Page 49 of Forsaken Fate

Did she? If she said one thing about Grayson, I was pretty sure my fist was going through the wall.

“I do.” She answered a question I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t apologize for anything. Not to me.”

“Thanks,” she said, pushing herself back off the bed. She grabbed her bomber jacket and slung her purse over one shoulder across her chest. “I don’t think ...”

I put a hand up. “I get it,” I said, except I didn’t. “But are you ever gonna tell me why?”

She cocked her head. “Why what?”

I gave a soft laugh as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I took four steps until I was right in front of her, so she had to crane her neck to keep eye contact. I crooked a finger under her chin. “Okay. I’ll ask. Why are you doing this. Why are you willingly taking Grayson’s mark?”

Her eyes fluttered but she didn’t step away from my touch. “I said I wouldn’t lie to you. Please don’t put me in a position to have to.”

It wasn’t the answer I expected. It was braver, somehow. And fair.

“Will you tell me why you were upset when you first got here last night? Is there something I can do?”

She did pull away after that and took a step back but she didn’t break eye contact. “Not today,” she said. “Maybe someday.”

I nodded. Also fair. “How old are you, Brynna Carrington?” I asked. It seemed important somehow.

She smiled. “Twenty-three.”

I pulled my head back.

“How old did you think I was?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Older, I think.”

She came to me then, raising herself up on tiptoes but I still had to bend down to reach her lips when she offered them to me in a soft goodbye kiss. “I skipped a grade.”

This got a genuine laugh out of me, and her eyes twinkled.

“God…that means…you were just a kid. You…never knew what it was like before the war, did you? You’re too young to remember. You would have been just a baby.”

Her eyes got a far-off expression. “I’ve always had plenty of people to tell me.”

I wanted to ask her who. She was human, that was clear. But she had that way about her. She was easy with shifters. Easy with me. It meant she was raised around them probably. Or…by them.

“What do you remember?” she asked.

“I don’t like to,” I said. “I was just becoming a teenager when the war broke out. Just learning how to control my shift. Then…things got bad.”

“The tiger clans killed your mother and sister,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“They were fated? Your father and mother?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. She could see it in my eyes.

“Your father must have been very strong, Theo. To have survived it. To have managed to not get himself subjugated by another Alpha when he was in such deep grief and madness after losing his mate.”

“Maybe what happened to my father was just as bad,” I said.

“He had to have been terrified for you. Is it why he sent you away?”

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