Knox didn’t turn his head to look at her. His commander, team members, friends, and family had all asked the same thing. “I lied to myself and said it had nothing to do with him. I reasoned that one death out of all the deaths I’d seen while I’d been a SEAL shouldn’t have that kind of power over me. Hell, I’d barely had a chance to talk to Lawrence, much less get to know him. How could his death affect me so much?”
“But?” Rachel prompted again, making Knox think that she’d missed her calling. She should have been a shrink.
“I found out that lying to yourself doesn’t help. I didn’t have nightmares as bad as yours, but I found myself reliving the moment when Lawrence died,” he said. “It frustrated me. I mean, I know that good people die all the time, but in the end, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Lawrence’s death was different. It wasn’t until later, after I’d gotten out of the navy and was wandering around trying to figure out what came next, that I realized why his death had shaken me so much. It was because he’d died without having a chance to even live. His life had been wasted. All that skill, the training, the potential…it was all gone in the blink of an eye.”
“What happened to Lawrence wasn’t your fault,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Knox murmured. “Well, I do now anyway. It took me a while to get to this point. In the days and weeks after Lawrence died, I blamed myself. The way I saw it, he’d been fresh out of training, but I had eight damn years of combat experience. Why hadn’t I been able to do something? The doubts tore me apart a little more each day. If I couldn’t save someone like Lawrence, what good was any of it?” He sighed. “It wasn’t long before I was questioning everything I believed in, everything I thought was important to me. That’s why I ended up getting out of the SEALs. Not because of the nightmares and all that other crap, but because I stopped believing what I was doing mattered. It was like I lost my purpose in life.”
Rachel moved closer, resting her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, loving the feel of her smooth skin against his. “Did you talk to a therapist? Is that how you were able to stop blaming yourself?”
“I didn’t exactly talk to one,” he admitted. “A lot of the VA hospitals in the country offer walk-in counseling. Others have group sessions that are open to anyone who needs them. Sometimes, when I was out on the road trying to get my head back on straight, I’d stop in and sit in the back row and listen to what everyone else had to say. They got me to talk a few times, but I didn’t say too much. Like I said, mostly I just listened. Knowing I wasn’t the only person out there dealing with this stuff helped. I won’t try to convince you that I did things the right way, especially since I rarely saw the same counselor more than once, but one thing I’m sure of: I don’t believe a person gets better from something like this. The memories of your trauma will always be there. I think the goal is to find a way to come to peace with them without them being so devastating for you.”
Rachel pushed up on her forearm to give him a dubious look. “I don’t know about that.”
He gave her a small smile. “It won’t happen right away, but if you work at this, it will get better over time. I promise.”
Her lips curved. “You know, for a former hunter, you’re really good at this personal advice stuff.”
Knox snorted. “How long are you going to hold that hunter stuff over my head? I made one lousy decision and ended up on the wrong side—temporarily, I might add. You’d think taking a bullet for you at the wedding reception would balance the scales.”
She smacked his shoulder playfully. “Balance the scales? You wouldn’t have needed to take that bullet if you weren’t there to kill werewolves. If you’re looking to apologize to me for being a hunter, you’ll need to come up with something better than that.”
Rachel climbed astride his body, silently helping him come up with a damn good way to start that apology, but as he put his hands on her naked hips, there was a horrendous crashing sound from the living room. Cursing, Knox set her aside and jumped out of bed, scrambling for the clothes he’d left on the floor and the Glock holstered there.
Footsteps approached the bedroom just as he came up with his gun. He pointed it toward the door, finger on the trigger. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rachel reaching for her weapons on the nightstand. But then she froze, diving back into bed and dragging the blanket up to cover her breasts.
Knox had a moment to notice his claws and fangs were halfway out before a man charged into the room. Knox came damn close to shooting the guy, every instinct he had urging him to protect Rachel, when he realized the intruder was her SWAT teammate Diego.
“What the hell, Diego?” Rachel shouted, clutching the blanket in her clawed hands, eyes glowing an angry green.
Diego halted in his tracks a few feet inside the room, an automatic in his hands pointed directly at Knox. And yeah, Diego’s claws and fangs were out, too. His eyes were glowing so golden yellow they practically sparked with the promise of violence.
Knox kept his weapon aimed at Diego, wondering when the shooting was going to start. For the moment, at least, the other werewolf was too busy taking in the scene before him—a naked guy standing there holding a gun on him, an equally naked, furious woman in bed under the blankets, and clothes strewn all over the room.
“What the hell?” Diego repeated, confusion obvious on his face and in his tone as his gaze settled on Rachel. “That’s what I’d like to know. The door to your apartment looks like it’s been kicked in, then wedged shut, and while I’m trying to decide whether to kick it in myself, I overhear you saying Knox is a frigging hunter.”
He stopped, like he expected Rachel to say something. When she didn’t, he continued.
“Tell me I heard wrong. Tell me you aren’t sleeping with a hunter who tried to kill you, me, and the rest of our pack mates.”
Rachel glowered at him. “Put that damn gun away and turn around!”
She gave Diego less than a second to comply before she whipped back the blanket and climbed out of bed. She marched over to the dresser, moving with the grace and intensity of a pissed-off angel. Neither he nor Diego said a word as she pulled out underwear and a SWAT-issued T-shirt, then grabbed a pair of matching tactical uniform pants from the closet and got dressed. Knox took the opportunity to put his weapon away and get his own clothes back on.
Once Rachel was dressed, she walked over to stand in front of Diego.
“First off, if you broke my door, you’re paying for it,” she said, her eyes flashing green again, her voice a low growl.
Diego opened his mouth, probably to point out that the door was already broken when he got there, but Rachel cut him off with a glare that would scorch paint. Knox felt like he should provide backup or something, but he knew he’d only get in the way. Besides, he didn’t want her looking at him like that.
“Secondly, yes, I am sleeping with a hunter.” She took a step closer to her pack mate, glowering at him so hard he actually took a step back. Her claws might not have been out, but she still looked like she was half a second from ripping him a new one—literally. “And while he’s actually aformerhunter who never hurt a werewolf and instead took a bullet meant for me, the only thing you need to get through that thick skull of yours is that I decided to sleep with him. That means I learned everything I needed to know about his past and his involvement with the hunters and came to the conclusion that he’s a good person.”
Diego opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off again.
“Notice that at no point did I mention running over to one of my best friends in the Pack to get his okay on whether I should climb into bed with Knox. That’s because I don’t need your approval or anyone else’s before I decide to sleep with someone. I’d expect my friends to trust me to make that decision for myself.”
Knox felt almost bad for the other werewolf as Rachel blasted him. At least Diego had the intelligence to look chagrined. But before the guy could apologize, Rachel held up her hand, silencing him.
