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He frowned. “Do you always ask so many questions?”
“Yes, I do. When it comes to counseling, that’s kind of what you do.”
Nate shook his head. “You’re wasted as a social worker. You’re a fighter.”
She thought about the way she’d missed that kick in the alley—and everything that had happened afterward. “No, I’m no soldier. My father made sure I was nominally trained in self-defense, but—”
“You can’t teach the way you handled yourself last night.” His direct stare held total respect. “Your aggression, your instincts, the way you moved without fear? It’s in your blood. There’s no instruction that tells the student to stab the enemy in the eyes just to dominate them before you kill them. You do that because you’re a warrior.”
Nalla opened her mouth. Shut it. “I’m not sure what to say.”
He shrugged. “Then silence works.”
She searched his too-lean face and wondered about the tension in it, in his entire body. Something had happened since she’d seen him last.
Or maybe that promise he’d made to her sire was haunting him. But fuck that.
After a long moment, she asked, “So why do you want to burn that sweatshirt?”
Great, Nate thought. He had not been looking for an audience—and he most certainly hadn’t been interested in this particular female showing up at this particular moment.
With everything that was going on between his ears, he felt like he was naked in front of her. In the cold. With all that entailed in the shrinkage department.
And no, he didn’t want to talk about the stupid fucking sweatshirt—
“I’m saying goodbye.”
The second the words came out of his mouth, he wanted to take them back. But as that wasn’t possible, he tossed the article of clothing into the flames, and watched as there was a greedy rush, a flare of heat and flame bursting up out of the pit where, thirty years ago, a meteor that hadn’t been a meteor at all had landed here.
Rahvyn. It had been Rahvyn, coming in from wherever the hell she had been, hitting Caldwell’s soil—and his fucking life—like a bomb.
He wasn’t surprised that nothing had grown in the soil after her impact. Nothing had grown in him, either—until Nalla. And he really had to nip that shit in the bud, especially given his new exit strategy.
“Who are you letting go?” she whispered.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut—“Not a who. A what.”
“So that sweatshirt smack-talked your mama?”
He crooked a smile. But couldn’t hold it.
“I’m burning a dream.” He crossed his arms over his chest, theholsters of his weapons pulling at his shoulders. “Not a person, a dream. And how stupid is that.”
“That’s not stupid at all.”
This time, when he looked at her, it was properly. Standing just off to the side of the impact pit, she was in the parka from last night, but had a red scarf and buff-colored trail pants that were new. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, as usual, and her face was arresting in the firelight, her features coming alive.
But as he tested the air for her scent, he smelled a different shampoo and fabric softener.
“You didn’t go home last night, did you.” As she recoiled a little, he blamed himself. “Do you want me to go talk to your father again?”
“Why would I ask you to do that?”
“Did they kick you out because of me?”
Nalla’s frown was a reminder that she wasn’t looking to be rescued. “No, and even if they did, that’s my problem to deal with, not yours.”
Bingo, he thought.
