He glanced at her, the lights of an oncoming car casting the hard lines of his stern features into relief. “Not yet. I wouldn’t help you if you were.”

She shook her head and stared ahead, the streetlights narrow streaks of rainbow flying past. “I don’t understand. Why are you helping me at all?”

“Maybe I’ve gone soft. Maybe I’ve gotten tired of killing and felt like saving a life instead. Maybe you’re…”

“I’m what?”

He shook his head, whatever he thought to say held in check.

Claire hugged herself, her fingers digging into her arms as she recalled the brutality of her attack. “I’d rather be dead than become like them.”

“If it comes down to that, I’ll pull the trigger myself.”

She glared at him. “So you’ve said.”

He was so cold. So calculated. And in that moment, she hated him for it. Even if she knew he couldn’t afford to be any other way.

Gideon glanced at her as she crossed her arms in a noisy huff, clearly offended by his bluntness. He sighed. It wasn’t as if he would enjoy ending her life. Not hers. Not Claire.

There had been a time when he enjoyed the hunt, relished the kill. Each successful mission avenged his parents. At least when he started out, when he was young, that was the case. He hardly slept, hardly ate—only hunted. His sole purpose had been to hunt and destroy. And standing over each of his kills, he had imagined that dead lycan to be the one who infected his mother.

Lately, that driving need to annihilate lycans had vanished. Partly because he now accepted that they could never totally be eradicated. His efforts only added sand to a constantly widening hole. Lycans had walked this earth for generations. They were a finely honed species, built to endure the expanse of time, built to withstand NODEAL and the other underground societies created to hunt and destroy them.

The most he got out of the hunt anymore was a minor sense of accomplishment. That he had performed a small, necessary service for society. Gideon realized, however, that he wouldn’t even have that peace of mind if he destroyed her. He would only feel failure. And, he admitted, a sense of loss.

Because Claire Morgan had gotten under his skin.

She had infiltrated his resolve to keep their relationship impersonal. He wanted her. He pounded the steering wheel with his fist and pushed the impossible thought from his head.