“Aye.” I gently stroked his cheek with the back of myhand. “I might joke about a lot of things, Reid, but never you.”
“I don’t understand why you’re being so nice to me,” he whispered. “Especially given how shitty I’ve been to you. Is it just because of what happened when I was a kid? Because you feel guilty?”
I knew right then that everything hinged on what I said next. “No, Reid. It’s because of you. Because I have this burning…need in me. A need to make you happy. It’s given me a sense of purpose I didn’t even realise I was missing. But now that I have? I can’t ignore it.”
Reid’s throat bobbed. “But I don’t get it. I’m nothing special.”
“No, sweetheart. You’ve been made to feel like you’re not special. There’s a huge difference.”
He gave me a wry grin. “I think ye’ll be disappointed, Ev.”
I knew what he was trying to do. He was hoping to divert me with humour. That wasn’t going to work; not with something this important. “Oh, I already know you’re special, Reid. Now I wanna find out if you could ever think the same about me. If, maybe, we can form something special together.”
Just like that, the shutters came down behind his eyes. “I can’t…No. I can’t be with a shifter, Evan. I’m sorry. It’s not you, I just…”
His voice faded away as he shrank back against the sofa. I wasn’t offended or upset. Reid was scared. And, with his background, I could completely understand why. “I’m not asking ye to be my mate or even for a relationship, Reid.”
“Oh.” He went back to tugging on the loose thread. “Then what are ye asking for?”
“For us to spend time together. Stay with me for acouple of weeks. We can kill two birds with one stone. I can keep you safer here than at your flat. You can still leave the lands, of course. For work, to meet up with your friends, whatever you like. You won’t be a prisoner here, Reid. But you will be safer.”
His teeth abused his pretty lower lip. I wanted to kiss it better, but again, I didn’t know if that would be welcome right now.
“What’s the other bird?”
I blinked. “The other bird?”
He smirked. “You said we could kill two birds with one stone and then only told me about one.”
I chuckled. “That’s your fault.”
“I do have a habit of leading people off track, but since I didn’t say anything, I’m not sure you can blame me for this one.”
I caught his chin between my thumb and forefinger, keeping his gaze on me. “Sweetheart, you don’t need to say anything to distract me. You do that just by existing.”
Reid flushed a deep red, squirming in his seat. “You can’t say things like that.”
“I can if it’s the truth.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Let me show you what clan life should be like. That it was never you that was the problem, but them. Please.”
Reid sighed. “I think you might be fighting a losing battle there, Ev.”
“We’ll see,” I said noncommittally, reluctantly letting him go. We would see. Or rather, Reid would.
This man was special and in no way deserving of what he’d been through. I was going to show him that or die trying.
He thought about it for a moment. “Okay. I’ll stay, but on the condition that Finn spares the Clarksons. I hate allthose fuckers, but I really don’t want this developing into war.”
Neither did we. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fully control whether or not that happened. With how tight-lipped the Clarksons were being, even under torture, I knew their plans for Reid were far from over. “I’ll speak to Finn.”
“Thank you.” He went to say more, but cut himself off. From how he was fidgeting in his seat, it was bothering him.
“Just say it, Reid.” I smiled encouragingly. “I promise, ye can’t offend or upset me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, we both know that’s not true. I’ve offended you many times.”
“No, you’ve pointed it out when I’ve fucked up.”
There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Not much, but after the conversation we’d just had, it was worthy of an Olympic-level celebration. “Semantics. Hmm. Where do ye think the word semantics came from? Were there two philosophers arguing one day about two things basically being the same, and one just invented the word for it? I could see Plato and Socrates going toe to toe over it. Actually, were they alive at the same time, or am I making that up?”
