Page 72 of Grace of a Wolf 2
His eyes flick toward me, then away.
"I don't need the noble version. I'd like the real one." I pull my knees to my chest, hugging them close. "Lyre explained things to me. I already know you're not some psychopathic serial killer or whatever."
Caine's head snaps toward me, genuine surprise breaking through his stony expression. "You thought I was a serial killer?"
"Oh. No. Of course not." Yes, yes, I did. "Maybe a little bit." A lot.
Something shifts in his face—the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile, but close enough that for a second, the tension cracks.
He exhales, rubbing a hand over his face. The gesture is so unexpectedly vulnerable, it catches me off guard.
"I wouldn't attack a pack without cause," he says after some time. "Blue Mountain gave me one."
I raise an eyebrow, not bothering to hide my skepticism.Uh-huh.I was there.
Caine meets my gaze, and I resist the urge to look away from his storm-gray eyes. They're too intense. Too probing.
Too… pretty.
"Brax has been a problem for years. Always smiling, always compliant. But he was never truly loyal. I had my eye on him for a long time. Not all packs are thrilled with having the Throne filled once again."
Asking for details would interrupt him, so I keep my mouth shut, even though I'm desperate to know more about what Brax did. My brain's been avoiding the past, still struggling to reconcile the man I once saw as a father figure and the one who abandoned me without a second thought once I returned from the Mate Hunt, still… human. Because I am one.
Caine hesitates, the strong line of his jaw tightening as he glances away. "Still... maybe my reaction was a little extreme."
I scratch at my jaw with a laugh. “Well, you didn’t killeveryone.” The kids seem to think he did, but after Lyre smacked me with a bit of reality, I now understand—it was proof of Caine's restraint.
What little he has of it, anyway.
A soft, half-laugh escapes me, uncertain and a little nervous. "I'm still getting used to... this. All of this."
"What?"
"Your idea of, er… conflict resolution?"
Caine leans forward, and my breath catches. The air between us shifts from cautious to charged, the energy of the moment crackling in my very bones.
His cologne-like smell grows stronger, and I force myself to exhale slowly instead of sucking it all down like a woman drowning for it.
"What do you mean by that?" he asks, his brows drawing together in genuine confusion.
I stare at him for a second too long, my brain switching fromI like how he smellsto whatever was happening in our conversation. Then my mouth drops open.
The realization hits me like a punch to the gut: Lyre wasn't exaggerating when she said Caine has all the emotional intelligence of a rock. He's actually, sincerely mystified about what I'm trying to say.
He has to be teasing me, right? He can't possibly be confused.
"I mean..." I blink a few times. "It's a little scary to watch someone order the deaths of a bunch of people who once took care of me. Don't you think?"
His face darkens, but it isn't directed at me. He's looking over my shoulder with a frown, his left eyebrow twitching.
"That pack did not treat you well." His voice drops lower, the rumble of vibrating through the air and settling into my chest like a purring cat. "They don't deserve your grief."
Something awful wedges in my throat. I clear it and rub the bridge of my nose, fighting a sudden, stupid prickling behind my eyes. It's not as if I loved the Blue Mountain Pack with every fiber of my soul. Plenty of them made it their daily mission to remind me I didn't belong in a world of wolves. But they were still my... something. My familiar. My history.
My place.
And now I understand. Caine isn't playing dumb—he truly, genuinely doesn't understand why I'd feel sympathy for people he considers trash. The disconnect is so profound, it's fascinating.
