Page 60 of Blade's Battle
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Don’t pull that crap on me. I know you well enough to know you’d never kill anyone, certainly not someone you loved. So we’re going to talk about what happened to Kurt and why you think you killed him.”
“No, we’re not.” She pushed some of the salt around with her boot. “Are we safe here?”
“No one’s been here for a while. I would have smelled them if they had, Angel.”
It was strange how quickly she’d come to like the nickname that had irritated her those first few times he’d used it. Now it made her feel welcome as if she belonged here, with Blade.
That very thought sent a chill down her spine. She’d become too comfortable around him, let herself start to care for him, even consider blood-bonding him. She needed to go as far from Blade as she could get, where she’d no longer be tempted to say yes to him, except she couldn’t do that until she found the solution to the feral problem. And that could take weeks, months, even longer. Either way, it meant working at a lab, going back and forth to secure samples and testing theories. Or maybe he’d come with her. No, she couldn’t allow that. Being alone with Blade would give her a false sense of security, make her think he’d always be there for her. She had already allowed this relationship to grow beyond what she should have.
Anna sat down in the grass and pulled her knees to her chest. In the valley below, a raging river wound its way through trees and rocks. The sight was breathtaking, and yet it was Blade who held her attention as he checked their immediate area.
Despite the cool morning air, Blade only wore jeans and boots. He must have left the cabin in a hurry. Just the same, she was enjoying the view, the shirtless one. No wonder the poor guy was confused. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of him even as she was pushing him away.
Blade’s hand trailed down her hair as he settled on a patch of grass next to her. She resisted the urge to lean into him.
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” Anna said. “And you deserve answers. But it’s hard to talk about Kurt.”
“Then I’ll ask a few questions and you tell me what you can. If it’s too hard, tell me to move on. No pressure, okay?”
She nodded, trying not to cry.
“Why do you think you killed your husband?”
When she shuddered, he pulled her into his shoulder, right where she wanted to be. Warm fingers trailed along her arms. The guy really had magic fingers. Anna let herself relax against Blade. Right now she needed his strength, or she wouldn’t get through all of his questions.
“Kurt was a weak shifter,” she began. Her chest felt tight and even with Blade’s glorious heat surrounding her, she couldn’t warm up. Blade rubbed her arm as if sensing she needed that contact.
She did.
Anna took another deep breath, her gaze falling to the scar on her right palm. A true blood-bonding ceremony never left a scar, the shifter’s blood always healed it, as had happened when she blood-bonded Kurt. When Blade started tracing the scar with his finger, she closed her hand into a fist. This scar had nothing to do with Kurt, and it certainly didn’t deserve Blade’s loving touch.
“I didn’t mean to offend—”
“It’s fine,” Anna said, tucking her hand behind her. She cleared her throat and straightened her back, pulling away from Blade’s heat at the same time. The loss felt profound, but she had vowed to herself that she would answer all of his questions.
“The blood-bond with Kurt worked as it was supposed to. It was as if I could feel his emotions, his love. Everything was perfect, and we were really happy together. He was wonderful. Smart, loving, funny. Never had a bad word to say about anyone. I never questioned if we should blood-bond, but I should have.
“Maybe if I had asked why some of his pack didn’t want us blood-bonding I would have discovered the blood-bond would weaken him. I thought those who objected did so because I was human. You know, a cultural divide. No one ever made a big fuss about it though, just subtle comments here and there. Kurt did tell me that sometimes a blood-bond with a human resulted in a weakening of shifter abilities, but honestly, that didn’t sound so bad. I mean, Kurt had always struggled to shift, and we’d already planned to live near the city where he wouldn’t need to shift.
“After the ceremony, we did our mating run as humans. He could have shifted, but he said it was more important that we run together. So we ran, hand in hand. He didn’t shift until a few days later, right before we were scheduled to move out of his pack and into our new home.”
“The Running of the Moon?”
She nodded. “That was extremely painful for Kurt. I’d never seen him in such agony before. Others noticed as well, but no one said anything. They wouldn’t, not with me there. Besides, the damage from the blood-bonding was already done. Nothing could change that. We just didn’t realize how bad it would get.
“Kurt simply shrugged it off and said he wouldn’t need to shift in the city. There’d be no Running of the Moon for him once we moved. That alone saddened me because I’d seen how much joy he’d taken in the run before our ceremony.”
“Then the blood-bond didn’t kill him.”
“Not directly. Everything was going great. I got a job at J&L GenTech and Kurt was going to school for certification as a teacher. He loved kids and excelled in math. We bought a house and settled in. We were talking about a family even. Then he got sick. It started as a cough that wouldn’t go away. He’d make light of it, say his shifter healing abilities would take care of it. A few months passed but his cough got worse, not better. He said weak shifters always healed slowly. Then I found blood on his pillow one day. I insisted he go to the doctor.”
She swallowed hard, remembering the diagnoses and the volley of questions she’d launched at the doctor afterward. How within days her panic had caused an anxiety attack. In mere minutes, her whole world had come crashing down.
“Metastatic cancer. It had spread to too many organs. I broke down. Kurt? Well, he was a rock through it all as if he knew both of us couldn’t break down.”
She didn’t know when, but sometime during her tale, Blade had taken her hand in his and was stroking the back with his thumb. His deep brown eyes were fixed on her.
