Page 38 of An Unending Claim

She swallowed hard and blinked a few times. After a minute, she shook her head as if to rid herself of her emotions. They didn’t go away, but she hid them behind a wall as I now realized she’d been doing all along. She was just as broken as the day I’d met her, she’d just learned to hide it better.

I opened my mouth to bring it up, but she shook her head again and waved a hand in the air. “We can dissect my life another time, this is about you.”

“Fine, but don’t think I’m going to forget,” I warned her with a hard stare. She bobbed her head up and down then continued down the path. “I don’t want to force you to think about it too much, but can you answer my question?”

“The people who killed Tyler are dead.” Her voice lacked all emotion.

“But if they weren’t,” I pressed, “could you be with Asher if you knew it was, say… his cousin or grandfather who’d done it?”

Savannah remained silent for a few minutes and I let her think undisturbed. Eventually, she shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I can’t begin to predict what my reaction would be. My first instinct is to say no, but the truth is, if Asher had no part in it, wasn’t aware of it, he shouldn’t shoulder any of the blame.”

“I agree, but it doesn’t mean your heart would think as logically as your mind.”

“You may be right,” she conceded. Then she stopped again and put her hands on her hips, waiting until I pivoted to face her. “You aren’t giving Nathan enough credit, Peyton. I think, if you let go of all the bullshit weighing you down and came clean, he would surprise you. Besides, he deserves to know. You need to tell him.”

“How?” I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. “He’s turned me upside down and inside out. I can’t seem to think rationally, and I just can’t figure out how to tell him.”

Savannah raised and dropped a single shoulder. “I can’t help you there. Remember the whole fucked-up mess thing? I don’t have the first clue how to begin to wade through it. But my baggage doesn’t have the same ripple effect as yours. I’m not risking the man who loves me.”

My brows drew down as I digested her comment. “He doesn’t… I think Nathan is too logical to fall in love. It’s messy and unpredictable. He…”

I looked up when something cold and wet landed on my cheek. Tiny specks of white had begun to fall from the sky. “It’s snowing,” I murmured. As the flakes fell on my face, they grew in size, warning that a snowstorm was fast approaching.

“Deny it all you want, Peyton,” she stated, shattering my beautiful winter bubble. “But you are both being pig-headed if you can’t see that you’re in love.”

My mouth snapped shut and I considered her words as well as the observations I’d been gathering over the past weeks. Could it be? My panther was certainly infatuated with Nathan and his wolf. But, even if we were in love, his was sure to shrivel up and die the moment he found out who I really was.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

NATHAN

Ipinched the bridge of my nose as I leaned back in my chair and stared out the window in my office. The snow had quickly escalated from a trickle of flakes to almost whiteout conditions. Through the pack link, I reached out to Allison, who was on Peyton’s trail. After Peyton had been taken, I’d decided to keep a shadow on her at all times, even when she was with me, just in case. Apparently it had been a smart move.

Peyton had shocked me with her nonchalant comment about our baby being more wolf than panther, which was the only reason she’d had enough of a head start to avoid being caught by me before she even left the house. Then she’d set off the alarm and if I hadn’t paused to enter the code, there would have been an army of KBO operatives banging down my door in minutes.

I’d been halfway to Savannah’s cabin when Allison had spoken in my head.

Give her a little time.

She’s had weeks. I want answers.

Trust me, Alpha. I saw the look on her face when she shifted at Savannah’s. Please. She’s in panic mode, and that means her panther is going to be skittish. You don’t want to spook her because you and I both know she can outrun us.

I doubted her panther would run from me, but if I cajoled her into coming home before Peyton was ready, she’d be pissed as fuck. I didn’t want this conversation to be any more difficult than it already would be. I had to fight with myself, as well as my wolf, to do as Allison had requested and turn back, but I begrudgingly did it.

However, it had been an hour and the storm was only going to worsen throughout the rest of the day and into the night. On top of that, Peyton hadn’t known about her guard, which meant she’d essentially taken off by herself after promising me she wouldn’t do it again. Me being angry and worried was not a combination that had worked out well for Peyton in the past.

I heard a knock on my office door and turned to see Savannah standing in the hall, her hands wringing nervously in front of her. Having a member of the pack show up at my home office hadn’t been unusual before Peyton had moved in. I’d rarely engaged my security system and had allowed my pack to come and go as needed. However, with Peyton in a serial killer’s crosshairs, I kept it alarmed anytime she was here. When I’d returned home alone, I’d left it off for her.

It wasn’t the fact that Savannah had walked right in that had me rising from my chair. “Where the fuck is Peyton?” I growled.

Savannah shrank back for a second, then she squared her shoulders and took a step into the office. If I hadn’t been furious, I would have admired her mettle.

“She and Allison went for a run. I told her I had somewhere to be and left them to come here.”

Taking a deep breath, I growled at my wolf to chill so that I could find my calm, then sat back down.

“I… when I met Peyton, we sort of entered this mutual destruction pact.” She shuffled her feet nervously when I raised an eyebrow in question. “Um, never mind. My point is that she told me a secret about her past.”

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