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I’ll never be with him.
I don’t understand where this is coming from, or why he thinks I want some fucking fairytale. Maybe when I was a young girl, before the darkness consumed my life and took everything and everyone I’ve ever loved, I believed in them. But I was a young girl—a fucking child, who’d never know a day of hurt in her life.
I don’t want Prince Charming.
I want a man who wants me more than needs me. Craves me like I crave him. Would take a bullet for me because I’d sure as hell take one for him. I want a man who will battle my darkness and will let me battle him.
What don’t want is a man who thinks I want to be saved? If I’ve learned anything about myself in the last few weeks, it’s that I can save myself.
I saved myself that night. I might’ve been unprepared and had no fucking plan, but I’m the one who opened the window to climb out.
I want a man to understand that I stay not because I need protection, but because I want to be here. I choose to be here.
I don’t expect that man to be perfect.
There’s no such thing as perfect.
“Wildcat?” My body reacts to the sound of his voice, long before my mind catches up to the reality of it. “What are you doing up? Are you okay?”
I turn to face the man whose words have haunted me all night. My limbs feel like goo, and my heart pounds in my chest. His hair is mussed, like he’s been pulling at it all night… Or someone else has been—shit, no, don’t go there.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I tell him softly, feeling my mind spiral in the direction I don’t want it to go. My eyes glance at the hallway behind him, and I swallow hard. “What are you doing up?”
The hallway that led to the sweet butt room.
Herroom.
My blood in my veins turns ice cold and Maria’s face flashes across my mind.
I felt her eyes on us the second we stepped into the room tonight, and though I tried not to look her way, I couldn’t stop myself. She was smiling at me, like a cat playing with her prey. Like she knew what I had been planning with the girls didn’t work out the way I hoped. Like she knew her claim on him was no long a myth in my mind. Then her dark eyes flicked from me to Kohen, and her face grew hungry.
“Code and I were going over some intel we got about Raymond and the Demon Wolves,” he explains, shoving his hands into his jeans. He looks exhausted, sweaty even.
Lies,my heart cries.Everyone went to bed hours ago.He doesn’t want you to know he was with her.
“Oh,” I manage, swallowing the hard lump that formed in the back of my throat. Flashes of him with her fill my thoughts and I struggle to keep from letting his betrayal cut me too deeply.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I turn back to my milk and push it away. I need to get out of here before I say something to make myself look more foolish than I already am in his eyes.
This entire time—it was never about not being good enough for me. He pushed me away and kept his distance because he’s with Maria.
Fucking Maria.
I’ve never wanted to harm a person before, but I’d tear her eyes out right now, if I could.
“It’s something by the look on your face.” I can feel him step toward me, and remain steady, desperate to feel him closer but escape him just the same.
“I’m fine. I was thirsty, and wanted some milk,” I murmur with a shrug. My chest aches, my head screams at me to move faster, and my eyes burn with an onslaught of unshed tears, so I keep my head down. “I’m going to head back to bed now.”
The heat of his body is suddenly in front of me and stop myself from walking into him. “Wildcat…”
“Stop calling me that,” I grit between my teeth, trying to sidestep him. He steps with me, reaching for my arm. “Let me pass.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
