Page 100 of Piece You Saved

“I’ve had worse.” It slips out. I squeeze my eyes shut, regretting it. Until I remember who I’m talking to. Aden. The man who’s done nothing but care for me, protect me, and find ways to make me feel safe and happy. The man who holds me in his arms as if I mean more to him than anyone. “I’ve had worse,” I repeat. “But it hasn’t lasted for hours before.”

“I’m going to move you,” Aden says in the same quiet tone as before. “I don’t want to startle you, okay?”

I smile at yet another sign that, for once, I’m letting the right person into my heart and nod.

He rolls us. As he moves me, he does it slowly, careful of my bruised belly, which still throbs. When I’m on my back, he peers down at me.

“Aden?” I ask, wondering at the blankness in his amber gaze. And the guilt.

“That time I asked you to close your eyes and trust me, it could have triggered one. Couldn’t it?”

I chew my bottom lip. Iwantto tell him the night we slept together couldn’t have ended with me having a panic attack, but I know myself, and I don’t want to get in a habit of lying to Aden. He doesn’t deserve it.

His face crumples. “Shit. Saige, I’m sorry I didn’t—”

I press my fingers to his lips. “You didn’t know because I didn’t tell you. Please don’t apologize.”

He grips my wrist, turns my hand, and kisses my palm. “I should have known. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen the things they did to you. I made you feel vulnerable when I asked you to close your eyes.”

“You made me feelloved,” I correct him. “Never apologize for making me feel something so good.”

He kisses my forehead, holding himself there as I wrap my arms around his hips.

“Where is everyone else?” I ask.

“They’re trying to figure out another way we can save Sam.”

“There’s only one way, Aden.” I sigh. “I wish there wasn’t, but Rylan wouldn’t have taken Sam if he hadn’t been desperate. I know what he’s capable of, and he knows it. Going back to him is the only way to save her.”

Aden doesn’t respond.

“Aden?”

He kisses my forehead again, a soft lingering kiss, before he rises. “Come on.”

I frown. “Where?”

“You need to relax. I’ll run you a bath.”

My frown deepens. “The priority is getting Sam back, not having a bath.”

“Kade, Dariel, and Harley are on it.” He snags my hand and tugs me out of the bed. “Come on.”

I don’t move. He pulls on my hand more insistently. Now that he’s a shifter, there’s no slowing or stopping him from leading me into his adjoining bathroom, a white and glass space identical to the one in my room.

“You can’t keep shutting me out of this, Aden. This all started when I left him.”

“No,” he corrects me as he turns to press my back to the wall just inside the bathroom. “This all started when he trapped you. We got you away before. He might kill you next time to stop us from taking you again.”

I lift my fingers to trace the deep line which forms on his brow until it melts away. “Sam is the victim here. I ran from Rylan, and this is a consequence of that. I’ve dragged her into a mess she doesn’t deserve and wasn’t of her making. Now I have to get her out of it.”

No matter what.

He eyes me for a long moment. “I want you safe, Saige.”

“I want you alive,” I counter. “So stop shutting me out. I need to do this.Samneeds me to do this.”

“I won’t let you,” he says as his jaw hardens. There’s a new determination in his amber gaze—a stubbornness—and I’m not sure if it’s the wolf half of him or if it’s desperation that’s driving him. “We’ll get Sam another way.”

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