Light the Fire (Jackson's Hollow #1)

Chapter 31

Instinctively, her hand darted out and grabbed the first thing she could use as a weapon, which happened to be a heavy metal flashlight that she kept on the counter. After she had both hands gripped around the flashlight, she remembered that she could scorch Duncan if he came too close. Her fire powers were relatively new, and she wasn't too good with them yet. Burning down the house while trying to scare off a werewolf wasn't exactly on her to-do list for the evening. But neither was letting the werewolf win.

"Get out," Jo said, holding the flashlight like an extremely short baseball bat.

"Calm down." Duncan grinned and held up both hands, palms facing her. "You do know what I am right?" His smile grew wider. "I can tell you do. It's all over your face. How much use do you really think that flashlight is going to be?"

"Come any closer, and we'll see if I can dent your thick skull with it," Jo said.

Duncan stepped further into the kitchen, and Jo got ready to drop the flashlight and light him up with her fire powers. The surprise would be enough to catch him off guard and give her time to run, and hopefully the fire wouldn't be big enough to torch the house. But Duncan settled onto a stool at the island in the middle of the kitchen. He grabbed an orange from the basket in the middle of the counter and began to peel it methodically, not looking up at her.

"I'm not here to fight," he said in a lazy, casual tone, "We know how that'd end, so let's not bother."

Yeah, right. Jo stayed back toward the sink, holding tight to the flashlight. "I don't know why else you'd be here, so you should leave."

"I'm going to, but first, let's talk." He gestured toward the other stool beside him, inviting her to sit down at her own kitchen counter.

Jo scowled. "I don't have anything to say to you."

"But see, there's a lot I want to talk to you about." Duncan dropped part of the orange peel and started on a new piece. "Like what's the deal with you and Ryker."

Staying on her side of the island, Jo narrowed her eyes at him. Why did it matter what was going on with her and Ryker? So much so that Duncan would cross into Ryker's territory and invade her house?

Yes, invade. The terminology was entirely justified.

"None of your business," Jo snapped, deciding that anything he wanted to know probably wouldn't be good for Ryker. And no offense--okay, fine, maybe some offense--to Duncan, but she was kind of on Ryker's side when it came to their feud. Although she really needed Ryker to give her a more thorough briefing on werewolf politics after this.

"Actually, it's very much my business," Duncan said, popping an orange slice in his mouth. He talked around it, probably trying to deliberately disgust her. Yeah, well, she was concerned by more important things than rudeness right now.

"I don't see how," Jo said, trying to sound as cold as possible.

Duncan leaned his elbows on the island, eyeing her speculatively. "Hmm, seems like that much is honest at least." He smirked and split another orange slice out of the orange. "Guess Ryker hasn't told you everything."

"Well, it's not like I've shared my whole life story with him either," Jo said, starting to be more irritated than alarmed. "Might take a little longer than the time we've had so far." Seriously, she'd never expect someone she was dating to spill all their dark secrets within a few weeks of dating her. She was surprised at how much she and Ryker had already shared with each other, so the fact that Duncan seemed to be questioning her relationship pissed her off more than anything.

Duncan swallowed his orange slice whole, then chuckled--and not in the warm, friendly way that Ryker often did. "My guess is you read up on werewolves once you found out Ryker was one. Did you ever see anything about mates in your research?"