Kira’s stomach curdled. He decided. He made the choice. If she’d known everything, she wouldn’t have agreed with this. “The risk. The risk that I might not get what I want? Is that it? What are you risking in this arrangement? Not having access to every single woman in the pack?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Joshua snarled. “I brought you here. I’ve told you why I’m unable to have children. But there are still other ways you can have your child.”
“Other ways that risk putting me and my children at even more of a disadvantage with the pack.” Kira hated the way her voice was suddenly flat. There was no emotion, despite the swirling feelings still threatening to choke her. This was too much. If he’d been honest with her… “Keeping the truth from me is even worse than threatening me into marrying you.”
Joshua was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know what to say anymore. I only wanted to keep you safe.”
“I don’t feel safe with you anymore, Joshua. And it has nothing to do with your heritage.” She turned and headed back through the graveyard. “I want to go home.”
She started crying on the drive back to town and kept her face turned away, hoping that the darkness would hide her tears. Only the sounds of the car jostling itself on the road broke the deadly silence between them. Kira wished she didn’t feel this way, wished she could look at his actions with understanding. She wished she could say, “I’m upset, but we’ll work through it.”
At this moment, she couldn’t lie, not even to herself. It was just like when he threatened to lock her away. He was making choices, acting against his fear, but without considering what she wanted.
How could there be a marriage here? Every time she thought they were getting closer, something else opened up, showing her a new side to him that he’d tried to hide from her. They couldn’t have a relationship past sex if they couldn’t trust each other. If all they could have was sex, was it enough for her? Could she hold onto the physical, knowing there would never be a full, deep emotional connection?
She held her breath for several seconds as a sob fought to break free.
When they stopped at Joshua’s house, Kira didn’t bother going inside. Over the last few weeks, more and more of her possessions had migrated here, but she would just have to come back for them. She mourned the loss of the potion workshop, but it was the least of her losses.
“Where are you going?” Joshua called after her.
She didn’t look back. “Home.”
She expected him to go after her, to try to convince her to stay the night. He’d say it wasn’t safe to wander around at night or some sort of bullshit.
He didn’t. And she was achingly grateful for that. The last thing she wanted was for him to try to stop her. Her tears started to fall freely as she walked, and by the time she got back to her house—Goddess, it didn’t feel like home anymore—she was sobbing openly.
The lights were all on, and Kira hesitated, wondering if Chelsey had company. As she headed up the walk, the door opened. Chelsey and Gwen both stood there, outlined in the glow of the house. Her shoulders slumped as she stepped inside.
“Joshua called and said you would need a friend,” Gwen told her. “What happened?”
Kira’s stomach twisted at the thought of revealing everything. She shook her head. “We had a fight. A bad one.”
Chelsey made mint tea, and Gwen suggested various things that they could do to cheer Kira up. Kira was grateful for her sister and friend, even though she felt shaky and fragile, as though anything might shatter her. Joshua called Gwen. That meant he did care, to some extent. He hadn’t been trying to hurt her.
Intention didn’t change the fact that he did hurt her. The pain wasn’t even the worst of it. It was how he kept making decisions for her, instead of with her.
What was she going to do?
Chapter 18 - Joshua
The next day, Rafael and Michael showed up at Joshua’s house, looking very uncomfortable. Joshua welcomed them in and glanced past them at the moving van that they had come in. He and Kira had texted a bit that morning, and they both agreed that it was best for Kira to move back to her own house for the time being.
“Are you doing okay?” Rafael asked, swiping his dark hair from his face.
“Not really. But I’m going to go run patrols with the special ops. Alpha Bael says they may have had a demon occurrence, and we’re going to check it out,” Joshua said, passing Rafael a set of keys to the place.
Rafael sighed. “Anything we can do for you?”
Joshua shook his head. They couldn’t fix his mess for him. “Kira was going to stop by with Chelsey and Gwen to pack up her things. Lock up when you’re done?”
“Anything you want us to keep an eye on?” Michael folded his arms over his chest.
Joshua shook his head. Kira wasn’t going to take anything that she wasn’t sure she could keep. He trusted her with that. “Just… tell them that they’re free to take anything in the potions room. Whatever they want, they can have. Chelsey and Gwen, too. I won’t need it, and it’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”
His two best friends nodded. He could see on their faces that they wanted to ask, wanted to know what was going on. He didn’t have the stomach to tell them. Not now. Maybe not ever.
So he spent the day with the special ops. They found strong traces of demons in Bael’s territory, but the trail wentcold quickly. After a whole day trying to make some forward progress, Joshua was finally forced to admit defeat.
