AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Christ. No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. That… you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“It’s fine,” I murmured. I clasped my hands together, searching for any ache in my fingers, but there was none. He hadn’t hurt me. He’d only scared me a little, and only for a second. “You were upset. I get it. Just, don’t treat me like the enemy, Xander. We’re in this together. If you can’t get on board with this plan, we’ll just have to find another way.”
“If I could approve of this, I wouldn’t be worthy of being your mate. You understand that, don’t you?” He stared at me until I raised my gaze to his. His greens were pleading. “The thought of that man having his filthy fucking hands on you… It makes my heart feel like it’s being put through a woodchipper. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. You always will be. If I can’t keep you safe… I’ve already failed our sons. I can’t fail you, too.”
“I don’t think you’ve failed anyone, Xander.” My heart crushed in on itself at the very notion. If he felt that way about himself, then surely I’d failed, too.
“I need to be better. Stronger. Sharper. More.” His hands slid down to my forearms, where he found the nail marks Marianne had left in my skin. He ran his thumb over them gently. “What happened here?”
I winced. “Your mother was pretty worried about you.”
“Ma did this?” I nodded, and he growled. “Worried or not, she didn’t need to break skin over it. Especially not yours.”
“She was scared Melony would kill you.” I would have preferred it if she hadn’t sank her talons into me, either, but Xander’s mother and I had finally discovered one thing we had in common: we both loved her son. “I was worried, too.”
“I got the gist of that from all those missed calls and messages,” Xander admitted. “But I was never in any danger. How come she thought I was walking into a trap?”
“She heard Quincy and Samuel talking about it, I guess.” Marianne hadn’t been exactly coherent, and we hadn’t been blessed with much time. When her nurses arrived, we were told in no uncertain terms that we needed to leave. “You worry them, I think. They’ve been making big plans and wanted to eliminate you from the equation. Melony was so unstable, they thought if you got angry at her—if you lost control—then so would she.” I gave him a small smile as pride swelled against my heart. “But you didn’t.”
Xander scoffed. “I nearly did. I wanted to.”
“She did kidnap our sons,” I reminded him.
He laughed. “Yeah. She did do that. But, I dunno, Cheeks. I keep thinking about the way that woman in Texas—Sarah?—how she looked at me when she thought I was an abuser, and there I was, bellowing at her, out for blood.” He let go of my arms and rubbed his palms against his thighs. “I thought about how it felt when Ma would scream at Kingston, or Dylan, or, God forbid, Macy. Or when your mom was being cruel to you.”
“That’s not who you are, Xander. You’ve never hurt anyone.” I reconsidered that for a moment. Xander had bloodied his knuckles plenty back in high school, usually when my honor was involved. “Well. No one who hasn’t been asking for it.”
“It’s hard to tell though, isn’t it? Who deserves it and who doesn’t. It was easier when we were teenagers. I would’ve thrown down with anyone who so much as looked at you wrong.”
“You did,” I reminded him.
“But Melony’s screwed up in the head. Big time. The bad she’s done… I hate her, Cheeks,” he confessed. “She disgusts me, but I didn’t want to make a woman feel like that again. Not even her.”
“It’s generous of you,” I allowed. “Kind, too.” Kinder than I would have been. After everything she’d put us through, I wasn’t so sure I could have kept my own temper under wraps if Melony Houghton and I were in the same room. “It means something, don’t you think? Quincy and Samuel thought that getting you alone with Melony was a surefire way to take you out. They never expected you to be capable of holding back.”
“I do have a temper,” Xander admitted. “Just never thought it was so bad that someone might try to weaponize it.”
“Samuel and Quincy can’t imagine that anyone would ever choose to be kind.” I reached up and stroked his cheek. “That makes you so much more dangerous than they ever could have believed. It’s what a leader would do.”
He glanced up at me. There was something boyish about the look in his eyes now—puppy-like. Like a golden retriever waiting for a treat. “You proud of me, Cheeks?”
Smiling, I wrapped my arms around him. “Come here.”
I pulled him down onto the mattress with me. He smelled like coffee and bacon, and faintly like the Jack Daniels he must have downed on his flight to keep his wolf at bay. I buried my face in his neck and found his familiar scent. Spiciness, warmth, something rich and soft like cashmere, or dark soil after a rain.
“God, your touch feels good,” he purred as I reached under his shirt and ran my nails up and down his back. “Keep doing that for a while?”
I obliged. He nestled next to me, and I listened to his breathing as it became slower, deeper.
In my arms, just like his son had only a short while before, Xander fell asleep.
* * *
“Xander?” I called out from the window. I pressed my palm to the glass, peering out into the darkness.
Xander and Denny had spent the day getting some much-needed rest. Gena and I had tried to bring them plates of lunch and dinner, but neither had been interested. Sleep was what they needed, and since we had no better plan for how to infiltrate the impossible stronghold of the Du Pont estate, the rest would only help.
I’d been preparing for bed when something outside caught my attention.
