Page 25 of Fated
I spotted Kyle walking toward us.
“Hi,” he greeted me and he gave a brief nod in Curtis’ direction.
“I’ll speak to you later,” I told Curtis as I indicated to Kyle to follow me.
“What’s up?” Kyle asked as he walked me out of the medical center.
Just outside, I stopped and turned to face him.
“What are you still doing here?” I asked.
“Remember I’m here to watch over you,” he explained, a little taken aback.
“I don’t need two of you to watch me,” I added.
He held my gaze as he ran his hand through his hair. It was like he was trying to figure out how to tell me something.
“I want to stay,” he said and I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Why?”
“Because you need someone to have your back, and I’ve got it,” he tried to explain.
“I don’t need you,” I told him in a cold tone, free of emotion.
“Why do you have to be so difficult? I want to look out for you until you have everything sorted out with the pack and the little problem of your ex-beta running around,” he said, sounding a little exasperated with me.
I studied him for a moment. It was like I was looking for any visible sign of deception but I couldn’t see any.
“Is it so bad that I want to be your friend?” he added and I felt a little guilty at being so hard to reach.
From the time I’d met him, he’d given me no reason to distrust him and he’d gone out of his way to keep an eye on me. He was even trying his hardest to form a friendship and I had to admit, as hard as I was to get close to, I was starting to feel more relaxed around him. But it didn’t mean I trusted him.
“I know that you’re not the person that you’ve portrayed to everyone and I see the real you inside.”
I swallowed hard at his words. He had a way with saying things that evoked emotions from me.
“Fine. Stay if you want,” I replied in a clipped tone with a shrug before I walked away.
It was getting more difficult to remain indifferent to him and I was starting to feel the emotional toll of dealing with Blake, my mom and him.
CHAPTER NINE
Keri
It was going to be impossible to keep my mom a secret from Blake for very long. I’d managed to give him the slip this morning to spend a half hour with my mom before he’d found me coming out of the medical center.
“What were you doing in the medical center?” he asked as he walked beside me. I couldn’t tell him that I’d spent the last hour spending time with my mother who was busy dying.
“I was just checking in with Curtis,” I informed him. Coming clean about my mom wasn’t something I was ready to do yet. I wasn’t going to be able to keep my secret for long, though. She was dying and in a few days she would be gone. It meant that no one would be able to use her against me.
But something else stopped me from telling Blake. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I wanted him to think that I’d betrayed them of my own choice and by doing that it would make it harder for him to see the good in me. I was scared. If he didn’t have a reason to hate me, what would happen? It was easier to keep him at arm’s length if he saw me as a heartless manipulator that was so much like the monster who’d fathered me.
“Yeah, I heard that you made him your beta,” he said. I glanced at him briefly.
“I trust him.”
I don’t know why I felt the need to say that. I didn’t need to justify my decision to anyone, even my mate.
