Page 32 of Out of the Darkness

Madelyn’s fingers gripped the edge of the sink as she shook her head. “She wouldn’t have believed me anyway, Xavier. I wouldn’t have either if I were in her shoes. The only reason I do believe it is because I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I can always show her if you like.”

She turned in his arms so that she could look into his beautiful eyes. “I appreciate that, but I don’t think you could get anywhere near her without her arresting you.” She rested her forehead against his chest, a few more tears escaping. “I knew she was going to be upset about this, but I didn’t think she would actually cut me off. I thought we were closer than that.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

She scoffed a laugh. “No, you’re not. You knew she was a cop; you had to know something like this would happen. You have to know how cops feel about stalking, and yet you pursued me that way anyway.”

Xavier lifted her chin with his fingers. “You misunderstand me, Madelyn. You’re right to assume that I’m not sorry I pursued you or that I marked you as mine. I’m not even sorry about Melanie as she clearly wasn’t as good a friend as you believed her to be. However, I am sorry that you are going through this and that you lost someone you care about. I know how much she meant to you.”

Madelyn pressed her lips together, a fresh wave of emotion washing over her. “I knew the risks when I agreed to this.”

This was getting to be too much, and she needed to change the subject. Otherwise, she would completely fall apart and would end up spending the rest of the night bawling her eyes out. She didn’t have the mental capacity for all that at the moment. She also didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to find out more about the mystery that was Xavier. Melanie was right about one thing: She didn’t know nearly enough about him.

Stepping out of his arms, Madelyn moved back toward the living room where the two of them took a seat on the couch. “What’s with the bag?” she asked him curiously. “You going somewhere?”

Jaw clenching, Xavier shook his head. “No. I’m going to be staying here with you for a while.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, I know I agreed to give this a shot, but that doesn’t mean you can just move in here, Xavier.”

He turned his body on the couch to face her, cocking an eyebrow. “First of all, I told you, if we do this, we are doing this. You already bear my mark; there’s no taking it back. It’s permanent, and so is this. Secondly, that’s not why I’m staying here.”

“Then why are you?” While she had plenty of things to say about him automatically assuming that they were permanent, as well as his marking her the way he had without permission, she felt that figuring out why he was insisting on staying with her was more important.

“Remember Colby?”

She nodded. “As if I could forget. You think he’s going to come after me?”

“There’s a good chance, and it won’t be just him either. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Xavier ran his fingers through his hair. “After I revealed the fact that I was a shifter to him, he went back and told the rest of the family.”

“The Cortez family?” she asked.

He nodded curtly. “The only people who knew what I was were Rodrigo and Isabelle. I guess a lot of the guys got pissed when Colby told them. They rebelled against Rodrigo and left to hunt me alongside Colby. Rodrigo is pissed and labeled them as traitors. So now, war is on its way to Cedarwood.”

Madelyn didn’t like the sound of that at all. There was a good chance that a lot of innocent people could end up getting hurt just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Collateral damage.

“But what does that have to do with me?”

Reaching forward, Xavier cupped the side of her neck. “Because you are my mate, hurting you would weaken me. It would make it easier for them to kill me. The bond between us affects me more than it does you. If anything happens to you, it will destroy me.”

Madelyn couldn’t help but wonder if that was true. If she was so important to Xavier that, if anything happened to her, it would physically affect him. She had never been important to someone before, and the thought caused her heart to squeeze in her chest.

“But if they didn’t know about shifters, how would they know that?”

“They wouldn’t, not for sure,” he responded. “But I already revealed my hand to Colby that day he threatened you. It wouldn’t be hard for him to figure out, and I’m not taking any chances. Not with you.”

Madelyn pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth as she wrung her hands in her lap. It looked as though she was going to have a new roommate.

Chapter Fifteen

Xavier

Xavier was lying against the headboard on Madelyn’s bed while she changed, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. He had already changed into a pair of sweats himself, which was new for him as he usually slept naked. Since she was allowing him to stay in her bed, not that he gave her much of a choice in the matter, he wasn’t going to push it too far just yet.

---