Page 49 of Love the Way You Lion
I nod, still hidden in the long waves around me. “I won’t hold you back anymore.”
It takes everything in me not to sob when he speaks. “I never doubted, not once, what I mean to you. That wasn’t where my pain was. I’ve gotten neutered by your affection for Sari and her ilk; I can’t live like that. She treats me with no respect and she seeks to destroy. I have nothing but contempt for her, her posse, or the departed mate. I let them do this to me.”
Looking down at himself, he yanks the shard of the sword out of his chest, looking around the room. “I’m doing this while they watch cartoons and pick at semantics and other lunacy. No more.” His expression is fierce as he spears me with his gaze. “I. Am. Not. What. They. Would. Have. Me. Be.”
“I won’t ask you to hold back anymore. I shouldn’t have,” I murmur. I curl tighter into myself, trying not to shake as the emotions rocket through me. “Frankly, I don’t even care if you kill her.”
I’m surprised to find that I mean that.
His brow furrows, and he feels like he’s focusing hard, sweating. I feel him trying to heal the wounds through our bonds. I’m proud of that, proud of him for learning, and for being such a part of me that he can. His breath is raspy when he finishes, and I know that it’s because that’s not an easy feat when you first learn how. It drains you until you learn control.
“You are mine. Wife. Lover. Mate. Everything. You’re mine. I’m not playing by any rules anymore unless they are my own. No more weapons to the enemy. They have enough and are well skilled at using them. They are all enemies.”
My eyes are empty as I push to my feet, warring with myself inside. I can’t stand him looking at me right now. I’m so filled with black, oozing self-hatred and loathing that it’s like it’s seeping from my pores like a disease. I smile, nod at him, and then I disapparate to the bathroom.
~I know. ~
Popping into the room, he growls. “What is that look for?” I feel him reaching for me inside and I’m not ready to let him in, so I ignore it. “Please talk to me? You can hit me if you’d like. You could use something sharp and pointy, maybe?”
“It’s not about you.” I drape my body over the toilet, having lost the lunch I’d eaten at the orientation. My face is red and swollen from tears. I lean my head on the cool ceramic fixture. “I’m frustrated with myself. Things from my past, my life, keep coming back to bite you. I’ve been too passive about it, and I’m angry at myself. I couldn’t hit you if I tried.”
What I need is space. He had his time to do what he needed. I need self-flagellation time, too. I don’t need him to make it better. I want to burn.
“You’d think not, but I felt like I’d been pole-axed when you popped out on me. Can you not do that? The last time you did, you got drugged, and I thought I’d lost you forever and that’s still a little fresh.”
Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I close my eyes. “I’m not in the best shape. I had to get to the bathroom before I barfed in the gym.”
“You’re—the—are you alright? What’s wrong?” His face is full of panic and I feel terrible.
I don’t want him to worry about Maeve; I simply need some time to deal with my self-destruction. “I’m fine. I’m a little queasy. I’vebeen like that all day and covered it up so none of those jackasses looking at me like a ninety-pound weakling would haze me. The emotional stuff didn’t help. It makes me sicker.”
“This is baby stuff?” Almost like he just realized it, he stops. “I’ll kill the entire sodding class if they so much as lay an eyeball on you to haze.”
Sitting back on my knees, I shake my head. “No, no. I have to take my lumps like every newbie or no one will ever respect me. It’s bad enough that they know who I am and assume I’m skating on your coattails. I have to stick up for myself. I’m not even supposed to show them what I can really do past some minute mutations until much later. I had some morning sickness. I siphoned a bit of my emotions off to Rafe to help control it now, so he’s probably a little shaken, but nothing major. I’m okay now.”
He drops to the floor and sits next to me, tilting his head. “I still plan on killing them.”
I watch, hoping he keeps his distance—I crave the balance of being touched, but I don’t deserve it. I need to feel this ache.Yeah, I’m broken in terrible ways; I’m aware. “That’s unnecessary, I promise. I’m angry that as soon as I left, she hit up Rafe and then you. Rafe said she acted like everything was fine. She made him play the ‘hard question’ game—poking about you and about Talia. She seemed normal when she left. He didn’t know the two of you had a fight.”
“I’m through with her, baby, and through with the dearly departed sod of hers. She’s cancer.”
“Sari tried to make him paranoid about the both of you. She failed, but she pushed the right button to try. She said she was nervous because Talia had told Wilde she loved him, but hadn’t been around since he left. She said Talia hasn’t been upset, but she realizes now that it’s because she’d replaced him with Rafe. She said it was convenient for Talia to step right in as Rhea left, falling forWilde, and you becoming my mate as she’d aimed for her spot in our family.”
I know this because of Rafe, who quietly handled his own panic over this shit.
“That’s sodding funny. I mean, come on. That’s funny.” He chuckles, shaking his head.
I arch a brow, not finding it funny at all. I find it appalling. “How in the hell is it funny?”
He laughs like a loon. “Talia’s set herself inourfamily. Oh, come on! That’s a bloody riot! Man, that ‘our circle’ shitkillsme.”
“I think the drugs fried me because I don’t get it. Speaking of those, remind me later that I want to talk about those. I have some thoughts.”
“Christ, woman, you’vereallygot to stop yammering at that bint about us.” He brushes my cheek with his fingers.
“If I don’t talk to her at all, she thinks I’m holding stuff back from her. She’s not perfect, but she lost her mate. I’m trying not to abandon her—because that’s what she implied with the resurrection stuff—so I text her back and drop by sometimes. If she staysoffthe Wilde thing with me, I figure it’s better for the entire community if she’s not on a rampage. I try to keep some stuff private because I don’t feel she needs to know.”
Plus, I need her to stay away from Rafe so he can heal. It’s my turn to take some lumps.
