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I pressed my lips together, tears threatening to spill down my cheeks again. I didn’t want to believe that I was stronger than these guys or that I could kill my father and everyone else who had ever hurt me. I wanted to believe that I was weak. It was easier to accept everything that had happened to me that way.
Thayer gripped my jaw hard and forced me to look up at him. “Tell me you know.”
My heart raced, my throat drying. Why was it so hard to face inner demons? Why was it so hard to admit the truth to myself? I had been begging for them to accept me, to love me, when I couldn’t even acknowledge the true pain I had inside myself.
“I … I … I know,” I finally said.
After staring into my eyes for another moment, he released my chin. “Don’t ever forget it, Pretty Bird.” He turned away from us and stormed to the pack house door. “I have shit to take care of. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Once he disappeared out the door and into the woods, I turned back to Gaian, Darius, and Calder, who were all watching me carefully. I shifted from foot to foot and found myself staring back at Calder.
“Mate,”the unfamiliar voice in my head growled possessively.“Mine.”
Calder’s usually annoyed and angry eyes were softer than usual as he stared back at me. He swallowed hard and glanced down at the mark on my neck, the vein in his neck twitching. It was like he wanted to say something to me about the mark on my neck but was torn between speaking his mind and something else.
A couple of moments passed, and he stood. I thought he would walk over to me, wrap his strong hands around my waist, and pull me closer—claiming me. But instead, he tore his gaze away from me and reluctantly walked out of the room.
“Follow him,”the voice in my head whispered.
I glanced between Gaian and Darius, grimaced slightly in their direction, then followed Calder up the stairs to his bedroom. He had the door closed, but I didn’t care. I walked right into the room because we needed to talk.
With his arms crossed and his jaw clenched, he stood at the window in deep thought. While he didn’t turn around, I knew he could tell that I was here with him. I closed the door softly behind me and walked over to him.
I didn’t know what I wanted to say to him. I didn’t know if Iwantedto say anything. So, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and laid my head on his muscular back. He tensed, his back muscles flexing, and unfolded his arms.
His breath hitched slightly. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, voice unsteady, “my wolf won’t let me hold back much longer.”
“Then, let him loose.”
He tensed even harder. “I can’t do that to the guys. They deserve to mark you before I complete our bond. I already broke my fucking promise to them once. They’re all hurting to mark you.”
We stayed quiet for a few moments, and while my wolf was aching to jump on him now, I remembered what Thayer had said—even though I didn’t want to—and forced myself to hold myself back from my inner desires. I was stronger than them … sometimes.
“Did you mark me because you love me or because you had to?” I whispered, afraid of his response.
Part of me already knew what he’d say. He hadn’t wanted to mark me from the beginning. He’d wanted to wait over and over.
He stayed quiet, and I took that to mean he’d marked me because he had to.
Not because he loved me and wanted to mark me.
I wanted to scream, to cry—because he hadn’t wanted to get me pregnant because he loved me, but because he wanted to piss off my father. This was sorta, kinda like the same thing, and I hated the fact that it was never me that he thought about first. It was my father.
When I went to pull away from him—because I suddenly felt so … rejected—he quickly turned around and pulled me flush against his chest. Instead of gripping my throat and growling down at me, like he usually did, he kissed me softly.
My breath hitched, and after my surprise, I finally kissed him back. It wasn’t a rough, passionless kiss that he always gave me during those countless group-sex nights. This was full of fervor.
Once he pulled away, he rested his forehead against mine. “Everything I do is because I love you, Sina.”
53
the talk
gaian
