But he hadn’t earned that right yet.
He stepped an inch closer to her. If anyone understood boundaries, it was Cullen. “You think you could do that? Snuff out a man’s life, evil though he certainly is, and watch as he took his last breaths?”
She whirled around, putting several paces between them. “I think I could. He murdered my parents and he loved it. Besides, people do it all the time. How hard could it be? Destruction of our fellow humans is one of the basic disgusting things that is encoded in our DNA. You do it all the time.”
He shook his head. “Only when necessary.”
She huffed out a snort. “Fine. But you’ve done it enough and you’re still standing and walking around. You don’t seem destroyed by it. He took my parents lives. I want his.”
“This is grief talking.”
She stormed towards him. “You don’t know enough about me to make a statement like that.”
Tell her we know everything about her.
But he wouldn’t tell her that. She would laugh at him or worse demand he let her leave.
“If you believe nothing else, believe this: taking someone’s life, even if that person deserves it, changes you. If you must have him dead, and I don’t disagree that he needs to be removed from this planet, I will do the deed.”
Countless black marks marred his soul. One more would not make that much of a difference. And he would do anything for Summer. If she asked him to, he would break every moral and ethical rule in existence.
She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. “I’m not going to relent on this, Cullen.”
“Then we will never agree, because neither will I.”
She’s exhausted. She needs sleep.
His wolf was right. Summer needed rest.
“Wait here.” He walked into his bedroom and quickly changed the sheets on his bed for clean ones. He pulled up the covers. After a minute, he decided it looked presentable and he returned to the living room.
Summer stood by the window again. She looked out into the night, her forehead pressed against the cool glass. “Isn’t death supposed to be easy for us? We’re animals.” She spoke without turning around.
“Do you know so little about your wolf after all of this time?”
She laughed but it was a cold sound and it brought no joy to Cullen’s heart to hear it. “She gets frustrated with me. I don’t often do what she wants.”
His lips twitched. “I try to fulfill the wishes of mine at least ninety percent of the time. He’s usually right.”
Summer turned around and leaned her back against the window. “I don’t even like mine. I make it a point to tune her out as much as possible.”
“Now that, Summer Morrison, makes me sad. Our wolf is a gift to us from fate. It’s a present so sought after that men kill, cheat, and destroy to possess it. Duplication of our canine half seems to be impossible. If we never know our wolves, we are never whole beings.”
Summer narrowed her eyes. “I’ll tell you what. I will learn to embrace my inner wolf. I will listen to it, follow its guidance, and even shift if you will teach me how to kill Claudius.”
Cullen considered the deal she proposed. It might pay to agree. Once Summer started to embrace her wolf, she wouldn’t want to kill Claudius. She would want Cullen to do it because that was the way the pack worked. The more comfortable she got with her four leggedness, the more she would crave the workings of the pack. If he agreed to her deal, it would solve two big problems for him. Summer would finally know herself completely, and Cullen wouldn’t have to worry about exposing her to the destructive side of life.
He nodded. “All right. Now,” he extended his hand. “You should go to bed. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow if I’m going to make a killer out of you.”
Summer raised an eyebrow. “Why do I feel like you’ve just manipulated me?”
“Because you’re a smart woman. I have done what you accuse me of. But you’d better learn that now.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Learn what?”
He pulled her into his arms and pressed his mouth to hers. For a moment, he just enjoyed the softness of her lips.
“I’m always in control and I always win in a fight.”
Chapter Five
Summer ran down the long corridor, darkness chasing her steps. She couldn’t get caught. It was too important. Everything would be lost without him. But the truth was she still didn’t care one bit about pack politics. She wanted him back because he was hers.
She tripped, falling face first towards the ceramic floor. Her hands reached out and lessoned the impact. Still she cut her chin. It bled. Summer raised her head. She’d reached her destination.
Summer stood up and wiped her bloody chin with her hands before rubbing most of it off onto her jeans. Her eyes stared through the two-way mirror in front of her.
Her wolf howled inside of her.
Cullen was strapped to a table. Blue liquid poured into his veins through an intravenous tube.
He raised his head an inch and sniffed the air. Summer’s hand flew to her throat. He’d smelled her. She needed to get him out.
He pulled at his restraints, screaming with rage.
A man stepped out of the shadows of the room. She hadn’t seen or smelled him in the room before he’d appeared but she’d know him anywhere at sight. Claudius. He stared through the two-way mirror like he could see her.
“I told you she would come, Cullen. And now that she has we don’t need you anymore.” He raised his left hand and she stared at the gun in it. She ran to the hallway door and pushed on it, desperate to get in the room.
She heard the gun fire.
“Summer, wake up. You’re dreaming.”
Someone shook her gently. Her eyes flung open and she swung with her left hand desperate to make contact, to defend herself from the attack. Cullen ducked to avoid getting struck in the face by her fist.
“Okay, so you don’t wake up well.” Cullen’s voice sounded like gravel and she realized he must have been asleep too.
She sat up. “Sorry, I don’t usually wake up so crazed. I guess I had a bad dream.”
Cullen nodded. “You were screaming. I tried to wake you for two minutes before you roused.” He turned to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” Was that her voice that sounded frantic?
“Back to the living room.”
“Why?”
“To let you sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping after the dream I had.” She didn’t care if she sounded pathetic.
Cullen crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge. “What was the dream?”
Her body drifted towards the indentation he left on the mattress. “I was running down a hallway. It’s not someplace I’ve ever been but in the dream I knew where I was going and it was important that I get there. I arrived at a room and it had one of those two-way mirrors. I looked in and I saw you…”
Summer paused. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Cullen the rest of the dream. What did it mean that she’d heard Claudius kill him?
What happened next?
Summer jumped an inch on the bed. She stared at Cullen, her jaw slack. “Did you just say that in my head?”
Cullen nodded but didn’t open his mouth. I did.