split up the group!”
    Nik pressed his lips together. Gage
knew by now that meant he was hiding something. “Spit it out,” he
snapped, already knowing what Nik was about to say.
    Nik sat up and drummed his fingers
along the tabletop. “You might want to give the others some space
for a while. To grieve.”
    “ It’s not just to grieve,
and you and I both know it. They’re angry with me. They know this
is my fault.”
    “ Dammit, Gage!” Nik said,
slamming a fist down on the table. “Stop acting like you’re the
only one to blame! You’re not! If anything, Tony, Erik, the kid,
they all decided to
go. You didn’t make them.”
    “ But didn’t I? When I
commanded them as their Alpha ?”
    Nik was silent.
    Gage was coming apart inside. Wolves
felt the loss of a packmate as deeply as a relative. It was one of
the quirks of being bonded through pack blood.
    But Gage also knew that while their
mistrust was natural, since he was the leader of a mission gone
horribly wrong, it had been there far longer. Malachite had ruled
with an iron fist. His atrocities and the abuse of his pack would
linger for many years. Gage knew taking on the position of
packmaster was not going to be easy, not when he had a band of
abused wolves under his protection.
    And how good a job did you
do of protecting them?
    Restless, Gage stood and decided to
pace.
    Nik watched him silently from his
seat.
    “ We’re still no closer to
finding out who was responsible for the hit on my mate,” Gage
said.
    “ I’ll put the word out, and
I’ll ask Penelope to do the same. That name is bound to pop