Page 119 of The Last True Hero
"You don't understand how tempting it was," he admitted. "I knew I was doomed, but what if there was a chance to live as a man still...."
"Those of us from the Burned Lands have been trained to survive since birth," Mia pointed out. "If you didn't at least think about it, I'd have been worried you were a robot. You didn't do it though, did you?"
Adam sat up, letting her hand fall from his arm. "In the end... yeah, I did."
Mia sat up too, tugging his blanket up to her breasts. "What?"
He looked at her. Nobody wanted to admit his or her guiltiest secret, but he couldn't keep this inside him anymore. It had been eating away at him for years. "Cane had ways to make a man do what he wanted." He hesitated. "I'd never met that type of man before, and I haven't come across one since. Colton actually warned me. Said I should just do it, but I wouldn't listen. I'd drawn my line in the sand. I wanted to spit in Cane's face and this was the way I'd do it.
"Cane beat me unconscious, and when I came to Colton was gone, and I was chained up. He didn't return until the sun was starting to set. And he had my sister, Eden, with him."
There was a flash of vision, of Eden looking at him in confusion. "Adam, what's going on?"
And of losing himself, of coming back out of the shadows slumped on the ground with his hand still knotted in the chain that refused to give, with Cane laughing at him. Not Eden. Of all the weaknesses he owned, his baby sister was his most vulnerable.
"He wrestled Eden inside this old hut that we were camping next to," he rasped. "And then they shoved me inside it with her. Her or Wade, Cane kept telling me. And they shut the door and locked me inside with her just as the moon was rising and the night started whispering through my veins."
"Oh, my God," Mia whispered.
Adam reached out, blundering for her fingers. He needed the touch to ground him. "I lasted half an hour, then I could feel the shift starting to win out. So I gave them what they wanted. I lured Luc out of bed with some story about a warg near town, and I led him right into Cane's grasp. He was my closest friend, and I betrayed him to the monsters in order to save my sister. He lost everything. He left his wife, Abbie, so he wouldn't hurt her. I tried to keep an eye on her for him, but... reivers hit her settlement and killed her. That was how I came to take in Lily, his daughter.""
"Hey." Mia knelt closer, forcing him to look at her. "I know you wouldn't have made that deal if it was just your life on the line. Just as I know that any threat to someone else, especially your sister, would have just about broken you.
"You're one of the good guys, Adam. Never doubt that." She slid into his lap, sliding her arms loosely around his shoulders. "I couldn't have done this without you. I would never have gotten Sage back, and I know it. It sounds like this Cane gave you an impossible choice, and you took the best way out of it you could. All of this lies on his shoulders. Not yours. I hope you shot the bastard."
Adam buried his face in her shoulder. Mia cradled him closer. It had been a long time since anyone held him like this.
He breathed in her intoxicating scent. Mia was desert air and gunpowder, with faint notes of sage and whiskey. He couldn't believe she was in his arms. "Colton beat me to it."
"You've talked about Luc Wade before," she said. "Back in town at the bar. He married this woman you loved."
"It wasn't love.... I don't know what it was," he admitted, meeting her eyes. "Riley's one hell of a woman and I thought she fit into my life like the missing puzzle piece I'd been looking for. I never understood her though. Not truly." And it was true. What he'd felt for Riley was ambitious and driven; she was the crown on all he'd achieved, the wife that would rule at his side. He'd created a life for himself in Absolution that fitted what he thought a human would want. He'd brought people together, become their master and protector. A house of his own, a role in society where everyone looked up to him—him, the monster in their midst. It had never truly been about what he needed, but more a façade. A shield.
He'd been playing a role he'd thought he had to. Acting the part of a human man.
And Riley, who was strong, tough, and competent, was exactly who he'd thought should stand at his side.
Hell. He'd never thought of it like that before. All of it had been pretense. The town, the future he had planned.
He'd even named the fucking townAbsolution.
"What was that?" Mia asked, reading his face.
Adam looked up. There she was, backlit by the sun. She'd washed herself last night in the stream, and her black hair was a riot of untamed curls. The sun lit them on fire, turning the ends a coppery brown.
And he had his second major epiphany for the morning.
Her. It was her.
He'd liked Mia from the moment he met her. He'd wanted her in his bed even more. She'd been refreshingly candid, sarcastic, and biting. And she saw straight through him all of the time. But she'd been holding up walls just as much as he had, the pair of them dancing around each other.
You'd be bad for me, she'd once said,and I for you. And it had been true. Back then, they would have been. Two wounded souls who would never be able to meet in the middle.
Everything had changed. He was no longer looking for his map and compass in life. He'd found it. The last week had been brutal, but he'd needed to strip himself bare, to confront his inner demons and accept them before he could even come close to accepting what he wanted in life.
He wasn't human. He never could be. There wasn't a cure for his condition.
But he could live with it and learn to stop fearing himself so much. Colton seemed to be able to control his inner beast. Even Luc managed to find peace with himself last year, when Cane performed his favorite trick again and threw Luc in a locked cell with Riley. He'd thought Luc had been dreaming, to admit that he'd gone warg and hadn't hurt Riley, but it was true.
