Page 50 of Forbidden Love

“That was rude,” Deb swallowed hard and looked up at him. “Pepper didn’t deserve that.” Okay, here she was starting to ramble again.

His growl was loud, hoarse and raw. “Dammit, Deb, you could’ve been killed out there tonight.”

The rain was starting to pick up again, thunder crashing closer, but neither of them seemed to care.

“I know that!” she yelled back with a growl of her own, her fists clenched at her sides. “You think I don’t know that? I was the one being stalked by a goddamn wolf, Brock!”

Rage flared in his gaze as he stared at her, but he remained silent, which drove her nuts. All she wanted to do was scream at the unfairness of her finally catching feelings for someone only to realize he had a Mate.

She tried to breathe and calm down her emotions before saying something she would regret. And yet her mouth had different plans. “Shouldn’t you be more worried about your Mate?”

Brock froze. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me, Brock.” She whispered, feeling her heart sink further into her stomach. Turning her head away from him, she sighed. “Do not fucking lie to me.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” He said, his tone back to normal as he reached out, grasping her chin gently and bringing her gaze back to his. “You are my Mate, Deb.”

“Wait, what?” Her breath caught as it started to register with her. “No,” she shook her head and took a step back. There were so many things he didn’t know about her. What if she fell even harder for him, and then he found out about things from her past? No, this can’t happen.

“What the hell do you mean no?” Brock’s voice went from calm to angry again.

The quiet anger in his tone made her spine stiffen, but she didn’t look away.

“I mean, I’m not going to be the reason you end up regretting something that felt good in the heat of a storm,” she said. “Puntotally intended. You know, since we are out in this storm.” Yep, let the rambling begin.

“Deb,” Brock warned, his eyes narrowed.

“You’re just… overwhelmed. High on adrenaline.” She continued ignoring his warning. “I get it. But once the dust settles, and you know everything about me, you’ll think twice.”

“You don’t get to decide how I feel about you,” he said, voice low but intense as he leaned so close she could feel his warm breath on her face. “I’ve seen your strength, your kindness, your smart-ass attitude. And I’ve seen how scared you were tonight and how you still stood your ground. That past of yours? Whatever it is, I’m not running from it.”

“You say that now?—”

“I’ll keep saying it. Every fucking day, if I have to.” His jaw clenched, and his eyes searched hers. “I’m not a man who scares easy, Deb. And I don’t back down from what’s mine.”

Her lip trembled, but she held it together. She couldn’t just melt like she wanted to and say, okay, I’m yours. She would not do that to him. “Do you know why I was crying?”

“I don’t care,” Brock said, then frowned. “I mean, I do care, but?—”

“I know what you mean,” She decided to let him off the hook on that one. “I was drunk at Janna and Garrett’s baby shower. I made the most vile and nasty comment about her losing the babies. Is that the kind of Mate you want in your life? Is that the kind of person you want around your nephew?” Damn, even saying that killed her, but it needed to be said. He needed to know exactly who she was. It was time.

He just stared at her, and her heart broke, but she expected his silence. She was right. He was rethinking this whole Mate shit like she knew he would. Though she understood you couldn’t just turn the Mate situation on and off like a switch, she was saving him from her.

“Yeah, I would be speechless if I were you also.” Deb pretty much answered for him. “That, to me, is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life and something I have regretted, but it happened, and I can never take it back. I’ve been cruel to the people of this town, and my sister getting the worst of it. She lived in a tiny room above the Feed Mill instead of living with me. So yeah, I’m a prize. Her own sister would rather live in an attic room that was a fire trap instead of her sister because I was such a bitch.”

“Are you finished?” Brock asked with a cocked eyebrow when she paused.

“No,” Deb wrapped her arms around herself, not to block out the cold, but to shield against the memory that always left her raw.

“There was someone,” she said quietly. “A man I dated… a while back.”

Brock’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t speak. He just waited, patient and still.

“He was older. Confident. Smart in that smug kind of way that made you think he knew things no one else did.” She let out a humorless laugh. “And I was stupid enough to fall for it.”

Her voice caught, and she looked away. “I didn’t know who he really was. What he really wanted. He told me he loved me. Promised me things I’d been desperate to believe were real. That I wasn’t alone. That he understood me.”

She glanced back at Brock, eyes clouded with guilt. “But it was all a lie. I didn’t know it at the time, but he hated Shifters. Hated the idea of their existence—called them unnatural, dangerous. Said the world needed to know what was living among them and annihilate them.”

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