Giada was staring at her plate, not having made a move to even try to eat.
Ronan reached across the table and laid his hand on hers.
She looked up at him.
“You will never worry about that again. He won’t find you. He won’t hurt the boys, or you. It’s not going to happen.”
“I can’t let you be involved because he’ll kill you, too, and I really, really like you. I don’t want you to be hurt because you’re with me.”
“I won’t get hurt. What you don’t know, couldn’t possibly know, is that nothing about people like that scares me or my family. You’ve met my uncles and my parents coming in and out of the shelter, right?”
Giada nodded.
“Haven’t you noticed anything about them that you ain’t quite put your finger on?”
“They’re all really unusually pretty. Even the men. You, too. What is up with that?”
“I could tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me. Just know that no matter what happens, no matter where, you will not have to worry. I’ll stand between you and anything that threatens you. And my family, even those you haven’t met yet, will, too.”
“Why would they do that?” Giada asked.
“Because you’re the woman I’ve chosen. Because our futures are tied together. Because you matter to me.”
“I haven’t said I’d choose you.”
“Because you’re afraid for me if you do.”
Giada nodded.
“Or maybe it’s because I’m younger than you and you’re embarrassed.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like being thought of as a cougar,” she tried to tease.
Ronan burst out laughing.
Giada smiled sadly. She was pleased that her attempt to lighten the mood had worked but their conversation had gotten pretty dark.
“Giada, you don’t know it now, but if you choose me, you’ll never be sorry,” he said, cutting off a bite of his steak and dipping it in the garlic butter.
“That’s what I’m told,” she said.
He placed the steak in his mouth and chewed appreciatively.”This is so good. Try the butter.”
Giada reached across the table with her napkin in her hand and dabbed at a bit of butter running down his chin.
Ronan swallowed, then looked at her with a smirk on his face. “Havoc tell you that?” he asked.
“No, Analise. And she said it twice.”
“They’d fight for you, too.”
“What are you, some kind of super heroes or something?” she teased, picking up her fork and knife and cutting into her own steak.
“Something like that,” he said, nodding as he cut another bite of steak. “But I need your vow of silence before I can tell you our secret,” he said, using his best spooky voice. But it came across as Dracula rather than the werewolf.
She took a bite of her potato, and straightened up at his effort to tease her. “Are you saying you’re a vampire?”
“No, nasty things, vampires. We’re shifters. I’m a Wolf, as are my siblings. My dad is a Wolf, and my mother is a Lion. Bane is a Bear. We’ve got just about any kind of shifter you could imagine in our clan.”
