Page 70 of Shifter Situations

“I can’t do that, York. We just need to figure out a way to get you out.”

I smiled sadly at him. “You can do it. I’m not getting out.”

“Just… Rest while I’m here. I’ll wake you up before my shift is over. We have at least fourteen days to come up with some ideas.”

“Right. Rest.” I snorted.

I’d see only her when I closed my eyes, and that torture was greater than any I’d felt in all the days that I’d been here. Her broken heart was a tangible thing that I could touch in my dreams, but I wouldn’t let myself.

I couldn’t properly put all the pieces back together from here.

* * *

When I opened my eyes to glance at her, she was wiping her cheeks. The tears flowed freely down her face, dripping off her chin as she stared at me.

“That could have been you,” I whispered into the morning air. “Locked up in a cell—a cage. Being tortured or worse. Do you still think it was selfish of me?”

“York, I—”

I shook my head at her. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I knew you were angry and hurt, and I made you feel that way by lying to you about something so big. I should have told you they were following me.

“I showed you that because I want to make sure that you understand that I had it easy compared to what they would have put you through.”

I glared at my hands, only softening my focus when she linked her fingers through mine.

“I know you can handle so much, but I didn’t want you to go through that; I still don’t, and that won’t ever change. You have too much fight in you for people like that, Sweetheart.

“They would have done everything they could to break that spirit, and that wasn’t something I was going to let happen if I could stop it. I know I’ve said it before, but I would make the same decision again.

“My actions may have broken your heart, but that’s damage that I’d gladly spend a lifetime mending.” I brought her knuckles to my lips, inhaling her sweet, earthy scent.

“If they would have taken you, then they would have had me anyway because I wouldn’t have been able to keep going without you. I’m not that strong. I closed our bond so you wouldn’t find me, so they wouldn’t find you.

”I would rather carry this damage than look into your eyes and not see any light there. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if they did the things to you that they did to other females that came through the camp.”

Her shoulders drooped as she rubbed her thumb across the back of my hand.

“I’m not angry with you. I mean, I was, but I’m not. I’m…” She sighed, staring at our joined hands.

“I’m mad at myself. I looked for you for all the wrong reasons. I should have tried harder, searched longer. The what-ifs won’t stop haunting me. What if I had put in more effort? What if I hadn’t been asleep when you left? What if we hadn’t argued the night before? What—”

“Stop.”

She turned her head away from me, closing her eyes as she bit her lips together.

“All of that is done. It’s in the past. I don’t want to keep living in the past.”

“I don’t want to forget all of it either,” she mumbled.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, tucking her against my side. “Some memories are worth letting go, Sweetheart. Others are worth holding close.”

* * *

I threw the dart, and I didn’t know why, but the shot went so wide that it stuck into the wall.

Sloane’s red lips stretched into a grin, her giggle echoing around me. “I cannot believe that you lost.”

I released a frustrated breath. “I can’t either. I was sure I was going to win that round.”