“The reason I didn’t freak out about you being on assignments in the past was that I was there with you; I was confident I could protect you.” A cynical, self-mocking smile surfaced on his face. “At the castle, I didn’t. Intellectually, I know it’s not my fault that you were hurt, and I know it’s pointless to feel guilty about it. I also know that I can’t lock you away where you’ll be safe, and that you’d be miserable if I tried.”
“So why get so wound up about this?”
“You don’t get it, Imani. A year. I was without you for almost a year. Just when I thought I had you back, I felt you slipping away. You don’t know how many times your heartrate slowed down during the transition. You don’t know how many times you passed out, so weak I didn’t think you’d wake up.”
His eyes glittered with an emotion I would never have associated with Butch. Fear. “It scared you.”
“Hell yes, it scared me.”
While that softened the blow of what he’d done, it didn’t make it okay. He had to understand that or he’d do it over and over. “That isn’t an excuse. I don’t expect you to always agree with my choices, but I expect you to respect my right to make them. Dictating to me, talking down to me like I don’t know myself, was not at all cool, Butch. If I had behaved that way toward you, if I’d showed you that kind of disrespect, you’d be just as pissed as I am now.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not good at this.” He looked so lost.
“Yeah, I already figured that out.” Although I was still mad, I knew I’d have to back down a little. Sam had told me he’d need the room to make mistakes; she’d warned me he’d be a difficult partner. I’d taken the risk, and that meant I had to make some allowances. “I understand that you want me safe. I’m glad that you care. But that doesn’t mean I’ll always bow to your wishes. That’s not how it works.”
He moved to me and brushed his thumb along my cheekbone. “I do respect you. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t.”
I gave a curt nod. “Okay.”
“I hate it when we argue.”
We’d only had two very minor arguments before now. “It’s going to happen sometimes. You’re an alpha, which makes you pushy and domineering. Neither of those things are much fun for me, even though I know you interfere because you’re trying to smooth the way for me and make my life better. I’m stubborn and independent, which means I’ll keep pushing back.”
He rubbed his nose against mine. “I warned you that I’m not good for people.”
Not liking that comment at all, I said, “That’s bullshit. We both have strong personalities so we’ll clash from time to time. That doesn’t mean you’re not good for me, or vice versa. Being dominant and decisive isn’t bad. You’re also very protective and supportive, which I appreciate. Tonight, though, you were too protective and too big, bad alpha.”
He sighed. “Okay. I’ll work on it. But we’re good now?”
“We’re good.”
His arms locked around me and he pressed a gentle, apologetic kiss on my mouth. “Seeing those bruises on your face makes me want to punch something. Sam wouldn’t have hit you that hard if she’d known you’d bruise. Baby, about what you did to her—”
“Let’s not talk about it. It doesn’t matter.”
“Imani, you called blood to you. That kind of matters.”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
He rubbed my back. “Can’t say I blame you for being freaked out.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. “Okay, I’ll drop it.”
I released a heavy breath. “I need a shower.”
“Come on.” He led me to the bathroom.
“I can shower myself.”
“Of course you can. But I want to take care of you. Don’t fight me on it. I need it.”
Sighing, I allowed him to take care of me—massaging my head, shoulders, and arms until all my tension had left me and I was close to boneless.
As he dabbed me dry with a towel, I asked, “What were your other two relationships like?”
He paused. “You sure you want to hear about my past?”
“I want to understand what makes you think you’re not good for people.” That dumb idea had to have come from somewhere.
His hands resumed drying me off. “There was a girl I dated in high school. Back then, I was thinking with my dick more than anything else, so I didn’t see that she was trying to lead me around by it. Kylie didn’t want me to enlist, but I’d made up my mind. She said she’d wait for me. She wrote to me a lot while I was away, always included all kinds of soppy declarations. When I got back, it was to find that she’d moved in with another guy.”
I gaped. “She was living with someone else?”
“In the letters, she hadn’t given me even a hint of this. She’d been seeing him since a month after I left. She hadn’t told me, because she’d wanted to enjoy my shock; she’d wanted to punish me for leaving her.”
