Page 87 of Piece You Saved

His gentle smile silences me. “I know what you mean.” The smile soon fades as he studies me. “You did nothing to deserve it. Neither did Mona.”

“But you don’t know that for sure,” I say insistently. “I might have.”

Maybe Dariel’s wolf sensed I was nothing but trouble when Aden brought me with him to the Cerberus. And he was right to want to get rid of me. I have been nothing but trouble.

His smile widens. “Kade said something similar.”

I pick up my fork and turn to my plate. “Well, some people deserve to die.” More. Some people deserve to suffer before they die. For hours.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a finger drifting toward me. I lean away and point a glare in his direction. “I wasn’t blaming myself. So no booping.”

“Sorry, just making sure.” Grinning, he shakes his head and resumes eating his breakfast. Between mouthfuls, he says, “Before Mona, he was already struggling to control his wolf.”

I abandon my now-cold breakfast to watch him eat. “But surely something happened, right? Was he bitten by a—”

Aden barks out a laugh that reminds me of Harley. It’s not the sound, or even the way he looks. I’m not sure what triggers my thought, but something does. I wrench my mind away from the surgeon immediately.

“Dariel doesn’t have rabies.”

I sniff. “Well, it was worth asking. I mean, something must have triggered it for him to change like that.” I remember his mate. The mate who slept with his brother. Whodoesthat? “In the garden, Dariel said his mate fucked his—”

“Probably not a good idea talking about this while he can hear you, angel.”

Kade startles me so badly my fork flies out of my hand as I whip my head toward the doorway.

Aden catches the flying implement, and Kade, back in sweatpants and nothing else, plucks it from him on his way to join us at the table. After dropping into the seat beside me, he hands it back to me. I’m almost positive he’s started walking around shirtless like this because he knows what it does to me. My eyes dip down, and desire curls in my belly. When he catches me looking, he flashes me a grin before reclining more than he needs to so I can see more of his chest.

Knew it. He is doing it on purpose.

I take the fork and return it to my plate. “But surely you’ve tried to figure out what made his wolf the way he is, right?”

Kade snags a piece of bacon from Aden’s plate. When Aden snarls, I reach over to grab his hand, thinking he’s losing control of his wolf.

Kade intercepts my hand, kisses my knuckles, and nods at my breakfast. “He’s good. Eat.”

I study Aden, wanting to make sure he’s okay.

When Aden has finished glaring at Kade, he turns to me and shakes his head. “First my sandwich…” he mutters. “Now my breakfast. When will my suffering end?”

I swallow a smile, relieved he appears to be settling back into the Aden he was before. If only a snarlier version of the one I’m used to.

“Has Dariel attacked you, too? Or just Monica?”

“No.” Aden pauses. “Well, not back then.”

My brow furrows in a frown. “Then why are—”

Kade rises. His sudden movement nearly makes me drop my fork again. He waits, eyes on me, and when I’ve recovered, he rounds the table toward me.

Approximately two seconds later, he has me in his lap and my fork in his hand. He forks up eggs and holds it to my lips. “We used to run together way back when. Open.”

“You don’t have to keep feeding me,” I mutter, leaning away.

He clamps his arm around my waist, stopping me from leaning even farther away. “Then eat, and I won’t have to.”

I tilt my chin up. “And if I don’t?”

“Then we can find other more interesting things to feed you,” he drawls, repositioning me on his lap in a way that tells me exactly what he intends to feed me.

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