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“Nothing,” she agreed, her voice breaking. “What was your mom like?”
Luke drew in a breath, almost wincing at the pang in his chest. “Funny as fuck. Quick to laugh. The life and soul of every party.” He swallowed, his throat thickening. “We argued the day she died. It wasn’t a big fight or anything. She was just riding my ass about the chores I hadn’t done, and I gave her a load of classic juvenile back-talk. I asked her why she couldn’t be more like my friend’s mom, who didn’t assign her kids more than one chore each,” he admitted, a crushing sense of shame settling on his shoulders. “She just rolled her eyes, told me not to be a brat, and then left. An hour later, she was dead.”
“I can see that you feel like a sorry sack of shit for saying that stuff to her, but you didn’t do it to be cruel. And it sounds to me like she wasn’t hurt by it. Not if she rolled her eyes. I very much doubt she walked out of the apartment thinking you didn’t love her or something.”
“I know all that intellectually, but the shame is there anyway. And I’ll always hate that those were the last words I spoke to her.” Luke took a long breath. “It’s ironic that she was killed by anti-shifter extremists when they didn’t even know she was a shifter.”
Blair doodled soft circles on his shoulder with her finger. “Their target was the family who owned and worked at the hardware store they bombed, right?”
He nodded. “To the extremists, any humans inside were simply collateral damage.” He paused as Blair pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “I didn’t think my dad would survive her loss. She was his other half in every way a person can be. He was a shell of a man without her. He weakened a little more every day. Faded and faded, until it was like he was only half-here; like his soul had partially moved on. And there was nothing I could do. I’ve never felt so fucking helpless.” So fucking terrified. “I don’t know how he fought his way back to us, but he did.”
“I adore him for it,” she said.
“So do I.” Luke again stroked a hand over her head, letting the silky strands of her hair sift through his fingers, grounding himself in the feel of his mate. “I struggled to process her death. No, that’s not right. I didn’t want to process it. I didn’t want to accept that she was gone for good. So I was already a mess when me and Toby were taken.”
Blair stilled, her brows snapping together. “Taken? Wait, who’s Toby?”
“My childhood friend. Best friend, really.” Luke very rarely spoke of him or what happened. Just thinking about it made the bottom fall out of his stomach.
“You said you were both taken. What did you mean?”
Luke hesitated, his fingers flexing. It was instinctive to shut the conversation down and pull back. But he didn’t, because the mating bond would never progress if he didn’t share his secrets with Blair. “A few years prior, a handful of our pride left to begin their own. They weren’t the first to do so, and they won’t be the last. It happens. What doesn’t happen is that they return, insisting on reconnecting the prides but having a change of leadership.”
“The Alpha of the mini pride wanted Vinnie to step down so he could take over?”
“Yes. My dad laughed in Franco’s face. The guy was no match for Vinnie. Their animals battled for dominance. My dad’s cat won. Franco and his little group scurried off, but not for good.”
She splayed a warm hand on his chest. “They took you and Toby.”
“Their intention was to punish Vinnie. But they were also blackmailing him. They wanted cash so they could disappear. And they promised not to hurt me so long as he cooperated. But they didn’t promise not to hurt Toby.” Luke buried a hand in her hair as the memories battered at him. “I could hear him screaming. Begging them to stop. I couldn’t help—I was strapped to a chair and locked in another room. They’d injected us with something to be sure we couldn’t shift and to keep us physically weak. The drug worked well.”
Blair shuffled closer and burrowed into his body.
Luke rubbed his cheek against hers, letting her attempt to soothe him although he knew nothing truly would. Not when it came to Toby. “My dad wired over the cash. Franco and his people headed out in a hurry, leaving me and Toby behind, and texted our location to my dad. We were rescued pretty fast, and the bastards were caught and killed. Toby … he didn’t talk afterwards. Didn’t even look at me. Not that day, not any other day. He and his parents left the pride shortly after that.”
