Page 146 of Piece You Saved

Kade refocuses on her. “I went looking for someone who could make me stronger.”

Her eyes widen. “You knew about—”

He snorts a laugh. “Shifters? Fuck no. Not back then. I went looking for steroids or anything that could pump me up. I found a guy who promised me more strength than I could dream of. He just needed a little favor from me and in return, he’d help me out.”

“What kind of favor?” Saige asks.

I look at Kade. When a faint smile curls his lips, I know he’s not going to tell Saige. Whatever the favor was, it left a scar.

“Some small thing.” He shrugs.

Adeepscar.

Saige frowns. Looks like she doesn’t believe it was a small thing, either. “And then?”

“Then he shifted into a wolf, bit me, and gave me the very thing I’d wanted.” He grins.

Silence reigns for two full seconds as we absorb his admission.

“What happened to him?” I ask.

Kade shrugs. “Fuck if I know. I woke up with a wolf in my head and no idea where the fuck he’d disappeared to. Never saw him again.”

To suffer through a first shift on his own… I don’t even want to imagine the hell that must have been for him. I had Dariel, and it was still more than I could handle. But as a teenager?Alone?With no idea shifters had even existed until one bit you and changed you?

He’ll carry those mental scars for life. Anyone would.

Without a word, Saige gets up, crosses over to him, and wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. “I’m sorry.”

He flashes her a grin, as if it cost him nothing. “Nothing to be sorry about, angel.”

She peels her face from his chest to peer up at him. “Yes. There is. You went through that alone and you shouldn’t have had to. So, I’m sorry that you did.”

She hugs him again, and after a moment, he wraps one arm around her waist, lowers his head, and kisses the top of her hair. A fraction of the shadows in his gray eyes melts away.

“And you started winning fights, then?” I ask.

Dariel takes over the story, his eyes fixed on Kade. “He did. So well that more and more people were talking about the street fighter who never lost, no matter how big his opponent. I saw him fight, realized what he was, and made him aware of how dangerous it was to attract so much attention.”

Always keep the secret, is something Dariel used to say until it became ingrained in me.

Kade and Dariel knew what was at stake better than I did. Life being experimented to death by shady government types most likely. So I did everything I could to hide any suspicious behavior at the bar. Not an easy thing to do with Kade’s need to provoke Dariel into a fight on a near-nightly basis. Now it’s just as much my secret as it is theirs.

“You can probably guess how I took being told what to do by some random guy who’d inserted himself into my life.” A wide grin stretches Kade’s lips.

“We got into trouble more times than you can count.” Dariel’s tone is dry. “I nearly killed him more than once. Occasionally, I debated the merits of leaving him to be killed by his own stupidity.”

“Which is how we came to be in an abandoned warehouse and in need of a rat-like savior,” Kade declares dramatically.

Saige’s body shakes as she laughs. “He’s not a rat-like savior.”

“You didn’t see him, angel, because if you had…” Kade’s voice trails off.

I nod, not arguing, because Saige is laughing again, something she hasn’t done since she blew a hole through Rylan’s eye. And this laughter is real. Even if it is over far too soon.

“What happened next?” she asks.

“Some guys Kade had pissed off wanted him dead,” I say, because this is a part of the story I know.

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