Page 14 of Cold Foot King

It was then that Katrina glanced up at King, and busted him looking at her. Her pretty eyes were haunted. He was a part of those ghosts inside of her. The long scar down her cheek was stark in the firelight. He hadn’t noticed how deep it was before. Maybe she’d been clawed?

He shifted his weight and gripped his wrist, felt his tripping pulse there with his fingertips. If he didn’t have meds in him, he needed to keep his adrenaline down so he wouldn’t wake the silverback.Calm. Be calm.

“You smell like fur, bro,” Owen whispered.

“So do you,” he rumbled in an inhuman voice. “So does everyone here.”

“Bet Raynah doesn’t,” Owen spouted.

King rolled his eyes closed and tried to concentrate on Raynah’s explanation about the experimental breeding program. It was hitting a little too close to home, and his headache spiked, making his vision collapse. He paced away, and back.

“Be still,” Wreck ordered him.

He clasped his big hand around his other wrist again, felt his racing pulse. His skin was starting to tingle. Shit.

“Bro, you good?” Ace asked.

“I’m fine,bro.” He ticked his head hard, jerking his neck.

“Be. Still!” Wreck ordered.

“Can we talk about the breeding program later?” he asked sharply before he could stop himself. “Or never. Never works for me, and probably a couple other people here.”

“You were in the breeding program?” Wreck asked, his eyebrows arched up in surprise.

King didn’t answer, just held his gaze and wanted to rip him apart for trying to pry information from him. King didn’t talk to friends. Why the hell would he talk to this asshole?

“Was anyone else here a part of the breeding program?” Wreck asked the group.

Katrina lowered her gaze, and King knew she didn’t want to raise her hand.

“Why did you break us out of Cold Foot?” King asked.

“I’ll ask the questions,” Wreck barked out.

King glanced at Katrina, and she was melting back behind Raynah, who looked pale as a ghost. He could see it so clearly in the firelight. Raynah wrapped her hand around Katrina’s and held it, like she was comforting her.

Wreck sensed something though, because his fiery eyes darted straight to the women.

“Who. Else?”

He expected Katrina’s voice to come out all meek and scared, so he was surprised when she squeezed Raynah’s hand and stepped out from behind her. Slowly, Katrina lifted a pissed-off look to Wreck, lifted her middle finger, and held it there for him to see. “Me.”

King had to lower his gaze to the ground to hide the smile he was trying to bite back. Spicy woman, facing off with a monster and holding his gaze like she would fight him.

The murmurings from the other males grated on King’s nerves.

“When you said King was your mate, what did you mean?”

“I meant what I said.”

“Explain,” Wreck gritted out, low.

She was clenching her teeth so hard, a muscle twitched in her jaw. “If I say I love him, will you keep him here in the running? That’s what this is, right? It’s a competition? Winners get sanctuary in your new Crew? You need guards to protect you and your mate in case someone gets the hairbrained idea to do what my King did, and drag you to war?” Katrina offered him an empty smile and stepped forward. “You killed me in your mountains. I came there to kill as many of the people you love as I could reach. Why the fuck would I want to guard you?” She twitched her head toward King. “He probably doesn’t have the history I do with you and the Fastlanders. Keep him. What do you want me to say to secure his place? Huh? That I love him? Okay, I love him. He’s the light of my life. I wish I could have a dozen of his little gorilla babies.” Her tone was empty, and it stirred up a nauseous feeling in his gut. She lifted her chin higher into the air and laid her furious gaze on King. “He bred me and I fell in love with him, and now we are mates.” Lie. Anyone here could tell she was lying. But some of those admissions had been truthful. Her king? So she had to be a big-cat shifter. She’d gone to war with Wreck? She’d died by his fire, like King had? If she was here, popping off to the phoenix, it meant she’d been brought back to life, like King had been. The memory of the pain nearly buckled him in half. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Katrina was a tough woman. Tougher probably than anyone else here who was chuckling at her antics could fathom.

The pain in King’s head was piercing, slashing through his mind like a knife.

He squatted down and looked away from the fire. The light hurt his eyes and seemed to make the headache worse.