“Fine, you were arguing about me.” Not that there was much difference.
We told him everything, from my conversation with Bardoul to the argument I had with his mate as he came in.
“Let me talk to Bardoul,” Rawling said. “Jack, you can come too. I’ll lay it out, and we’ll just see where it goes from there. Because what’s not going to happen is I’m not going to have two of the people I care about the most about hiding in rooms, speaking in hushed voices about whether or not I’m dangerous.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. If I could have taken back all those words, I would.
Rawling
“Let’s go.” I grabbed my mate’s hand, needing to feel our connection and his warmth. On the way back to our room, I suggested we go out. As much as I wanted to see my sweet baby girl, this conversation needed to happen now, and it needed to happen without interruptions and distractions. And she was a distraction in the very best of ways.
We walked out past the parking lot and into the woods, and I let it loose. I fed him a few details from my conversation with Holden but held back the good news until we’d finished talking. “I may have said I was a human and I no longer think I’m a hunter.”
Phelan froze, the color draining from his face. I assumed it was fear. I was wrong.
“Wait. You trust Holden? You trust Holden as much as or more than you trust me?”
“Is that what you got out of this, out of this whole conversation? Please don’t tell me you’re being the jealous mate now. We have more important things to worry about.” My mate wasn’t even letting me tell him the entire story before getting weird.
He closed his eyes. “Holden is always filling your head with nonsense. He’s getting you to think about hunters again when you know they’re a story designed to keep shifter kind in line.”
Except I didn’t know that. Phelan believed it. I wanted to believe it. But that wasn’t the same.
“You don’t need that influence. If you’re not going to tell him to back off, I will.”
“We’re not doing this today.” I sucked in a long breath. “We’re not. You don’t get to decide what I hear and what I learn and who I talk to.”
“I’m your mate. It’s myjobto protect you.”
“Protect me from what? From information? Because he had lots that you haven’t even heard yet. Do you really think Holden’s going to hurt me? If anything, you should be worried about Bardoul. He’s the one who wants to go blab to people who have power.”
“No, I don’t want to protect you from information. I want to protect you from people who are going to make your head start to spiral again, putting seeds of doubt in there, making you think the worst.”
“So basically listening to anyone who isn’t you!”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Oh, I’m listening. You’re treating me like I’m fragile, like I can’t think for myself, and that I’m just a silly little omega.”
“I’m sorry, that’s not it at all.” He grabbed the back of his neck. “I’m just… I’m just?—”
“Whatever the truth is, I need to know it. That’s the only way through this mess. Living in this limbo isn’t working.”
He grabbed me and held me close. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m scared.”
“Of me?”
“I know that’s what you think the conversation was with Jack, but it’s… I’m scared because I don’t want to lose you. And I don’t know how to protect you. I don’t want you to be on the dead side of history.”
The dead side of history. I never thought of it in that context before, and now I wished I never had.
TWENTY-FIVE
RAWLING
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Bardoul hissed outside the infirmary door as I listened in on the other side.
“You have nothing to worry about.” That was Jack reassuring Bardoul. “We agreed to hear Rawling out, and that’s what we’re doing.”
