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“What?” Her voice went high and she squeezed his hand.
He hummed. He didn’t remember much about the night he left, except that the pain from the whip that he’d used on several ambush members over the years had been intense. He’d blacked out and woken up on the road outside of town with a duffel and a male standing by to warn him he had to get lost ASAP or he’d be killed.
“I managed to walk out of the territory within the time frame I’d been allotted, and then I passed out again in the woods, half-hidden next to a fallen tree. I shifted when I woke up and healed the injuries, but I actually had to shift a few times to entirely heal them all.” And even after they’d healed, it had taken months before he felt right in his skin again because he couldfeelthe whip lashes even though he couldn’t see them anymore.
Ashley leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. “Oh my, that’s so awful. I don’t understand how they could be so cruel to you.”
“I deserved it.”
She let out a little grunt of displeasure. “No, you didn’t, Romeo. You were part of the ambush and you should have been treated with respect, allowed to leave without being nearly killed.”
“Most ambushes would let a male or female chooseto leavewithout harming them so gravely, but if the king is cruel and sees everyone who doesn’t agree with him as a betrayer, then leaving can sometimes lead to death becauseleavingis seen as the ultimate betrayal.”
“I think Brent feels the same way. We haven’t even talked about how I’m going to extricate myself from that mess.”
“By never seeing him again.” He punctuated his words with a snarl from his tiger, who absolutely wanted to hunt the male down and ensure he never so much as had a singular thought about Ashley again.
“I’d like to just walk away. But I don’t know if I can.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean I want to keep being part of the group. I mean that he sent me to spy on the ambush. If I disappear, he’d certainly send people to look for me or pick up where I left off.”
“I know, it’s on my mind too. When Midas gets back tonight, we’ll talk to him about what to do. He’s a great strategist.”
He pulled into the lab’s parking lot and parked next to the entrance. “That’s not such a bad story, you know,” she said as she unbuckled.
“What story?”
He got out and came around to open her door and help her out since the parking lot had icy spots despite being recently salted.
“Yours.”
He looked down at her. “I hurt a lot of people.”
“So did I.”
“You were deceived. I knew what I was doing.”
“I might have had some bad intel about my sister’s death, but I knew exactly what I was doing when I went after the wolves. I knew what joining Brent’s group would do in the long run and I welcomed it. You were loyal to a king who was supposed to have your back and he didn’t. You might have hurt a lot of people, but I don’t think your past is as dark as you think it is.”
He let that roll around in his head for a moment, resting his hands on her hips and inhaling her sweet scent. “You make me feel like my past isn’t that dark, actually. Yours isn’t either.” He gave her a kiss.
“Talking over things is helpful. I’m glad we have each other for that. Iamnervous about talking to Midas though. Telling him everything. What if he hates me?”
“Why would he hate you?”
“Because I’m a spy. Because of my past.”
“He forgave me for my past. He’ll forgive you for yours, I promise.” Romeo was certain that Midaswouldforgive her, but he didn’t say out loud that he wasn’t sure it would be immediate. Midas was fair, and Ashley was Romeo’s mate, but she had ties to an anti-shifter group and had literally brought danger right to their door. It would be within Midas’s rights to be pissed at her for her behavior. Still, Romeo knew he wouldn’t make any binding statements like saying if Romeo mated her officially he’d be out of the ambush or that she couldn’t come into Whisper Creek.
And even if he did say something like that, Romeo would go where she was. It’s just what truemates did for each other. Plus, he wanted to get to know her better. He wanted to romance her and take her on dates and get to know the female without the Humans Against Shifters bullshit swimming in her brain.
Then he’d mark her and make her his.
She blew out a breath. “Let’s get this over with. I’m not the biggest fan of needles.”
“Me either.” He grinned.
