Page 108 of The Piece You Stole

Kade doesn’t even look at him. “I imagine it has to do with Leandro fucking Dariel’s mate.”

It has to do withwhat?

A flashback drags me into the past.

My back is cool against the wall of glass in Rylan’s apartment, and his hands are hot on my hip. “Mate,” Rylan smiles. “My heart.”

“Saige?” Aden’s voice punctures one of the thousands of memories filling my mind I wish would hurry up and die.

Aden keeps speaking, but I’m not listening to him. I’m too busy working out why Kade would tell me Dariel had a mate. It’s not something I need to know…is it?

Blinking, I refocus my attention on Kade. “You wanted me to know this. Why?”

But Kade doesn’t answer, just shakes his head with a faint smile creasing his lips. “Eat.”

“I’m not…” my voice trails off as a thought inserts itself in my mind. “Is that why he tried to kill me? His wolf is crazy?”

The second the words leave my lips, another thought hits. This time with the force of a sledgehammer. “Is that what happens if a shifter's mate leaves them? It sends them crazy?”

Is that what’s wrong with Rylan? He couldn’t turn me, and it made his wolf crazy? It madehimcrazy?

“Dariel isn’t crazy, and neither is Rylan.” There’s not an ounce of doubt in Kade’s voice.

How can he be so sure?

He holds the fork toward me. I lift my hand to my mouth, blocking him. “But how do youknow?”

Kade knocks my wrist aside. “Eat. Your breakfast is getting cold.”

“And I’m not hungry. Tell me. Did I make Rylan go crazy?”

“My issues with my wolf have nothing to do with my mate.”

The voice coming from the kitchen door makes me jerk my head toward it. And to the man filling it.

I get the barest glimpse of emerald eyes before Dariel is headed toward the back kitchen counter.

He must have been awake all this time as well because not one strand of thick, dark hair is out of place, and he’s dressed in the same black shirt, pants, and shoes that he would wear back at the Cerberus.

The confident way he moves, head up and shoulders back, reminds me of Rylan so much that the further he moves away from me, the more the tension gripping me eases. I must not be the only one feeling this tension because Aden is watching Dariel closely, and I’m almost positive Kade has angled me a little away from him, so if Dariel were to lunge at me, he’d have to go through Kade to do it.

I watch as Dariel reaches a large, olive-skinned hand toward a cupboard and pulls out a white mug. “But it’s possible they might be?”

Why is he showing his face now? Because he has better control of himself with Kade and Aden in the room, or is this something else?

Dariel pauses, mug in the air, and his head half turned toward me. Not meeting my eye, but in a way that I know he’s talking to me. “They’re not.”

But his wolf isn’t trying to kill me, and the only difference between the last attempt and now is that he has a mate. “I don’t understand. Kade said—”

“Kade says a lot of things.” Dariel places the mug on the counter with a gentleness that I wasn’t expecting and closes the cupboard the same way. “Most of which he knows nothing about.”

Kade chokes out a laugh. “Whatever you say, Alpha.”

It feels like I’ve stepped into an old wound between them.

No,I correct myself,a festering one.

When Kade’s expression shutters and he picks up his fork before clearing his plate with such little interest that I doubt he tasted the food, I know I’m right. Something went wrong—iswrong between them—and it’s hurting Kade. Probably hurting Dariel too for him to be so careful with his mug.

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