Page 48 of Warlander Beast Cat

“It was my mother’s wedding band.”

That hurt, but she stayed in it. “How long has she worn it?”

He slid his hands behind her knees and gripped her gently. “I met her when I was eighteen, straight out of high school. My mom was saber-toothed, and her father was saber-toothed, and there were so few of us left. They did genetic testing, and we were paired by her Crew as soon as they got the results. The decision was made for us, and I was so fuckin’ young, Cadence. I had a girlfriend I cared about at the time, but Sasha’s Crew put a stop to that. I had to break up with her, no explanation, and that was the first of Sasha’s problems. She was competitive, and she used my ex as ammunition. I thought it would fade with time, but as the years went on she grew more addicted to the drama, and grew her arsenal against me. She would be kind and caring and seduce me, and then she would be awful and jealous, controlling and combative. She’d tell me she didn’t care, and then when I would finally be ready to quit and cut out of her Crew and move on, she would come back and be sweet and caring and seductive again. Sex became the game. Sex and manipulation. I was in the running for Alpha of her Crew quick. I had a big animal, and I had tight control. I was a leader, and her dad was getting older. She felt some kind of power in controlling me, and over time I got…sick.” He made a clicking sound behind his teeth and shook his head at the window, but she’d seen the pain in his eyes. “I lost my head. Lost my spot as Alpha because I was becoming unstable, and the back and forth became an obsession. There was no future for me, just me trying to make it day after day wishing I could fucking make her happy so she would let me know peace for a little while. We were the last breeding pair. We weren’t allowed to quit, but she would play with other men when she was angry that I wasn’t under her thumb. And I would get jealous, and pissed, and my animal would get possessive. It was this big game to her, but to me, it was wrecking my head. When I would get close to leaving, she would break it off with whatever male she was entertaining and enlist the Crew to get me back in line with her. I gave her my mother’s ring because my mother asked me to. She thought if Sasha had some sort of claim she could wear and look at, maybe the males would stay away from her, and maybe she would settle her insecurities and just accept that I wasn’t going anywhere. The ring was to try and fix us. After that, she learned how to twist everything to make it my fault. Anything she felt, it was on me. Every hurt she imagined. Me. I couldn’t do anything right, and eventually I grew detached, and my animal was dangerous. We had to move to the outskirts of the territory, which made her feel angry. My fault, my fault, my fault. Of course she shows up now. She could always tell when I was moving on. She could sense my happiness, and she would come back just in time to ruin me again. Now she’s back, saying she’s changed and she’s ready to finally settle down and make me happy. She wants a baby, but I know what she’s doing. I can see things so clearly the longer I’m away from her. This Crew was my last shot at escaping. Damon showed up one day and yanked me out of the Crew I was in, pulled me away from Sasha. When she pitched a fit, he burned the house we shared and ate the ashes in front of her. I was numb. I remember watching it burn with this sense of…nothing. I was so far gone. My animal would never be Alpha, I would never have control of him again, and I didn’t want to be here anymore.”

“Kru,” she whispered in a trembling voice.

“It’s okay. I came here, and I was completely lost. Didn’t have connections to people, didn’t know how to have friends because all of that had been controlled by the situation I was in. I remember watching the Crews at the barbecues getting along and talking about normal stuff, and my head was so foggy. I thought being here was even worse for a while, because I didn’t know how to be normal, you know? And then Damon and Beaston were talking about a new Crew to try and save Gunner, and the whole time I understood Gunner, because I was lost too. So when Damon asked me to consider the Crew, and I met you for the first time, and Gunner, and Jenna…” He shrugged. “Well, I had nowhere to go but up.”

Her heart was breaking listening to this. It wasn’t right. What Sasha had done was cruel, and evil. “That sounds like an awful cage you came from,” she whispered.

He huffed a pained sound, and his eyes were full as he searched hers. “Yes. I thought you would react different.”

“Different how?”

He brushed his finger across her cheek, just under her eye. “You look like you’re going to cry. I can see your heart in your eyes.”

