Page 80 of To Challenge a Wolf

“Whatever. Lay it on me.”

“All right.” But then he was quiet a moment, a savory essence of contemplation in his scent. “It’s all connected, Rhett. Your scent not shifting with your moods. Your flat expression whenever something overwhelms you. And your inability to recognize your mate until you believed her life might be in danger. What Stone did to you involved deliberate psychological trauma to get the results he wanted, and we need to work on freeing you from those results.”

“Or not.” He shrugged. “Like I said, sometimes it’s handy not to feel feelings.”

Trevor seemed to choke, and Kelsey smelled so sad for him, Rhett nearly tried to find words to comfort her. April, on the other hand, tilted her head in a pose not wholly unlike his Vivian.

“Rhett,” April said. “Wolves are built to feel just as humans are. You can’t be your fullest, truest self without them.”

“Well, then I can’t. It’s too late to fix me. It’s why my mate and I can’t…can’t…”

What he’d told Vivian was still true. As long as his brain was booby-trapped with a whole lot of crappy barriers to normal emotional existence, he’d be a horrible wolf to his mate. Hopelessness crashed over him, followed by a wave of painful, physical heat. Not again. He staggered to the open chair and sank down. He drew a ragged breath.

“Crap.”

“This is part of it, Rhett,” Malachi said. “According to the lore, when the wolves who survived were…well, deprogrammed, for lack of a better word…some of them appeared to fight back internally, and they experienced acute fever.”

“No problem,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just give me a minute and it’ll let up again.”

“Thatisthe problem. How many times has this happened to you?”

“Three. Uh, four now.”

“You’re strong enough that you might be able to fight until it breaks you. You have to stop fighting.”

“Stop fighting?” The two most terrifying words in the world. “No freaking way.”

“It’s necessary for your health.”

“I saidno, Malachi.” Pain shot through his temples, and he propped his head in his hands and ground words through his teeth. “Headache in the lore too, by chance?”

“Actually, yes.”

“How comforting.”

“These episodes will continue to happen until you stop.”

“Why? He started training when I was nine years old. Why could I live with it a month ago, no fevers, no fighting needed—and now all of a sudden I can’t?”

Malachi crouched beside him and settled a hand settled on his shoulder. “Because your mate found you. Your wolf heart knew her but couldn’t make you see her past the barriers, so the barriers had to come down.”

“My mate,” Rhett whispered, and the pain in his head threw stars before his eyes. Sweat dripped down his face, his back, his chest. “It’s too hot.”

“April,” Malachi said, “would you please—?”

“I’m on it.”

“Stop fighting, Rhett.”

But he couldn’t. He clenched his jaw, breathed through his nose. Malachi was wrong. A wolf never quit fighting. That was the first rule Stone had taught him. He’d been such a small pup; he didn’t know how small, only that the lesson had first begun before kindergarten.

“It’s for your own good I’m telling you this. Big bad world out there, so you’ll have to fight. I’ll teach you how, pup. You’ll be a great fighter when I’m done with you. The best. You want that, don’t you? To be the best fighter so I can be proud.”

“Yes, Dad.”

And by the time he was a teen…“Yes, alpha.”

But Stone wasn’t here. His good alpha was here. And pack, friends…good family, not family that brought hurts. His own voice came from the shaking depths of his wolf heart…nonexistent? Or muted. Squashed. But maybe…maybe not useless, shriveled as he’d always thought.

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