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Sure, he looked like he might have regretted it after he saw my scars, but too late. Far too late. “I just don’t, okay.”
I tug harder, but his grip tightens. “What did he do?”
“Nothing.” My denial comes fast. Too fast for it to be anything but a lie.
Silence.
“He didn’t do anything,” I say in a slower, more believable tone.
My gaze rests on the black eye that’s suddenly not there. Kade said he healed fast, and he wasn’t joking. It’s… incredible to see. In Rylan’s pack, I rarely saw any of the pack injured. When anyone stepped out of line, more often than not, Rylan killed them for it. There’s no healing a ripped-out throat.
“So he said something then?”
“Let go, Kade,” I say, pulling at my wrist.
“Not until you tell me what he said.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “Then you’re going to be holding onto my wrist for a really long time. Let go.”
“But something changed. You had to force yourself to take one step into my apartment, and now you run over here from Aden’s and order me to sit down so you can clean my wounds. Why?”
Silence.
Kade stands, finally releasing my wrist, but never taking his gaze from mine. “Why, Saige?”
“You were hurt protecting me,” I tell him. But that isn’t all of it. I had to see, had to know he was okay. It didn’t matter that as a shifter I knew he would eventually heal. Or even that I might run straight into Nathan. I had to see with my own eyes.
But more importantly, I had to touch. I had tofeelthat he was okay.
I still do.
Maybe even more than that.
“Because I’m hurt, you’re no longer afraid of me?”
I nod.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s the truth.”
Even before I’ve finished talking, he’s already shaking his head. “No, it’s not. You came here for another reason.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He takes a step toward me. “You did.”
I don’t respond.
He moves a step closer, and I still don’t move. His fingers stretch toward me and lightly graze my cheek. I let my eyes flutter closed just before contact so he won’t read the need in them. “So you’re not afraid of me anymore. Is that it?”
"You won't hurt me."
He’s silent for so long that I peel my eyelids open again.
That gray-eyed stare I’ve had too many fantasies about searches my face. This close the intensity of it is almost too much to bear.
My breathing shallows.