“I want to kill her.”

His lips twitched. Softly, he murmured, “Truth.” He leaned back. “I’m handling it.”

“How?”

“I told her tonight I wanted the ring back, and that whatever we are is dead. I told her I am with this Crew now. I told her I was with you, and look, I know you aren’t there. I know it. But that’s what I told her and it didn’t sound like a damn lie and she went berserk, so I would say that’s a pretty good sign she’s starting to get it. This place—Damon’s Mountains—you—it all makes me feel different. I’m not trapped by that past anymore, and I don’t give a fuck about being a last breeding pair of anything. My life revolved around that for so long, and it damn-near ended me.” He pulled her to the edge of her chair, rested his strong thighs on the outsides of her legs and ran his strong hands up them. “I’m a Warlander now. I’m your friend, and whenever you get to the end of whatever time you need to figure out what I am, I’m going to ask to be more. I can’t fucking stop thinking about you. I’ve probably thought about that kiss tonight twenty times already, and tomorrow I’ll think of it twenty more times. I regret that it happened where Sasha could taint it, but I don’t regret the kiss. I don’t regret touching you like that. I don’t regret you leaving, because I got to feel that awful gut-wrenching sensation of loss when I told Sasha to leave me the fuck alone and came to the parking lot to explain, and hug you and fix it, and you weren’t there. It was good for me. I knew I’d made the right decision, because with Sasha, I remember praying for her to just leave. Leave me alone. But with you?” Such honesty and openness swam in his eyes. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Her blurry eyes released two tears. Embarrassed, she ducked her gaze. “Don’t,” he murmured softly as he hooked a finger under her chin. “I want to see. I want to feel it when you’re upset or happy. Why are you crying?” he asked.

“Because this is the most open moment I’ve ever had with a man. And it’s you. I didn’t see any of this coming.”

He leaned forward and gently kissed her lips, then pulled her smoothly onto his lap and held her cradled there, rocking her gently. If the motion hurt him, he didn’t show it. His body stayed relaxed against hers, and with each passing second, she melted into him even more.

Oh, she could smell the blood and pain on him, but he was still taking care of her in such a tender way.

Cadence slipped her arms around his neck and clung to him, buried her face against his throat and inhaled his scent. There was something so damn beautiful about the let-go. She’d kept such tight control over her emotions around men for so long, but this? Falling into an open man?

She’d never felt anything like it.

She wanted to keep falling, because it felt so damn much like flying right now.

“Can I have a minute?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer for a few moments, and then said, “Of course.”

She stood and padded away from him, down the hallway and into her room. Her heart was racing with what she was planning to do. This would change everything! It would be bigger than the kiss, and she could tell that kiss had already changed her heart so much. This was taking a swan dive off a cliff and trusting him to catch her.

She wasn’t just making the decision to trust a man, either. This would mean trusting herself, and that was perhaps the most terrifying thing of all.

A moment of terror seized her. What if she got hurt again? What if she made the wrong decision again?

But she’d heard the honesty in every word as he’d spoken to her and told her everything she wanted to know. He’d promised to answer any question she had, and she believed him. How could she not? He’d admitted things she knew he had never talked to anyone about before, and now? She understood him so much more than she’d ever understood a man before.

Sure, it was scary, but love after being hurt was just like that. She’d mourned her bad decisions for years. She’d punished herself long enough.

Cadence peeled her shirt over her head and slipped into his oversized one, then pushed her pajama pants down and kicked them off. Wringing her hands to get rid of the trembling, she pulled open the door and padded quietly down the hallway.

When she made her way to the mouth of the hallway, she watched his face. Kru had been looking at the carpet with a thoughtful expression, then dragged his gaze to her and froze. He sat there stock-still, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Eyes lightened to that striking bright green, jaw clenched as he dragged his hungry gaze down her body, down her legs, then back to her waist before he paused.

She could hear his deep inhale and the creak of the chair as he leaned back and stretched one leg out. Oh, he was smooth, and the slow smile that crooked up one corner of his lips was staggeringly confident.

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