Page 74 of What a Wolf Demands

“You’re not responsible for Luc’s actions.”

Color flooded her cheeks. Her eyes flashed. “How can you sit there and say that? Everything that’s happened—all this shit—happened because of me.”

He kept his voice quiet. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I got a man killed!” She let out a broken sob.

His muscles twitched, every cell in his body wanting to reach across the seats and drag her against him. But he forced himself to stay still. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

She wiped at her eyes with short, jerky movements. “He was my friend.”

“I know.”

She slashed a hand through the air. “No, you don’t! And you’re just sitting there with your passive expression and your meaningless words.”

He stayed silent, letting her go. Letting her take what she needed from him.

The tension climbed as she gripped the back of her seat, her knuckles white and her face red and tear-streaked. “You know nothing about what it means to be alone in this world!”

“You’re wrong about that,” he said.

“Oh yeah? All you do is hunt and kill!” She spit the words at him, her voice wrapped in venom and pain. “Have you ever once stopped to consider how it feels for the people left behind? Do you know what’s it like to have nothing and no one? Of course not!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She spoke between sobs, her voice utterly heartbroken. “You’ve never had to watch someone you love die.”

He took a deep breath. Then he told her the one thing he’d never told another living soul.

“I’ve watched someone I love die.”

She snapped her mouth shut, shock glazing her eyes.

He looked out at the highway. “Six years ago, I watched my fiancée take her last breath on a road just like that one.”

12

Lily stared at Dom, unsure if she’d heard him correctly.

She couldn’t have. He’d said he watched his fiancée die. That was impossible. He was a pure-blooded werewolf. There were no engagements in their world. Not with the lux catena. You were either mated or you weren’t.

He turned back to her. “We grew up together,” he said into her shocked silence. A ghost of a smile touched his lips, and his eyes grew fond as if he was remembering something. “She was five years younger and forever pestering us boys to let her tag along when we trained.” He tossed Lily a look that was almost shy. “It wasn’t as common for females to learn to fight in those days. But there was no stopping Sabrina.”

Lily stayed quiet, her mind conjuring images of a younger Dom and an assertive, tomboyish girl.

“She was a spitfire,” he said. “She had this”—he swallowed—“cloud of red hair.”

Oh no. Lily’s heart flipped over. Had it been difficult for him, being around her these past couple days? Touching her?

Sharing his body with her?

He went on, the fondness changing to something else—something wistful and sad. “I don’t know when I realized we were meant for each other. I think it was just always that way between us. She was a Telepath. She couldn’t read my mind, but she didn’t need to. We had a connection.” He gave a little shrug. “One day I realized there wasn’t anybody else for me. Just Sabrina. It had always been Sabrina.”

Lily tried to picture him as he’d described himself—having mental conversations with his soulmate. Maybe they’d sat in a crowded movie theater, their hands joined as they privately shared their thoughts on the film. Or perhaps they’d caught each other’s eye across the room at a party, secretly agreeing to slip away early.

Maybe they’d watched sunsets together, thoughts flowing in and out of each other’s heads as the sun sank below the horizon.

Maybe they’d spoken mind-to-mind in their most intimate moments—sharing the kind of connection most couples could only dream about.

“Why didn’t you mate her?” she heard herself ask.

“Her family wanted her to finish college first.” He looked back at the road, but it seemed as though he didn’t really see it. “We thought we had all the time in the world.”

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