“So you had a gambling problem.”
He shook his head. “I had an ego problem. The money never mattered. I cavorted all around the city with single women, never hurting anyone. But every so often, someone made a wager on a mated one. Suddenly I had a reputation to uphold.” In sharp, angry motions, Archer began removing his prosthesis.
“That’s not who I see now. You’ve never hurt me, have you?”
He gave me an indignant look. “I would never hurt you.”
“If those women slept with you, they weren’t happy. Something in their relationship was unraveling, and they were looking for a way out. Or maybe they just wanted to have a good time, but it was their choice. How can I judge anyone after doing the same thing? We’re all stained with our past mistakes.”
“Some more than others.” He set the arm next to him and stared at it. “One day, they dared me to bed a Packmaster’s mate.”
The air stilled.
“So I seduced her.” He ran his hand over his face. “I was also a braggart. The wrong person found out and relayed the information to the Packmaster.”
“What did he do?”
Archer pressed his lips in a mulish line before answering. “The alpha and his pack came to our home and surrounded us. Most of us locked ourselves inside to protect the children while the Packmasters argued. I didn’t know what it was about until they called me outside.”
Archer had a visceral reaction and turned his head away.
When I reached out to touch him, he launched to his feet.
“I can’t do this.” Archer marched out of the room without a backward glance.
“Archer, wait!” I rushed after him, but his strides were long and carried him through the backyard and beyond.
Gathering up my dress, I chased after him in the dark, the moonlight brushing over his silhouette. He managed to get halfway down the fenced-in pasture before I caught up with him.
Panting, I gripped the wooden fence. “Please don’t make me chase you.”
A haunting sound caught my attention, and it startled me when I realized what it was. Archer choked on a sob, and the sight and sound broke my heart.
I circled in front of him, and he quickly wiped his face.
“I thought they were going to kill me,” he croaked before taking a deep breath. “Fuck. That would have been better.”
“Better than what?” I asked, sensing where this was leading. All this time, I’d assumed he lost his arm in an accident.
Archer wiped his face again, and moonlight shimmered in his doleful eyes. “When my Packmaster walked off and left me in the yard, I knew I was going to die. I yelled for help, but nobody came. Nobody came.” He trailed off in sobs. “Two men held my arms out wide and forced me onto my knees.” Archer took deep breaths as if struggling to breathe and then cleared his throat. “I begged the alpha to let me go, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept saying how he wanted my pack to remember what I’d done. He wanted them to see. Then his beta handed him a sword.”
Archer dropped to his knees, clawed the earth, and unleashed a roar that stilled me.
A wolf howled. When I looked back, Catcher reached for the moon as if mourning Archer’s pain.
I had no words. He was trembling in the grass, hovering between rage and anguish.
Archer sat back on his heels, and when he spoke, the life and emotion had ebbed from his voice. “He cut off my arm. You can’t imagine the pain unless you’ve experienced it. Then the horror of seeing your arm on the ground as if it never belonged to you. There was no going back, no undoing anything. His men mayhave laughed at me, but I don’t remember. I fell onto the grass as I bled to death, staring at that arrow tattoo on my arm.”
I choked back tears. Somehow it didn’t seem fair to invite myself into his pain.
Touching his left shoulder, eyes closed, Archer recounted those tragic minutes that forever altered his life. “Blood pumped out so fast that I was on the verge of death, so my Packmaster forced me to shift. Sometimes I wished he had let me die.”
“Don’t say that.” I fell to my knees in front of him. “Don’t ever say that.”
The line between his eyebrows deepened.
“I never pursued a mated woman again after that. Ever. Even if they were in a casual relationship. I always made sure… until the night we met. I should have asked you.”
