Page 56 of Stolen By The Beast
Her words made me pause when I realized how much I truly did love the tiny female. “I suppose I do… love you, that is.”
She inhaled sharply, tears filling her eyes. “It’s going to be okay, Karvik. We’ll find a new place to build our home.”
“But what if—”
“Remember what I said. The outside world might never accept our union, but we don’t need their permission to be happy. You—we—deserve nothing less.”
I rubbed at my chest, the area tightening at my mate’s sweet announcement. After everything she had suffered and remembered, Juniper was still the vibrant light she had always been—because she chose to be.
She wouldn’t let the darkness of the world shroud her in shadows, and if she didn’t, neither would I.
Chapter Seventeen
Juniper
Isteppedtotheedge of the clearing and looked down at the river rushing below.
“Everything is gone,” Karvik’s voice came from just behind. “It would be best for us to depart.”
Turning on my heel, I surveyed our front-yard-turned-battlefield. To my relief, no random arms or legs were in sight. Karvik had hidden all evidence of dead bodies, as well as every sign that we’d been living here.
Our cabin had been turned into a pile of smoldering ash. If someone wandered into the area, they’d assume teenagers had thrown a really big bonfire party.
Without a word, Karvik strode into the woods, leaving me to trail after him. He’d been reluctant to touch me or make eye contact since we’d talked after the fight.
I was torn between giving him some space or asking him to carry me. My body was sore, but it was my heart that was aching the most.
I longed to be held… to feel close to him.
“I suppose I do… love you, that is.”
Karvik’s earlier words circled around my mind.
It hadn’t been a clear declaration of love by human standards, but for Karvik, it was more than I could have hoped to ever hear from his lips. It should have been the best day of my life, but I felt further from him now than I’d felt before his admission.
“Are you happy to recall your past?” Karvik wondered.
“Yes.” It was nice remembering foods I liked and didn’t like, places I’d traveled, and what I was allergic to. But honestly, losing my memories had been no great loss.
“Do you feel up to speaking about it? I am interested to know more about my Chosen’s life before we met.”
It wasn’t like we had anything else to take our minds off our trek to a new, out-of-the-way homesite.
And so I told him of my father, who’d been too busy to bother with a child he’d fathered on a spring-break trip, and a mother who’d loved me but had passed away after a long battle with an illness shortly before my twelfth birthday.
The rest of my young years had been spent bouncing between foster homes. My foster parents had been great, but I’d been treated as a temporary guest in their homes. Not a family member.
After I’d turned eighteen, I’d gotten my first apartment and had been on my own ever since.
Karvik listened without interrupting, but when I finally fell silent, he asked, “What of a bonded? I find I wish to know, but I equally do not wish to know about another male in your life.”
“I had a couple of boyfriends. One seemed serious, but our goals weren’t the same and we drifted apart.”
And by that, I meant he was a lazy slob who wanted to be pampered, while I wasn’t in the mood to be a mom to a grown man. “It’s been almost two years since I dated anyone.”
No wonder I’d jumped Karvik’s bones… It wasn’t just a dry spell, I’d been in a freaking drought.
We walked another mile before Karvik broke the silence. “You also remember the night I found you?”
