Page 32 of Lost and Bound
Thank gods, he didn’t need me to spell it out. I didn’t think I could’ve repeated what he’d said to me out loud. Hearing it once had been horrifying enough.
Of course, that meant he quirked that sardonic little smile and repeated it himself, the bastard. “That you’re beautiful? And fragile? That?”
I bit my lip hard, my face going hot all the way to my hairline. “Yeah,” I gritted out. “That. I’m not any of that. I’m not…beautiful,” I spat. “And definitely not…look, I used to be one of my pack’s enforcers. I don’t know what the fuck you were talking about, but it’s bullshit.”
His smile widened a little. “It made you come.”
“It did not! I don’t know what made me come, but it wasn’t you saying—saying—”
Calder shifted over on the pillow, putting his face so close to mine he could almost have kissed me. “Compared to me, you’re fragile,” he said. “And you are beautiful.” My whole body tensed up. “Breakable.”
“A Mack truck is breakable compared to you,” I growled, at the limits of my patience.
He shrugged—not a move easy to pull off lying on his side, but he managed. “Okay, fine. So you’re not beautiful. Not fragile at all.”
I’d wanted him to say that, right? I opened my mouth and closed it again, at a complete loss, especially since the pit of my stomach had gone all tight with something disturbingly like disappointment.
“Objectively, anyway,” he added abruptly. “To most people. Sure. But to me?” He reached up and stroked his fingers down the side of my face, trailing them along my jaw. “I could destroy you. But I’m not going to. I promised you. And I told you, a couple of times, even though apparently you didn’t listen. I keep my word. Always.”
I tried to remember exactly what he’d said, but what I managed to dredge out of my memory still left me as confused as it had when he’d said it in the first place.
“Yeah, I know you told me nothing would hurt anymore, but that was because I was going to be dead. Nothing hurts when you’re dead.”
“I said nothing would hurt either way.”
Yep, still confused. “I don’t get it.”
His hand tightened, holding my face in place, forcing me to look at him without flinching.
Those mesmerizing eyes flared brighter. His voice low and earnest, he said, “Nothing is ever going to hurt you again. Not even me. Especially not me.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and hesitated. I wouldn’t have interrupted him for a million dollars. “All I wanted was to destroy. Kill everyone in my path. Anyone, especially them, but everyone. But you asked me to take care of you. You asked me not to hurt you more than I needed to. And I gave my word, and you believed me.” His voice had gone so low I wouldn’t have been able to hear him at all if he hadn’t been speaking inches from my face. “I took you out of that fucking place. I carried you out, and that makes you my responsibility, because I saved your life. I don’t want to hurt you, and I won’t.”
That was…a relief. And more than that—but I couldn’t even begin to process how much more. One thing more thing stood out, though, beyond the fact that I didn’t need to be afraid of him every second. “I’m not your responsibility. We’re mated—for now. But that doesn’t mean anyth—”
“You are, and it has nothing to do with being mated. I promised,” he repeated, his jaw setting mulishly.
Oh, Christ. He had to be a stubborn bastard on top of everything else. Just my luck. Okay, I’d leave that alone for now. Maybe the mate bond was fucking with him; maybe he’d been more shaken up than I’d thought by nearly killing me.
I had to shy away from anything else it sounded like he meant, because if I really believed he meant to protect me against all comers for the rest of our lives? Prevent me from being hurt, in any way, ever?
Well, that sounded like it could be moderately terrifying.
But I also ached for it, so deep down I could hardly even feel it. Pressure, building up under the defenses I’d erected around my real feelings, when I couldn’t feel anything but pain and had to push it down or explode.
I had to remember it wasn’t real. I wasn’t even sure the promises never to hurt me again were real. We’d see how that worked out if he ever had a choice again between hurting me and getting something he needed, like freedom or revenge or his own life.
So forget that, for now. I’d deal with it later.
But there was something else there too, something I couldn’t quite formulate clearly. “Not hurting me doesn’t mean…treating me like that, though. Calling me those—things. Your toy.” My face went all hot, and my lower body felt…heavy. Like I needed to move, or needed something else. I didn’t want to think about what else. “Fragile. You don’t have to treat me like that. I don’t want your pity, or, or whatever else. Your—it’s like you’re making fun of me, somehow. Because I asked you to go easy on me, before.”
Calder smiled. A real smile, the first one I’d seen on his hard, emotionless face. It showed his sharp teeth, but they didn’t look like a threat this time. “I don’t have to treat you like that. But you want me to. You asked me to. And I gave my word, Jared.”
“I don’t—I didn’t ask for—I don’t want that. Idon’t.”
The smile went as sharp as his teeth, his eyes gleaming with more than their alpha glow. “Fine. You don’t want that. You can prove it tomorrow. Right now, we need something else to eat, and then sleep. Your cousin’s getting here in the morning?”
What the…okay, now I had whiplash. Prove it tomorrow? What the fuck did that mean?
The mention of food took first place, though. That bowl of soup had been good, and we’d both needed to start a little slow, easing into normal caloric intake after near-starvation. But my body felt primed to devour a steak—or for that matter, a whole cow. Cooking optional.
