Page 30 of The Enemy to the Living
“But you’re—”
“Leave me alone, Asher. It doesn’t matter!”
I would. Iwould. But the anger in his voice is weak, and the sadness that bleeds through makes my heart ache. I meant what I said to Iris, that I know I can’t fix him. I don’t want to. I just want to help.
“Why not?”
“What?”
“Why doesn’t it matter?” To my surprise, the anger I’ve slowly simmered away all eveningdoesn’tfade. It flares again and has me taking a step closer to Quinn. He swallows but doesn’t move back. “Tell me why. If you give me a good reason, I’ll leave.”
Quinn scowls. “I don’t need you to go. I can just—”
“I’ll tell them not to serve you,” I say, jerking my chin in the direction of the pub. “I’ll tell them not to let you in if I have to.”
Quinn’s face reddens with fury, and I want to grin at the sight of it.There’smy wolf, and my soul sings to see him. “You can’t do that!”
“I can and I will.”
“You’re not my al—” His words cut off, next inhale tight, and I reach for him without truly meaning to. Quinn tenses when I put my arms around him, and his first muffled sob makes my eyes water.
I run my hand up his broad back and into the short hairs at his nape. Quinn shivers again, but he doesn’t let go of me, instead clinging tighter when I press my face against his shoulder. I have to hope my blessing can look out for the two of us because I’min no state to defend him right now. Each sob rends me in two, and I want to dig claws in and tear out the hearts of anyone who might have hurt him, but I get the feeling that’s already been done.
To an extent, at least.
Quinn comes back to himself in increments, and I murmur encouragements when he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t need to.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. He’s taller than me, has to be hunching a little to have his face pressed against my shoulder the way it is. I don’t care.
“Don’t be.” I rub his back again. “We can stay here all night if we need to.”
He makes another broken sound and clings on tighter. My heart flutters in my chest. I want to keep him in my arms forever, and that thought should hit me harder than it does, but instead it rings with truth, and I hold on to Quinn in turn, my knees suddenly weak.
“What’s going on?” I say, and when he stiffens, add, “Not with the twins. With you.”
A tremor quakes his body, but when he doesn’t let go, neither do I. Is this what he needs? I think his pack is made up of the kind of people who would offer him unconditional support, but either they aren’t or he doesn’t feel they are and right now, it doesn’t matter which statement proves to be true.
“I can’t shift,” he says, and with the way his face is pressed against my shoulder, it takes me a second to parse the words.
When I do, the relief I feel is almost giddy. Not that it isn’t a serious matter—it very much is—but there are far worse motivations that could have been behind Quinn’s recent behaviour.
“You can’t?”
He’s stopped crying but still won’t look at me. The sound he makes tells me he meant what he said. I play with the hair at theback of his neck and fight the urge to drop a kiss on the side of his head.
“That’s okay. We can—”
“Okay?” Quinn’s head jerks up, eyes wide and disbelieving. His face is red, tear-stained, and I want to do all I can to never have him look this way again.
Unreasonable of me, of course, but I feel I am doomed to be unreasonable where this wolf is concerned.
“How can it be okay?” he snarls through gritted teeth. He wants to snap, wants to bare his fangs, but he’s giving himself away, too—he hasn’t let go. I stroke my thumb over the soft skin under his ear, and his breath hitches.
“It’s fixable, I mean,” I say softly. “What happened?”
“You know what happened.”
“Not all of it.”
