Read Online Lance by Elle Thorne - Free Book Online

shifter-quick healing.
    “It’s nothing. No big deal.”
    “Tell me.”
    Why? Yes, he wanted to be hostile. To ask her why. To know what she wanted from him since she clearly didn’t want him.
    The look on her face brought him up short, shattering his hostility, melting his resolve. The innocent, hurt Mac he’d met years ago, vulnerable from her parents’ neglect stared back at him, in the depth of her eyes, where she probably didn’t even realize it resided.
    “Cross. His bear. Mine.”
    “The same thing from before?”
    “The same thing from all my life. Our bears and their consummate hate, their determination to kill each other.”
    “I’d have thought that would have gone away. Have you seen each other much since you—he—since you both left?”
    “We haven’t seen each other at all.” Lance moved and leaned against the bed. “His bear is hell-bent on killing mine.”
    “And you still don’t know why?”
    He didn’t know five years ago when he’d discussed it with Mac, and he didn’t know now.
    “No clue. He attacked me when I was coming after you. It caused Mae a bit of distress.”
    “I thought your bears couldn’t shift without you allowing them to?”
    A long exhaled breath was ripped from his lungs. “There seems to be a time when we can’t control them. I know my brother wouldn’t want to kill me. But his bear does. And so his bear clearly wrestles control from him. My bear does the same. I can’t stop his appearance when Cross’s bear comes out.”
    Definitely a good thing, since Cross’s bear could kill me in my human body.
    “Still no clue why that happens?”
    MacKenzie’s pulse changed. Her scent had changed too. Lance’s bear realized it before Lance did, and alerted him. Gone was the scent of her intense displeasure with being around him. Her scent was friendlier; her pulse had normalized—almost completely.
    Could they at least be cordial? Could Lance hope for a friendship?
    “None. What’s the tattoo about? What do you mean—it didn’t work?”
    MacKenzie eyed him, reminding him of a wild animal that wasn’t sure if it could trust.
    She strode toward the desk he had set up in the corner and sat in the chair, leaned forward, elbows on knees, knuckles on chin. This was the farthest place she could sit in the whole room.
    So much for the cordial and friendlier thing.
    “A man said he could help me.” She paused. “He gave me an address.”
    “What man? What are you—” He pushed back the jealousy that reared its dark and ugly head. He’d walked away. He had no right to be jealous. No right to be pissed.
    “Just a man. I met him through a friend. He clearly knows shifters.”
    When did she get to know shifters and when did she meet someone who clearly knew shifters?
    “So what did this man who clearly knows shifters do?” He wasn’t sure he kept the jealousy or irritation from his tone.
    “He has a cousin in Seattle. She put some sort of solution into the ink of a tattoo gun. Then she did this.” MacKenzie waved at the tattoo.
    “What was it supposed to do?” He hadn’t heard of this before. “Did you pay them?” Was she suckered?
    MacKenzie shook her head, as if disappointed. “Five hundred.”
    Five hundred dollars? For what? “What was supposed to happen?”
    She looked away, as if she didn’t want to tell him. “Break the couplebond. Set me free of you.”
    The searing heat of pain drove through his chest. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs were paralyzed, immobile. They left him struggling for air. She was trying to break their bond. Lance turned to face the window so she couldn’t see the expression on his face. He studied the whiteness outside.
    A whiteness so void, so empty, it was like looking into the reflection of his heart, his life, and anything that involved MacKenzie not being a part of it.

Chapter 14
    M ac wished she’d been sitting anywhere but where she was.
    Why?
    Because she could see Lance’s face in the window’s reflection.