Free Deceiving the Protector by Dee Tenorio Page B

not answering the question.”
    “I wasn’t planning to.”
    “Why not?”
    For some reason, her lips felt like curling upward. “Because I wasn’t.”
    “Here’s a tip for you.” He shifted his pack as he turned to face her. The grin on his face gave her the strangest wiggle in her belly. “You ever hear that expression about a dog with a bone? Well, Wolves are worse.”
    The smile got away from her, just for a second, but she knew he saw it because his grew, wide and wolfish. Warmth rose to her face, stinging her cheeks until she wanted to rub at them with her palms. Instead she scoffed, “You’re an idiot.”
    “Which somehow doesn’t blind me to the fact that you’re still not answering the question.”
    Her cheeks cooled, her smile fading with it. He wasn’t kidding. She could already tell he’d keep picking and prodding, just like the day before with the endless whistling. The teasing was just another mask to get past her reserves. The steel-eyed hunter behind it was still watching, trying to lure out his prey. Did he know she was starting to see through him faster?
    “There’s nothing much to tell.” She shrugged. “I had a family once. The squads came one night…now I don’t.” Except Laurel.
    Her hands clenched the scarf again, as they always did when she thought of the little girl she’d had to leave behind. The one she’d been so desperate to save. The one she’d failed the most.
    Part of her was smart enough to know that the odds of Laurel being alive were pathetically low, but she couldn’t allow herself to listen to it. Asher had brought her proof of Laurel’s capture, and however she might hate him, she couldn’t truthfully claim he’d ever lied to her. Hurt her, yes. But lied…no. As long as she had a thread of hope, she wouldn’t let it go. Couldn’t.
    “So you just wander around out here?” Tate asked, oblivious to her mental meanderings. “No real goal in sight?”
    “I’m on the Underground, aren’t I?” Everyone knew the goal of the Underground was to get to Resurrection, wherever in California it might be.
    He shrugged, the motion hitching up the tightly stuffed pack on his back. “That’s no indication. You might just be in it for the food.”
    The choked sound that escaped her took a full second for Lia to recognize as her own laughter. “Get a lot of scavengers on the trail, do you?”
    “We get a lot of everything. Scavengers, users, true believers, even a few feral strays from time to time.” He tipped his head her way at that. “Trust is a rare commodity for a shifter. If all we can do for them is give them a meal, then we’ll do it. Our job is offering them the chance to survive. Their job is to take it…or not.”
    “You think I’m one of those? A feral stray?” Someone who’d gone more beast than human, surviving on Instinct alone.
    “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Though I thought feral was a given.”
    She shot him a frown, but he just continued, unperturbed.
    “Then again, I’ve yet to see you attack anything but me.”
    “Nothing else nearby seemed to need it.” At least her grumble earned a displeased sideways glance from him.
    “You don’t hunt, not as a Wolf or a human, or you’d have more meat on your bones and you’d have the first clue how to clean your kills.”
    “Maybe I just don’t like killing.”
    “Maybe,” he conceded, though the tone was dubious. “But we Wolves need more than an apple a day, if you know what I mean. Our bodies were made for heavy meat intake, require it. So if you’re not hunting for yourself and you have obvious biological needs, why are you dragging your heels between safe houses?’
    “I’m not—”
    “Yes, you are.” His tone had a hard edge that clapped her mouth shut. “You’ve practically starved yourself to death and you won’t accept help of any kind.”
    For a damn good reason. “I’ve been letting you help me.”
    “You don’t have a choice about