Well. Damn. No, she wasn’t going to let him change this around.
“You know what I mean.”
“Joining the Council or not is literally life or death, and I refused to let your death be on my hands. Be pissed if you want, but there it is.”
“I didn’t want any of this.”
He flung his arms out wide, but she didn’t back down, sitting up in the bed and matching him glare for glare.
“Too bad, baby. It’s here, and we don’t have any other choice.”
“There is always a choice, Romano.”
He growled. That sound didn’t do anything to her lady bits. Okay, that was a lie.
“You know what, stop. Just stop. I get it. This has messed up every plan you’ve ever had with your life, the least of which was ever being tied to me. But do you think it’s any different for shifters? I can’t stop my wolf from craving you. I can’t stop myself from wanting to protect you and doing anything to ensure that. I don’t have a choice. Jesus, Kalinda. If I did, this may seem like something impossible, but I’d still want you.”
Exactly how was she supposed to answer that? Most of the last few months had been nothing but a whirlwind of random burps of her magic flaring in ways she didn’t understand, the Chaos Realm, the Council—oh, and the death sentence—and now she was mated.
But … choose her? He didn’t know her.
Why was everyone trying to change her life and make her feel bad about it? Nobody would deal with all of this without breaking, and she was barely keeping it together. She just wanted … a moment to think, to get her head clear. Anything but to keep fighting.
She took a deep breath. Kalinda, sort through it. She heard her grandmother’s voice as clear as if she were sitting right next to her. She’d always said a woman was defined by how she dealt with the curveballs in her life. So what was Kalinda really feeling? That was the question.
Romano was gorgeous, and not in a superficial way, but he’d handled her lashing out, fighting him every step of the way, and still stood beside her. She didn’t doubt his entire pack was putting themselves on the line to do for her what they were doing. And she couldn’t forget what Romano and Dominic did.
At the end of the day, the Lombardi Pack was full of Made Wolves who lived by a code of violence and power. It wasn’t just their wolves that made them dominating and always moving forward. They lived to lead and control their interests with an iron fist. Romano was dealing with her situation the same way. She’d seen how Dominic had done the same with Zoey.
But Kalinda had always prided herself on caring for her own matters, running her business, and protecting her girls. She kept her head down, built her empire slowly, and tried to live as human-like as possible in a place where magic lived and breathed.
And now …
“It’s too much, Romano.”
For the first time in forever, she took a leap. She was afraid of it all. Of how this would completely change her life.
“I never really talk about it, but I was going to get married.”
Romano growled, and she rolled her eyes. “Pipe down, Fido. I loved him. I had a plan to own my restaurant and live as his wife. To have my family around me, the white picket fence. And then the FBMC scanned my hometown. I never thought of it, of having mage blood. I couldn’t do anything but make good food, but they told me I needed to move to a portal city. I thought …” she swallowed.
Dammit, it still hurt. After all this time.
“I thought he’d come with me, that he loved me enough to follow through with our dreams, but he walked away instead. I was tainted. So I lost my family and my fiancé. I lost everything, and I never had a say. Some freaking organization told me what my new life was going to be and I scraped until I rebuilt the pieces.”
Romano sat on the bed, close enough she could feel his heat. His gaze locked on hers. As much as she hated to admit it, he was a rock in the storm. He was so strong. His broad shoulders were barely contained in his black button-up. His hands rested in his lap, large and capable of both a deadly action and a caring touch. She could see the hammer of his gun as it rested in an underarm holster. This man was here, with her, watching over her as she slept. Protecting her when she was at her weakest. This man had claimed her and took it all with a crooked smile.
But that smile was gone now. All that remained was a man looking at a woman, listening, and all the joviality of his normal self was wiped away. She felt like she was seeing him for the first time—the man beneath the mask.
“You aren’t broken, Kalinda. And he was a piece of shit for not fighting for what belonged to him. He should have told you, no matter what, you were enough for him. You were worth it.”
He lifted one hand and traced the bite on her neck with a callused fingertip. “This mark means you are my enough. That’s all. That on a bad day, I choose you. On days the world requires too much, you can give me the burden. And when you’re in danger, I’m the shield. It means you are never going to be alone again. I’m so sorry you’ve been alone for so long.”
How did he know? How did he understand? The loneliness had eaten at her, twisted her until she couldn’t trust anyone to get too close.
“Everyone leaves, Romano.”
He sighed, cupping the back of her neck. Heat slid down her spine, pulling her nipples taut as she sucked in a tight breath.
