Again, he was cherry-picking what to address.
She was emotionally and physically exhausted, so maybe she wasn’t thinking straight. If her vow of silence wasn’t enough, did that mean the Kings meant to silence her in another way?
Since he wasn’t talking, she would.
“I did it or agreed to do it for my mother, okay.” And then the tears started.
“What?” Monster whipped his head toward her and swerved.
“My mother. I told you she was sick. Shortly after, my father—who’d never wanted fuck all to do with me—found me through social media. He acted surprised she was sick, but after meeting with him, he said he had the cure to save her. If I’d do just a small favor and gather some information for him, he’d give it to me.”
She heard herself sniffle hard as old wounds, which had been reopened, pained her.
“I hung out in the parking lot of the bar a few nights, giving Samual an account of who went in and out and what time. That was it. Then one night, he injected me with something. At the time he said it was a scent blocker in case I ran into shifters, which, surprise, he knew I would but didn’t tell me. I learned today that’s not what it was, but that’s neither here nor there.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and turned to look at Monster’s profile.
“I was supposed to go inside, get close to Kansas, and then he’d finally give me the cure. That simple, but with dead old fuck face, nothing was ever simple. Once inside the bar, I knew somewhere deep down that something wasn’t right. Then I looked at you and I felt like something was. For the first time in my life, something was right. The moment our eyes met, I knew I wouldn’t betray you, not even to save my mother. I tried to convince myself I could, but somewhere in my soul, I knew it was a lie. I …” This was the part she didn’t want to admit, but she would.
Put everything on the table now, so you won’t regret not saying something later. That’s what her mother had told her growing up.
“I felt a connection to you. I thought you might be mine. Then, when you kissed me, my blood sang.”
She turned to look out the window. Staring at his clenched jaw just made things harder to say.
“I was wrong.”
Monster didn’t speak. Carys stared at nothing until they came to a stop. Looking up, she saw the gate to their compound opening.
Carys didn’t bother getting out. Monster would likely order her to where he wanted her to go anyway.
If she’d thought she was broken before, she was utterly defeated now. She’d laid out her heart, raw and bare to him, and he didn’t say a word for the agonizingly long car ride.
When he wrenched her door open and unbuckled her, she asked, “What is your club going to do with me?”
She’d read enough books and watched enough documentaries to know that the odds weren’t in her favor.
“My club?” Monster pulled her from the car with a hand to her throat and held her against the side of her vehicle. He seemed to like that a lot, Carys thought. “Pixie, I’d be more concerned with what I’m going to do with you.”
His words caused a flutter in her stomach, even though they were laced with an edge of danger.
NINE
MONSTER
After tossing Carys over his shoulder and cuffing her to his bed, with both cuffs this time, he left her alone.
He was at war with himself, war with his wolf, and possibly war with his own fucking club.
“Fuck,” he shouted and punched the bar before downing a healthy swig from the bottle in his other hand.
Prowler slapped him on the shoulder and took the seat next to him.
Monster hadn’t even realized that some of his brothers had filtered into the common area.
“How’s Creedence?” Monster knew from the accounts of the other quantum wolves that sometimes the transition from vanilla human to shifter wasn’t always easy.
“Surprisingly well,” Prowler responded. “We’ve got him in the cage as a precaution for the night.”
Monster had noticed the prospect wasn’t at the bar. Not that he expected him to be with the day they’d had. After shooting a man in defense of the club, one shouldn’t be expected to sling drinks.
