Page 78 of Corbin
“Pixie loves water. It’s hard to keep her out of it. She’d dive in from here if we weren’t running for our lives.” Would this be near Tallulah Gorge? Wasn’t it a series of waterfalls? She’d heard snippets about this area and had thought Tallulah River was more of a stream, but that rolling water appeared sort of deep.
“Ares hates water,” Corbin admitted. “He’d face another bear rather than walk into a stream.”
She found that almost amusing when considering what a beast Ares was but didn’t comment. Everyone had fears. She’d never make light of his.
Leaving the relaxing scene to avoid teasing Pixie when they couldn’t swim, Eirene found a pretty spot in the shade. She spread out the towel and put the snack bars in the middle with one bottle of water. They only had one more bottle left and had to be conservative.
Sitting cross-legged, she looked up to find Corbin headed her way with his everything-will-be-okay smile.
He dropped down next to her, pulled his boots off, and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Should I expect fine dining like this all the time?”
“Probably since I’m not the best cook.” She opened her eyes wide in challenge.
“I’m pretty decent with a grill. We won’t starve.”
She loved it when he talked like they were going to be together forever, but now was not the time to add anything new to his burden. She could be like Pixie and go along to get along until the time was right to talk about the future.
Placing her fingers on his cheek, she held them there. “I have never thought farther ahead than the day I woke up, but I would enjoy figuring out recipes. I would love to wake up with the windows open and chimes singing. I would love spending time together watching movies and reading.”
He toyed with a lock of her hair that would probably never return to any civilized look and spun it around his finger. “I want to see you happy, morning, noon, and night. I want to feel you near me every minute we can steal and hold you close after we make love. I would love a life in a simple home with you, something I’ve never had.”
“That’s a pretty picture.” She noticed he watched her closely as if wondering if that suited her or not. She held firm to her decision to let him set the pace. If he left it up to her, she would have him married, mated, whatever, so long as she could keep him.
Tearing the first bar open and handing it to him, she shuffled the conversation. “Just don’t think I’m a princess. I did grow up in luxury, but all I wanted was to be free to do what other girls did. I couldn’t date. My father feared some guy trying to take advantage of me and how I would react even after I assured him Pixie and I were not dominant. I had never been so excited as when you reached out to me. I’d scented you in the two classes we shared but feared speaking first because of my bodyguards.”
He chewed the last of his first bar and took a gulp of water. “I was so shy it took me a month to get up the nerve to write the note once I carved the wolf.”
She hoped Leszek would not bring someone into her apartment and take her things, but the one item she would fight him for was in a safe. “We never got to talk back then. What was your life like?”
“Not quite as cherry as yours. My dad married my mother with no idea she was pregnant, but he loved her and said he’d accept the child even if it was not his. He never thought he’d have to raise a shifter’s pup.”
“What about your real father?”
“By the time I could walk, I figured out my mother was mentally off. Crazy. She never said anything about my blood father. When she died, her husband who I claimed as my father, got drunk one night and ranted about the slut he married who had been a shifter groupie.”
That was a horrible life. Eirene had an urge to hug him, but she wanted him to keep talking while she ate her bar. “What happened to your mother?”
Corbin had stopped eating the second bar in his hand and dropped it back on the towel. He stared down so long that Eirene thought she’d pushed too hard for more from him.
Washing a hand over his face, he said, “When I was two, she tried to kill my wolf. Ares had become a large pup, but he’d stepped into the tub filled with water thinking she was going to wash him like she had one time before. She leaned in, gripped his head with one hand, and flattened her other hand on his back, shoving him down beneath a foot of water. She had caught him by surprise with no time to suck in a breath. He screamed in my head. I panicked. Think I told him to shift. I’m not sure, but we did and squirmed out of her grasp when she had no fur to grip.” He breathed deeply. “I screamed for my father. Shejumped up and ran away. My father was appalled and dried me off, then put me next to his chair where he could watch me.”
There had to be more. Eirene couldn’t absorb the words he’d spoken. What mother would drown a child? Even a pup? No wonder Ares wanted nothing to do with water.
“When bedtime came, he went out to our old rickety garage and found her hanging from the center beam.”
Eirene covered her mouth with her hand.
His sad eyes drifted to hers. “It was a long time ago. Other than Ares fearing water, we learned to live with it.”
He could say that all he wanted, but no one gets over being almost killed by the one person meant to protect him.
“What happened to your mother?” Corbin asked, effectively shifting the attention to her.
“She died from complications during childbirth. My father had the best physician on standby, but she had a stroke during delivery. They almost lost me. Had I not been a shifter, they might have. She lived for two days. I grew up without her and felt bad for my dad who had lost the woman he loved.”
Corbin tensed. He stood up.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
