"It's the middle of the night and you're still recovering. You're not going anywhere until morning."
"I'm not staying here with—with—" She gestures at me helplessly.
"With a monster?" I supply flatly. "Fair enough."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to. It's what I am."
"You're—" She stops, pressing her palms to her eyes. "I can't process this. I can't… Bears. Shapeshifters. This isn't real."
The bear whimpers. Our mate is in distress and we caused it.
"I'm sorry," I say, and I mean it. "I shouldn't have shown you. Should have just let you think I was crazy. But you asked, and you kept pushing, and I—" I run a hand through my hair, frustrated with myself. "I wanted you to know. Wanted you to understand why I can't… Why this can't…"
"Why what can't?" She lowers her hands, looking at me with those sharp eyes.
"Nothing. Forget it."
"No, say it. Why you can't what?"
I shouldn't. I should shut this down right now. But the mate bond is pulling at me, demanding honesty, demanding I give her the truth she deserves.
"Why I can't be around you," I force out. "Why you need to leave in the morning and never come back. Why this—" I gesture between us "—whatever this is, it has to end before it really starts."
"Because you're a bear shifter."
"Because I'm dangerous. Because I killed my entire unit when I lost control of the bear. Because you've seen what I can become, and you should be terrified."
"I am terrified," she admits. "But not the way you think."
"What other way is there to be terrified of a monster?"
"You're not a monster, Rhett. You're—" She stops, searching for words. "You're someone who's been through something traumatic. Something I don't fully understand. But that doesn't make you a monster."
"I killed my friends," I say harshly. "Tore them apart while they screamed. Woke up covered in their blood. If that doesn't make me a monster, what does?"
"Did you mean to do it?"
"What?"
"When you lost control. Did you choose to kill them? Did you want to?"
"No, but—"
"Then it was an accident. A terrible, traumatic accident, but not murder. Not monstrosity."
I want to argue. Want to explain that intention doesn't matter when people are dead. But she's looking at me with something that isn't quite fear anymore, and I don't know what to do with it.
"You should be running," I say. "The smart thing would be to get as far from me as possible."
"Probably," she agrees. "But I've never been very good at doing the smart thing. You might have noticed."
Despite everything, my mouth twitches. "I noticed."
She shifts, pulling the blankets more securely around herself. "So. Shapeshifters are real."
"Yes."
