“I don’t need your pity, Cian.”
His mouth twisted, and she couldn’t help but stare, thinking about what it would be like to feel those sensual lips against hers. She might not know many things about pleasure, but she knew how to kiss. She’d kissed her share of cute boys in her teens, and had enjoyed the hell out of it, though she’d never been willing to go further than that. Turns out it’d been a stupid choice. Back then, she’d had her girlish head filled with the idea of an everlasting, romantic love when she found her life mate, like Jillian and Jeremy had. Not that their road to happiness had been all sunshine and roses, but she wanted what they’d worked so hard for and had found in the end. Wanted it so badly that she’d been willing to fight for it, too. To earn it. Cherish it. Him. Her man.
Then fate had played the cruelest joke possible, and given her the Irishman. Yes, he was the most insanely sexy and gorgeous and powerful male she’d ever encountered. But he was the worst womanizer in existence. Sayre had heard all the rumors about the pack females he’d bedded until they could barely walk straight. Of his extreme intensity. His talent, skill and stamina, and the way a woman was never quite the same after she’d experienced his bed...or any of the other hundreds of places Sayre had heard he’d taken them.
She’d wanted a man who would love her and build a life with her. And, instead, she’d been given the one who’d always looked at her as if he couldn’t quite stand to be in her presence.
She still remembered the moment when she’d finally realized why there was so much tension between them—the moment she recognized exactly what he was to her. They’d been in a roomful of people, surrounded by their friends, and she knew he’d already picked up on what was between them, or at least suspected it, when he looked over at her and caught her stunned expression. She’d been torn between agony and a need that was so strong she’d had to reach out and brace herself against the wall. Her eighteenth birthday had already come and gone, but he’d looked at her as if she were nothing more than an annoying child.
In that moment, Sayre had been so frightened of how badly he could hurt her. Of the pain he could inflict—not to her body, but to her heart. But then, standing there across from him in that crowded room, her conscience had chided her for being judgmental and not even giving him a chance. For one brief, incredible moment, hope had flooded her system, filling her with heat, and she’d given him a tentative smile. One that no doubt said, I think you’re beautiful and you’re mine and I vow to do everything I can to make you happy. Everything I can to make you want me...make you love me.
He’d answered her unspoken message by taking his phone out and holding her stare as he called someone. She was too far away to hear what he was saying, but she could read enough of the words on his lips to know he’d just called one of them. A woman he would take to his bed and bury himself inside, giving her what belonged to Sayre.
Her girlish heart had died a little that night. And then a little more with each night that went by and he lost himself inside female after female, never attempting to hide what he was up to.
Over the weeks and months, life on the mountain had become intolerable because of him. It was obvious that he had no intention of ever acknowledging the connection between them, and yet, he hadn’t liked her spending time with other males. Not even with Max Doucet and Elliot Connors, who were her closest friends, and the youngest of the Bloodrunners.
The final straw had come a few weeks after the war they’d won over the neighboring Whiteclaw pack. Finally deciding she was done with whatever stupid game he’d been playing with her, the next time Sayre got him alone, she’d given him an ultimatum: he could either stop acting like a jackass and take her virginity, or she was going to say to hell with it all and give it up to the first of her male friends who agreed. He’d been livid at her threat, but she’d refused to back down.
Instead, she’d left his ass standing there in the forest, and had walked away.
What had happened that night had been the most difficult thing she’d ever done, putting herself out there like that, but she’d been fueled by ridiculous hope that it would make a difference. A hope she’d refused to admit even to herself at the time. But now, looking back, Sayre knew she’d been gambling her pride on the idea that if she could just get Cian to touch her, he’d realize she was all he needed and that they were meant to be together.
God, she’d been such a pathetic little fool.
In the morning, she’d heard that he’d left the Alley and nobody knew where he’d gone, or if he would ever return. Her heart had been completely shattered, but within a few days it became clear that more than just her heart had been altered by his absence. And while the others had become aware of her increasing problems with her powers, none of them had ever figured out her secret—and she sure as hell never planned on telling them the truth.
Now, after everything that had happened and all the time that had passed, she could hardly believe he was standing in front of her. All the pain she’d tried so hard to bury these past years came rushing back in a surge of emotion, cutting its way through her insides like a scalpel, and she shuddered as she took another step back from him, shaking, no doubt turning as pale as a ghost. She watched his eyes darken with sympathy, and her palm tingled with the urge to slap his beautiful, faithless face.
“I didn’t know,” he said again, the rough words sounding scraped from his throat. “I would have come home sooner, Sayre. I wouldn’t have stayed away. I was only trying to—”
“Stop!” she snapped, cutting him off. “Just stop. I don’t want to hear it, because if you say you left to protect me from your big bad self, so help me, God, I just might have to kill you.”
He pulled in a sharp breath, nostrils flaring as he shoved one of those big hands back through his thick, dark-as-midnight hair. She’d never seen it as short as it was now, the ends only just brushing the back of his collar. “You know, I should have left for that reason. But I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have had the strength. As bad as I am, Sayre, I left to protect you from something even worse.”
“Oh, God, that’s funny,” she said with a choked laugh, wrapping her arms around her middle. But no matter how tightly she squeezed, she still felt like she teetered on the cusp of falling apart. “What could be worse than you?”
He flinched at that brutal assessment, but didn’t back down. “It’s a long story and we don’t have the time to get into it now. I just...I need you to trust me.”
“Cian, just stop,” she said with a derisive snort. “I honestly didn’t know you could be this freaking hilarious.”
“This isn’t a goddamn joke,” he muttered, giving her a look that seemed to say he was thinking of putting her over his knee and swatting her backside. And, God, did that piss her off. He’d lost the right to even think about putting his hands on her.
“You’re damned right it’s not a joke,” she seethed, crackling with so much energy she was in danger of singeing her beloved garden. “Now get the hell off my land!”
“Sayre.” He said her name on a long, drawn-out sigh, sounding too much like an adult who’d lost his patience with an unruly teen, and she felt her fury tip from emotion...right into action. Bathed in a fiery shower of sparks, she reached behind her and whipped out the gun she always kept tucked against her lower back when she was outside on her own. Just because she didn’t need the weapon didn’t mean it didn’t come in handy. Especially when dealing with rowdy human males who wandered onto her land, thinking they could cause trouble with the woman who lived there on her own. And right now, it felt unbelievably sweet to point
