It’s quiet in the kitchen. The fire crackles in the other room. Outside, the wind howls.
“That’s why you gave up on love,” he says finally.
“I gave up on being a fool. I spent my whole life going after men, thinking if I just tried hard enough, one would stay. But I was always the one who got hurt. Always the one left behind for someone else.”
“They were idiots.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But after a while, you have to stop blaming them and start looking at yourself. What was I doing wrong? Why did I keep ending up in the same place?”
“You weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“I was.” I meet his eyes. “I was choosing men who didn’t deserve me. I was giving everything I had to people who only took. I was so desperate to be loved that I forgot to love myself first.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment.
“So I stopped,” I continue. “I stopped dating. Stopped looking. Stopped hoping. I moved to Shadow Wolf Creek because I wanted a fresh start. A quiet life. No drama, no heartbreak, no men who see me as a placeholder until something better comes along.”
“And the home you want to build?”
“That’s for me.” I feel the conviction settle into my bones. “Every piece of furniture, every decoration, every inch of that apartment. It’s going to be mine. Something Ibuilt for myself, by myself. No one can take it away because no one helped me get it.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough.
“I want to kill him.”
I blink. “What?”
“Your ex. Darnell.” His voice is low and hard. “I want to find him and rip his throat out for what he did to you.”
I should be alarmed. A few days ago, I would have been. But instead, I find myself biting back a smile. I shouldn’t like hearing that as much as I do.
“That’s... a little intense.”
“I’m a bear shifter. We’re intense about the people we—“ He stops abruptly, like he’s caught himself saying too much.
“The people you what?”
He shakes his head, looking away. “Nothing.”
I should let it go. I should back off and retreat to my room before this conversation goes any further.
But I don’t move.
“Tolin.”
He looks at me, and I see it there—raw and vulnerable and terrifying, this pull I can’t explain.
“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” I admit. “A few days ago, you were screaming at me about a chair. You crushed my phone. You ripped the door off my car. And now you’re making me breakfast and asking about my dreams and threatening to kill my ex.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
“Then help me understand.” I take a step toward him without meaning to. “Because I keep telling myself to stay away from you. I keep reminding myself of all the reasons Ishould hate you. But every time I try to put walls up, something pulls them back down.”
He stops breathing for a second.
