Page 40 of Blood Bearon
“Much. Faster too. I heal quicker.” Khove shrugged helplessly.
“And then there’s the minor fact you can turn into agiant bear!” She buried her face in her hands momentarily, trying to keep control. “Thank you for at least locking yourself in a cell so I was safe.”
Rachel wasn’t entirely sure when she’d gone from disbelief to acceptance, but it just sort of happened. There was too much strangeness about Khove and the things she’d seen him do, and thisdidexplain it all.
“Ah, yeah. No problem,” Khove said, at last pulling on his clothes.
She nodded wearily, watching as he went to the cell door and casually pushed it open.
“But…you closed it!” she gaped. “They lock automatically when you do that…”
“At the police station,” he told her. “These are older. They need a key.”
“You tricked me!” she snapped, unimpressed.
“It was me in there,” he informed her. “You weren’t in any more danger than you were when, say, you kissed me last night.”
She scoffed. “I had just about been blown up, and was standing close to a burning building. That qualifies as mild danger level.”
“You were perfectly safe. Iamthe bear, Rach,” he said calmly, using the short form of her name for the first time.
For some reason, that pierced her bubble more than anything else. This was still Khove. He was still the man she…the… “I need a drink,” she muttered. “this is a lot to take in.”
“I know,” he admitted, wrapping her into a hug she didn’t resist. “I know. There’s really no easy way to go about revealing this though. It’s kind of an all or nothing thing.”
“You could have said something,” she protested weakly.
“I’d rather have you see it and not believe, than look at me and think I was legitimately in need of mental help,” Khove said quietly. “I don’t want that kind of hurt.”
Suddenly, she realized that, as difficult as this was forherto accept, it must be even harder for Khove. He was showing her something he had worked his entire life to keep secret. To hide fromeveryone, because of the way they would react.
Yet somehow, he’d trusted her with the knowledge. He believe so strongly in what they were doing, that he’d risked sharing a secret with her that would have rocked the world if it got out. The stress he must have been under, the pressure.
“Oh, Khove,” she said, returning his hug, squeezing as hard as she could. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t stop to think how hard this must be from your side. How scared you must be on a daily basis that someone will find you.”
The big man turned away, but not before she saw his face cloud over. “We usually just try not to think of it,” he admitted. “But it’s always there, weighing down upon us.”
“Which is why you live out in the middle of nowhere. With the wall, and the forest, and the heavy security,” she realized. “Nobody even really knows you’re out here.”
“Exactly. We live apart,” he said. “It’s….easier that way.”
“We?”
“My family,” he said quietly. “The Ursa.”
Abruptly, details clicked. The Queen. TheirHouse. “This is your pack,” she said in abrupt understanding.
Khove growled wordlessly. “It is my House. The wolves are a pack. We are a family.”
Rachel’s eyebrows merged with her hairline. “Thewolves?”
“Yes. Bear shifters. Wolf shifters. There’s a lot you don’t know about your world, a lot that’s kept hidden from you,” he teased, kissing the top of her forehead.
“You, sir, have some explaining to do,” she ordered, pushing back in his embrace enough that she could meet his eyes. “For starters, why show me this now?”
Khove grimaced. “Because,” he said slowly. “Because I suspect I’m going to need your complete trust before this is over.”
She frowned, another piece falling into place. “This Korred,” she said suddenly. “He’s not just a worker for you, is he?”
