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Blair prayed that he’d fall again but there was no such luck. Her gut tightened as he finally reached the top of the hill, his expression hard, his fists clenched. Scratches decorated his face and arms. There was some light bruising here and there. Blood dripped from an ugly wound on his hairline.
His mouth tightened. “You’re supposed to be in the van.”
“I’m supposed to be in the very spot from where you grabbed me.” As she stared at him, a shard of ice lanced her chest. His betrayal was still too much to process. She hadn’t fully trusted him—had never fully trusted anyone but Luke, Mitch, and Kiesha—but she hadn’t ever thought she was in danger from him.
She’d been wrong.
Keeping her cool was not going to be easy when there was so much she wanted to scream right into the delusional asshole’s face. Especially when her female longed to rip him to shreds and kept urging Blair to do it. But what she needed was to buy herself some time, and that meant not going apeshit just yet.
He scanned their surroundings. “Where’s the damn cat?”
“She ran to get help,” Blair told him.
He grunted, unconcerned. Well of course he was. It might be a ten-minute drive back to the drop-off point, but it wouldn’t be so quick a run. Especially not for someone as injured as Finley.
Blair tipped her head to the side as she studied him. “You know, I can’t say that anything about you ever gave me the creeps.”
His gaze snapped back to hers.
“I never had a single moment where I thought, ‘This dude is a little weird.’ I never once felt uneasy around you. It has to be said, you’re very good at hiding your true self.”
His brow pinched. “I didn’t hide any part of who I am from you.”
“Not true. You hid parts. Faked others. Played a role. You fooled everyone, including me. Fooled me into thinking that I was safe with you.” It shamed both her and her cat that they hadn’t seen through his act. No one had, true, but still.
His face firmed. “You’ve always been safe with me.”
Blair very slowly lifted a disbelieving brow. “Not sure if it has slipped from your memory, Donal, but you drugged me. You scooped me up with a net like I was a goddamn fish. You locked me in a crate and drove off with me against my will.”
For a brief moment, his eyes flickered with what might have been shame. “I gained no pleasure from any of that. It wasn’t what I wanted. But you left me no choice.”
He thought he could throw the weight of this on her? “You had plenty of choices.” Plenty of sane ones.
His gaze went hard. “And you had plenty of chances to come home. You didn’t.”
“Sylvan territory isn’t my home anymore.”
He took two steps toward her. “Your home is with me.”
She gestured at the van with her thumb. “In that little crate, you mean?”
Swearing beneath his breath, he thrust a hand into his hair. “Things weren’t supposed to go this way.”
“No? How were they supposed to go? Tell me.”
“We should have been mated by now. We would have been if you weren’t intent on playing immature games and making me prove myself to you. None of that should have been necessary, Blair. We had a silent understanding that I’d claim you once you came of age.”
“We did, huh? I never got that memo.”
Taking another step toward her, he gave her a pointed look. “You know you’re mine. You’ve always known that.”
“How can you honestly tell yourself that when you’re perfectly aware that Luke and I discovered we were mates years ago?”
He waved that away. “There was no discovery. It was like your mother used to say, he made the claim; you agreed, thinking it was true. Children are often confused about such things. You eventually realized that you’d made a mistake, but you said nothing because the entire situation pissed off Noelle and that suited you fine.”
Her lips parted, Blair stared at him for long seconds. “It is truly amazing how much you lie to yourself. You could explain away pretty much anything that you don’t want to believe, couldn’t you? If something doesn’t fit your narrative, you rewrite it to suit you.”
“There is no narrative, there is only the truth. That being that we are mates. If I’d thought you needed me to make the first move, I would have done it the day you turned eighteen. You’ve never been shy or hesitant about going after what you want before. I should have been mindful that … certain things would make you nervous.”
By “certain things,” he no doubt meant her virginity. “If you really believed that I wanted the same things you do, you wouldn’t have drugged and kidnapped me. You wouldn’t have confined me in a crate. You would have simply asked me to come with you.”
