Page 33 of Raven

She moved away.

“Tia?”

When she lifted her face to look at me, those bright green eyes said so much and so little at the same time.

“Who hurt you?”

She lifted a hand to her face, pushed her hair out of the way so I could see it. She had a black eye, too. If she had been human, that would have gone puffy and stayed for days. But she was a shifter, and it was already healing.

I went to make a move in her direction. She stepped back. “I have an early class tomorrow. I need to get in and get to bed. It’s late already. Goodnight, Raven.”

She turned from me and went to walk away, but I couldn’t just leave it there. I moved to her, grabbed her arm. “Tell me who did that. If it wasn’t the humans.”

She didn’t turn around, but she glanced over her shoulder at me. There were tears in her eyes. I lowered my shields a little, maybe to comfort her, to let her know I was there, but whatpooled inside me was guilt, shame, a mixture of both all in one big ball. “Take care of yourself, Raven.” She slipped out of my grasp, and I let her walk away.

FOURTEEN

"Tia, please," I called out, desperation lacing my voice. I wished it wasn’t there. It sounded so pathetic, but I needed her to hear me. I needed her to know that this wasn’t what I wanted—that I needed her.

She bit down on her lip, shaking her head as she stepped back from me. "I'm sorry," she whispered, sucking in a shaky breath. "I have to go."

"No. We can talk." I moved towards her.

She stopped, and for a moment, I thought maybe she was going to stay, but then she shook her head again. There were tears in her eyes, those green eyes of hers glistening. "Please. Don’t make this harder than it already is."

Hope. That’s what it was. I had hope in her words. She was so deep inside my psyche, like her emotions were my emotions. It was hard to decipher which was which. "It doesn’t have to be hard. If it is, then you don’t want this either." It was a struggle to keep the panther out of my voice. I felt his growl reverberate along my throat as I spoke. He wanted to be the one to do this, to make her stay. "I don’t understand what happened. Did..." I wanted to ask again about the humans, but they hadn’t hurt her, not in the way I had feared. I'd have felt it if she’d lied or if she’dbeen covering. A trauma like that always felt dark, deep. I could pick up what a person had gone through—rape, an attack, seeing someone being killed. They had feelings and tastes, like I could feel the colour of them and know exactly what they were, but that wasn’t it with Tia.

With her, it was different, and I know that's cliché. Maybe some of it was clouded by what my panther wanted, but I couldn’t make sense of it, and neither could he. What she was feeling was pain, anguish, and some kind of fear I didn’t understand either. But unless she talked, we’d never know.

I moved forward again, and to my panther's heart, she moved towards me too. It made him soar. She put her hand to my chest, peered up at me.

"We can talk about this," I said. "Whatever it is, we can talk and work through it. Nothing is impossible."

She might have been standing there with me, might have had the contact and could feel my heart beating, but she was still shaking her head, her breathing hitched. If it wasn’t for the tears in her eyes and the couple streaking down her face, I’d have thought ... I don’t know really. But I reached to wipe one away, and she let me.

"Whatever it is," I said softly, placing my hand on hers.

She hesitated a moment. "It has to be this way. I wish it wasn’t."

"Why? Make me understand. Because what you’re saying and what you’re feeling are two different things."

Maybe she didn’t like that because the green in her eyes sharpened, and I swear to God, I felt shutters come down in our minds. It was like hitting a black membrane between us. "I'm going to go now. I don’t want you to follow me. If you feel anything for me, then respect what I’m telling you."

"And if I don’t believe you?"

She pressed her lips into a firm line and studied me. I reached a hand out, daring to tuck her hair behind her ear. She didn’t stop me, and I’m sure she leant a little into that touch, but she caught herself. "Do you love me, Raven?"

"Yes. With every part of me."

She nodded. "And I love you too. I love you so much that it hurts. When they took you away, I ..." She paused, and I felt it. Felt her recall the moment. "I thought they were going to kill you. I thought that would be it for us."

"So you're ending it?"

"No." She swallowed hard, slid her hand from mine. "I have to go. I'm sorry." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Go home, Raven. Be safe."

It was a fight inside me. Me and my panther. He had no pride, not where she was concerned. He wanted to run after her, to beg. He demanded it of me, and I almost did. It was as if I knew that doing that would make her stay, but I was man enough not to.

Instead, I watched her disappear into the shadows and forced my panther down, pushing him back, and slamming every mental wall into place I could manage. Tia’s form melted into the darkness, leaving me standing alone in the cold, unforgiving early hours. The sharp sting of her rejection was worse than any wound I could have endured. My heart shattered, fragments slicing through my chest with every beat.

---