He took her hand and kissed it, pressing it against his chest. She felt his pulse racing and knew this fear was older and ran far deeper than their current circumstances.
But Ken had to realize that and speak it, name it, face it. Dewi would do any- and everything for him, but she couldn’t do this for him.
He had to. Only he could.
Surviving a childhood full of fear and grief had locked him into a fixed set of responses he was trying to learn his way out of, and she gave him all due credit for that. No amount of Prime powers on her part could force him to adjust those behavioral and thinking patterns. Not in a healthy way. It would still be there, simmering below the surface and coming out again at the worst possible times.
He didn’t speak for several minutes, staring at their hands. Dewi felt him turning things over in his mind, trying to find the words to put to his thoughts and emotions, and she didn’t rush him.
“I couldn’t save Mom,” he finally said. “I should have been there and I wasn’t. He killed her because she was going to leave him. And she stayed with him as long as she did because she didn’t think she could support me on her own.”
Dewi still didn’t speak, knowing this was a start for him.
“All those years he browbeat me, and Dave literally beat me. And I couldn’t stand up for myself. Even once I was living on my own.” He tipped his head back so he could look her in the eyes. “The sum of my life points more toward me being a pussy than a badass.”
Dewi smiled. “Hey, cat shifters are pretty damned tough.”
He gave her “a look.”
“I know what you meant,” she added. “But real vaginas are pretty fricking tough, too.” She pointed at her stomach. “Case in point, I’ll be shooting a baby out of mine in a few months.”
That finally earned her a soft snort.
Finally. A breakthrough.
She laid her head on his shoulder with her face pressed against the crook of his neck and deeply inhaled. “Am I concerned? Yeah. It’s literally myjobto be concerned. Abouteverything. But I’ve had more practice than you at filtering out the unimportant and less-important static to focus on the actual signals and direct threats that require my attention. I won’t lie to you and say everything’s always going to be hunky-dory. I don’t know.
“But I want to spend my life living and enjoying it instead of worried about all the things that will probably never happen. I mean, honestly? A meteorite could plunge from the sky, land on the house, and kill us. An airplane could fall on top of us. The Skyway Bridge could collapse under us as we drive somewhere. It’s possible, sure. But is it likely?” She left that hanging in the air.
“No,” Ken softly admitted. “It’s not likely.”
“Exactly. And you did stand up to Dave. I didn’t do that—youdid. You beat the crap out of him and I wish like hell I’d been there to see it. Hey, you stood up tome. Multiple times now. You stood up to Endquist, aPrimeAlpha, and in the process defied my direct Prime Alpha order. That’s damned impressive.”
He finally smiled. Barely, but it was a start.
She played with his shirt collar. “I know this feels like a lot to deal with all at once. That’s because it is. I’m feeling it, too, but I can’t let it overwhelm me. I’ve had years’ more practice at prioritizing and compartmentalizing this than you have. I promise you, if I felt worried, I would tell you.”
“You brought a drug kingpin home to run through the woodchipper.”
She let herself take a breath to consider her answer. “But it wassafe. Was it poor judgment? Yes. Because I wasn’t thinking about it in terms of how it would upset you. And I admitted you were right, too. And, from that point on, I have adjusted my thinking so that I take your concerns into consideration. Not to mention, hopefully nothing like that will ever happen again.”
“Can’t we just, I don’t know,buyIdaho and kick everyone else out and move only our pack there?”
She laughed. “If only our pack wasthatrich and well-connected. But we’re not. That would be pushing things, even for us.”
CHAPTERTHREE
DEWI
Later that afternoon,Dewi was still working in the office when Peyton called her.
“So I just got off the phone with Ken,” he said by way of greeting.
She sat back. “And he told you I didn’t Prime him, right?”
He chuckled. “He did. I also talked to Da earlier.”
“So…are we good?”
