Slowly, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his chest. “Forgiven. I understand your reasons. Youwanted to protect me. Just don’t leave me like that again. We are past it. I’m in this, okay? Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t. I can’t. I fucking quit trying to leave now. We do need to lay low for a few days though.”
“Hiding me away?”
“Yes. Hiding you from the new Pack. Just until we get things squared away.”
He’d said that with a strange tone to his voice, so she eased back down into the chair and asked, “What do you mean by squared away.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do. If we’re going to do this, I want to know what’s happening.”
He chewed the side of his lip and sat in the seat next to her. “We’re going to hurt them.”
“Wait,” she said. “You’re going to fight with them?”
“Yes.”
“Butyoucould get hurt.”
“That’s not how we talk in the lead up to war. It’s bad luck.”
Oh. Her chest felt like there was a great weight on it as her mind raced. “Do you fight other Packs often?”
“No.”
“But why do you have to now?”
“They’ll keep coming if we don’t defend our territory. They’ll push us out. The response has to be strong. I wanted to go after them immediately, and so did Vic and Tabian. Liam wanted to wait. He tried to make contact with their Alpha for a truce, but it didn’t go well. So, we fight.”
“You’re saying this like it’s some simple thing.”
“War is simple. He who bleeds the most loses.”
She placed her hand on his thigh, but he winced.
“What happened to your leg?” she asked.
“A fight,” he answered.
“With who?”
“Nathan.”
“But…” she frowned. “He’s in your Pack. He’s Second, right?”
“Yep.”
“Then why did you fight him?”
“To make my wolf shut up.”
Oh, Dodger was complicated. Life wouldn’t be dull with him, that was for sure and for certain.
He lived by completely different rules than humans did, and she had much to learn. Her dad hadn’t talked about this kind of stuff. He’d sheltered her from his animal side.
She had asked for honesty, and Dodger was giving it to her. Destiny appreciated it, but she would also have to think about all of this and figure out how much of it she was okay with.
