Page 47 of Love the Way You Lion
I bury my face in my hands, blood smearing across my cheek. I love her so much it hurts. And right now, that love feels like a cage. Because what if Iamthe reason she hides things? What if she really thought I’d lose it? Am I proving her right? I want to believe I’m better than that. Ihaveto be better than that. But I didn’t give her the safety to tell me. Not really.
So I kneel there, in my own wreckage. Punishing myself the only way I know how. I don’t know how to forgive someone who didn’t trust me. And I don’t know how to stop loving her, even when I’m shattered by her silence. I dig my nails into my thighs as I sit in the wreckage, surrounded by torn equipment, spilled sand, and the smell of my own blood.
This isn’t just rage anymore. This is despair withclaws.
If she doesn’t trust me now—after everything we’ve been through—will she ever?I wrap my arms around my knees and lean back against the shattered punching bag stand, bones aching, muscles twitching from overuse. Every breath feels too sharp, like I’m swallowing broken glass. The silence between songs stretches out, but I don’t move to restart the music. I want to scream again. I want to punch a hole through the floor. But none of that will change the fact that she made a choice—not once, butover and over—to shield me from her truth.
The worst part? I understand why.
Iamthe clone who once ripped a man in half for looking at Talia wrong. Iamthe brute with fists like wrecking balls and a mouth that forgets gentleness when I’m hurt. I’ve tried so hard to be better. I’ve fought every day to make this life with her somethingsafe—something she doesn’t have to survive. But what if she still sees me as a threat? What if she still thinks my love is conditional, that if she says the wrong thing, I’ll walk?
Or worse—that I’ll stay, but not the same.
I grind the heels of my hands into my eyes, like I can force the storm to stop. I feel like I’m unraveling. Not just from the betrayal, but from the fear that I’m not what she needs. That I never was.
My Minx has every right to her past. Every right to love, to mourn, to make impossible decisions and regret them. Wilde was her mate. She lost him. And maybe in some corner of her heart, she still holds a piece of him so tightly she can’t bear to share it.
But I need her to letmebe the one she shares itwith. And if she never does? I don’t know how long I can be the second heart in a bond built on silence. I don’t know how long I can watch her choose quiet instead of truth. Because it’s not about Wilde. It’s not about some ring hidden in a drawer.
It’s about me standing here in the wreckage—alone—again.
I thought we were past this. I thought we were building something stronger. Realer. Something rooted in honesty and fire and mutual ruin. But she didn’t give me that. She gave me what she thought I could handle, and now I have to decide if that’s enough. If she can’t bring herself to let me see her whole—flawed, grieving, messy, raw—then what the fuck are we doing?
Am I her husband, or just the consolation prize that came after the tragedy?
My hands tremble. I flex my fingers, watching the dried blood crack along my knuckles. If I lose her again—if this becomes one more fracture we try to plaster over—I don’t know if I’ll come back from it. Not this time. She’s my wife. My mate. MyMinx. And I love her with every monstrous inch of myself.
But I can’t be the only one willing to burn for this.
The Cat Corrects A Wrong
DELILAH
Ipop in from the long-assed orientation that TaurussworeI wouldn’t have to go to and look around. His duster is on the couch, silk shirt on the floor—this is strange. I hear the muted bass in the workout room despite the sound proofing and I take a deep breath.
Something is very wrong.
Trying the door, I find it locked. I close my eyes and apparate into a corner, hoping that if anything is flying, it’s not coming straight at me. I’m coming in blindly, after all. “Baby?”
He whirls to look at me, eyes golden and fierce, with a ridged forehead and fangs. Bleeding from his hands, his chest, everywhere—I can see where his destruction cut him, sliced him, and wounded him. He growls low in his throat and stands, chest heaving as he stares at me. I lick my lips and look at him, trying to ignore all the gore as I murmur, “What’s wrong?”
“I. Locked. The. Door.”
“The last time I locked the door, you threatened to break it down. I was subtler,” I tilt my head, studying him.
Taurus snarls and turns his back on me, ripping at the punching bag and tearing it apart. Sand flies out and dust chokes him as he continues to beat on it. Sensing his unwillingness to talk, I sink to the floor, curling in the corner. Watching, I just tuck up small and wait.
I can be patient if this is what it takes; it’s not my first male tantrum.
My mate strides over to the stereo, cranking the music louder. He grabs a sword off the weapons wall and advances on the training dummy. Hacking and slashing, a shard of the blade breaks off and imbeds in his chest, debris nicking and cutting him as he just keeps going, intent on more self-harm than practice.
I have lots of experience with clones flying off the deep. If he doesn’t aim it at me, it shouldn’t trigger my issues. Hell, I’ve been this person. “Just let me know when you want to tell me what happened.”
He spins again and snarls, “Yourothermate called me and asked to visit the house while you were at work.”
Rising, I stride over to him with my arms crossed over my chest. “How did this make a problem for us? Is her stupid bullshit going to tear us apart? I don’t even know what she said to push your buttons.”
“I didn’t ask you to fix me.”
