Page 47 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

I shake my head, because this touches too close to the reason my pack is dead.

No. The reason it’s your fault.

“You’re my heart, baby,” he murmurs. “Let me in.”

My eyes open, because he’s my heart as well.

The corners of his eyes crease in a smile. “Good. How about we start small?”

“There’s no small place to start,” I sigh. “It’s all big.”

“Baby, it feels that way because you’re carrying it all on your shoulders. There’s only so much a person can take.”

“Even you?”

His expression is sober. “Even me.”

As much as I want to argue, I can’t, because he’s right. I’ve carried so much in my head and my heart for so long that I always feel like I’m drowning. “I wasn’t born human,” I whisper. “I was a wolf first.”

Tensing, I wait for his response, because only men are born with the ability to shift, but they are always human first, and wolves when they have their first shift at twelve.

“You shift as fast as an alpha.”

When he doesn’t recoil in horror, I relax a touch. “Yes.”

“And that’s why?”

I nod.

His eyes search my face. “And it’s why those men want you.”

“I…” I struggle with the need to hide.

As if Shay senses my battle, he kisses my brow. “It’s just me. It’s just your mate.”

After a second, I release my breath. “Because I was born a wolf first, and I shifted to human hours later, my parents said it made me different. That I should always keep it a secret. That I should never tell.”

I didn’t listen.

“Different how?” Shay asks.

“I shift fast, and I…” I search his expression, because the only other person I told proved to be the biggest mistake I made in my life. “Any daughter I have will be like me. She will be born a shifter.”

Although he doesn’t respond, I see the realization spark in his eyes.

Most women don’t survive a bite from a wolf shifter. It’s why there are more human women in a pack than there are female shifters. What I am is so rare that if anyone knew, they would cage me. My parents knew that, so they did everything they could to protect me.

“Like your mother?” Shay asks.

After a pause, I nod.

“And that’s why you stopped talking.”

I nod again. “So now you know why it’s not safe for your pack if I stay.” I talk to his chin, because I can’t look him in the eye when I tell him this. “They won’t ever stop looking for me because of what I am.”

“They will stop,” Shay murmurs, the confidence in his voice making me raise my head. “Because they’ll be dead. All of them.”

He means it.

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