InsatiableNeed by Rosalie Stanton Page B

her
nerves. Hating the fact that she couldn’t do what she truly wanted. She’d told
him things she couldn’t have meant, not the way he wanted.
    She couldn’t be his when she belonged to the world—when he
embodied everything she felt she hated. Zeth had to remain where he always had,
regardless of what had happened between them.
    “Zeth…”
    “Point of fact, I claimed you.”
    They had already covered this. “I know.”
    “I fucking claimed you, Raegan. That’s not… You don’t go
back from that. You can’t.” Zeth stopped short, laughed, and ran a hand through
his dark hair. “I thought we already touched on this.”
    Raegan shivered, words dancing in her head, all dragging her
back to the moment he’d whispered something that had changed everything. She
could argue until blue in the face, but it wouldn’t matter with Zeth. She knew
him well enough, and he’d told her he loved her. It didn’t seem possible now,
standing a room apart without his hands on her skin or his cock inside her, to
confuse things. She’d wanted it so richly, but now…
    Now she’d returned to herself. And Zeth thought he loved
her.
    It was the spell. Nothing else.
    And that was the kicker. How could Zeth love her? He didn’t
know her, not really. He didn’t know how the fear of never finding Razor kept
her up at night. He didn’t know she often fell asleep crying for thinking of
things she could have done to save Natalie’s life. He didn’t know she rarely
had guests at her apartment, that his invitation was an exception she had since
deemed a mistake, all because of her crippling fear of letting anyone close.
She didn’t ever want to suffer losing someone again. Natalie had been more than
a friend—she’d been her goddamn sister, if only in spirit.
    No one was unbreakable, and no one was honest. Razor hadn’t
been what he seemed, and Natalie had gotten herself killed as a result. Zeth
hadn’t broken her yet, and he hadn’t lied to her, but then again, if she didn’t
give him the chance, she didn’t have anything to lose.
    Zeth didn’t know her outside the office. How could he love
her and mean it?
    How could anyone?
    “The claim was a mistake,” Raegan said, wincing at the pain
that stretched across his face. His haunted, too-beautiful face. “Come on,
Zeth. You have to know it.”
    His jaw tightened. “Do I?” he spat. “I have to fucking know
it? You’re telling me what I have— ”
    “I’m trying to make this easy.”
    “Good job.”
    “The claim was… It felt right, yeah. But—”
    Zeth’s nostrils flared. “Damn right it did.”
    “But that didn’t mean it was. I’m not on the market.”
    “By choice .”
    “By necessity.” She waved an arm. “I don’t know anything
else, Zeth. This is who I am. I get up, I go to work, I type up some bullshit
story, I go home, nuke some Ramen noodles, spend hours on the web looking for a
werewolf who fucked up my life and good, then go to bed. That’s the life I
chose. I don’t know where you fit in that world.”
    He took a step forward, and the sudden eagerness on his face
nearly destroyed her. “We’ll find out,” he said. “We’ll find out where I fit. Rae,
what happened with your friend won’t happen with me. I’d cut off my arm before
I hurt you.”
    Something in her gut wrenched. “I know.”
    “Then you know I’m serious. That wolf, Razor, I can help.
The pack stopped looking for him a long time ago—”
    Raegan reeled in shock. Whatever else, she had not expected
him to drop that name . Granted, she’d told Zeth in no uncertain terms
what she thought of his kind after he initially wolfed out in her apartment,
and the factors contributing to her opinion, but she’d never mentioned Razor by
name. “What? You know about Razor?”
    Zeth stared at her a long moment, then sighed, his shoulders
dropping. “That’s the kind of shit you don’t keep outta the grapevine. I’ve
known about Razor since you’ve known about Razor. Rae,