Page 77 of The Wolf in My Tavern

A small sob escapes her lips.

I reach for her only to be thwarted by the chains. “None of this is your fault,” I say bitterly. “You cannot help what that bastard has done to you… Do you still love me?”

I admit my vulnerability with that question and how I’m scared to have lost her.

Her next sob breaks me, and she covers the small distance to throw herself against me. I can smell him on her, but if I focus really hard, I can also smell me.

My arms don’t function properly, but I wrap them around her as best I can, drawing her tiny, precious weight against me, taking comfort in the hold.

“I love you, Callum. Forever. That is how it is between us. From the day you saved me. I don’t... I don’t know what came over me.”

Relief crashes over me. “It is some shifter trick.”

She lifts her head from my chest, and her eyes search mine. “I don’t think it is,” she says quietly. “I think this is all my fault.”

I frown. What nonsense is she talking about? “How can this possibly be your fault?”

She tries to pull away, but I tighten my arms. Whatever she has to say, I want her to touch me while she says it.

“Let me go, Callum.”

“Never. The bastard will have to pry you from my arms before I will let you go.”

The fight goes out of her, but even though she softens against me, it instills a sense of dread. “I don’t deserve you,” she whispers.

My mouth opens and closes again as words fail me. I don’t care that he forced her body to respond. None of that is her fault.

“I-I like him too,” she stammers into my chest.

“Like him?” Her words make no sense.

“I wanted him. I wanted him to touch me. He has touched me before… pleasured me… at the tavern.”

Pain lances through me. Hers, mine, and a combination of them both. It is like a knife piercing my chest.

It burns. How it burns.

Betrayal.

My hands shake.

I still do not let her go.

“I have always been drawn to him,” she admits. “Right from the very first day he entered the tavern.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat as my world unravels before me. Deep down, I have known this—known it and ignored it.

Carefully, and although it makes my heart ache, I force my hands to release her, letting my arms fall to my sides.

“You want to be with him?” My eyes feel gritty. Inside, I am cold.

She still presses against me, refusing to step away, and I want to hope that it might mean something, but I am too devastated to work out what.

The noble thing to do would be to walk away. Except I don’t know if I can.

“You have said you love me. Now you tell me you love him, too.”

“I do. Both of you. This is complicated. And I know…”

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