Page 46 of Fury

“Trying to distract me will only get so far. I might lose my head for a minute, but I’m not going to forget you are avoiding answering my questions.”

A wide grin spread across his face. “The idea that I can distract you, even temporarily, makes me hot.”

Penelope rolled her eyes. “I can see your ego is still well intact. You might need someone to take you down a peg or two.”

“Are you offering yourself for the job?”

She took a deep breath, letting the sexual innuendo smooth some of her frazzled nerves. However inappropriate their attraction might be, she couldn’t deny it existed. And if she dug a little deeper, she realized she didn’t want to deny it.

After a few more minutes of relishing their connection, she took a deep breath and pulled her hand free. “Now tell me why those men owed you.” She held up her hand before he could object. “I know you’re trying to deflect, but considering what you are expecting from me, the least you can do is tell me more about you. Make me understand all of this. Please.”

It was his turn to take a deep breath. But she could see in his eyes that he was about to give in. That thought comforted her—a little. She still had a lot of compromising to do. There were explosive secrets she was expected to keep. In fact, she’d have to examine a little deeper to determine where her priorities still lie.

“My father was our pack alpha before he was brutally murdered. By birthright that would have made me the alpha after his and my mother’s death. Except I was young and barely an adult and definitely not mature. I was—I am carrying around a lot of anger. It makes me impulsive and at that time, even I knew I wouldn’t make the right decisions for the pack. All I cared about was revenge.”

Her heart ached over the pain in his voice as he explained in plain detail what had to been an enormous tragedy in his life. His matter of fact delivery didn’t hide all the emotions hidden underneath his story.

“But you aren’t the alpha, right? That is one of the men from yesterday?”

He nodded. “I abdicated so to say. Damien, Diego and Dante were the next in line, but deciding between them proved difficult at best so the pack decided they would share the leadership role temporarily. It’s a little unorthodox, but it has served us well for many years.”

“That doesn’t sound temporary.”

Laughter rumbled through his chest. “Time moves a little differently for us. We don’t age at the same rate humans do, so we see and feel time in a different way.”

It still startled her to hear him refer to her as human, a stark reminder that while he looked like a gorgeous man sitting on the edge of her bed. Underneath that façade there was a lot more to deal with.

That niggling sensation in the back of her mind flared to life again, sending her back into the woods as she tried to fight the darkness encroaching on her as her blood seeped away. She remembered him holding her. The men talking more and him leaning over her, his words comforting her in an instinctual way. He’d pleaded with her to not die. Said he needed her. Something no one had ever said to her before…

And then—

She jerked her head back up and stared into his enthralling warm eyes. “What do I need to forgive you for?”

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