I rubbed his chest. “Butch, that wasn’t your fault or—”
“This is just the background, baby. That wasn’t one of the relationships I was talking about.” He sighed. “I didn’t like that she’d played me or that she’d cheated, but after being in a fucking war zone…the whole thing just seemed trivial. And considering she was a little wacked, I was glad to see the back of her. So instead of losing my shit, I walked away. I wasn’t interested in a girl who played games. But Kylie didn’t like that.”
I’d bet she didn’t.
“Maybe she’d expected me to fight for her or something. I know her parents were divorced and they spent most of her life in and out of court, fighting for custody and changes to the court agreement. Maybe that had messed her up. All I know is, she then decided to make my life hell.”
“I hate her already.” I kissed his chest. “Tell me the rest.”
“Any time I was with a girl for more than a night, Kylie would try to chase them away. Most of the time, it worked. If it didn’t, Kylie would step up her game.”
Following him into the bedroom, I asked, “Chase them away how?”
Dropping his towel, he pulled on a pair of pants. “She’d start with telling them lies about me; she’d say things like I was a drug addict or a serial cheater. Other times she’d claim I was actually her boyfriend, and even the father of her unborn—and of course fictional—child.”
“Oh. My. God.” I slipped on a vest and shorts as I added, “What a total bitch.”
“It didn’t even matter to her that she was still living with that guy, who either didn’t know what she was doing or just didn’t care. It didn’t matter that she was also sleeping with other guys. No, she’d decided my life was gonna be hell because I left her.”
“Sounds like this wasn’t about you at all. You said her parents were divorced, so one of them must have left home. That had to have hurt. Then they’d spent all those years fighting over her. Maybe she liked that kind of attention and thought that was what love was. But when you left her just like one of her parents did, you didn’t fight for her. I mean, she told lies about you—I’ll bet that was one of the court tactics her parents used.”
He shrugged. “Only Kylie knows why she behaved that way.”
“You said she stepped up her game if the lies didn’t work. What did she do to the girls?”
“Sometimes she’d spread false rumours about them to piss them off. Other times she’d turn up at their houses with bruises and claim I hurt her, trying to scare them.”
Grimacing, I said, “That’s…there aren’t words.”
“Sooner or later, even the ones who were wise to her games would leave because they’d had enough of her shit and just wanted it all to end.” And he didn’t sound in the least bit judgemental. “One girl, Tori, she was different. She saw right through Kylie, she said she knew it wasn’t my fault and she’d stick by me and make Kylie realise she was wasting her time.”
This was obviously one of the relationships he’d mentioned. “Kylie
didn’t stop with her games, did she?”
He shook his head. “I tried to protect Tori from her as best I could; tried to shield her from Kylie’s shit—even got the police involved, which didn’t help because Kylie’s dad was a cop; they tend to stick together. I went to her parents, told them what was happening. They were no help. They coddled her. No one could convince them that their only child was anything but perfect. It was hard, and it sucked. But Tori swore she wasn’t going anywhere; that she wouldn’t let Kylie drive her away.”
“But she left,” I said softly.
“She said she would have stayed if I’d just opened up to her more; if I paid her more attention and—”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “She was blaming you for her leaving, because she didn’t want to lose face and admit she couldn’t take it.”
He didn’t seem convinced of that. “After my second deployment, I moved to the next town over. I met someone. It got serious. All was good. Helena wanted me to put a ring on her finger. I wasn’t ready for that, but I took her to meet my parents.”
“Kylie saw you.”
He nodded and then pulled on a T-shirt. “She flipped out. Totally lost it. It wasn’t jealousy or a show of possessiveness. She didn’t want me. She just didn’t want me to be happy.”
“What did she do?”
“My parents chased her off that night. She started showing up at my house and Helena’s place of work, ranting the same old shit she’d said to all the girls that came before Helena. Helena was no lightweight, and she saw Kylie for what she was. Each time Kylie did something, she made Helena more determined to stick it out as a ‘fuck you.’”
“But she didn’t stay, did she?” The bitch.
“No. Like I said, she wanted a ring. She felt it was the least she deserved, considering the shit that she had to put up with from Kylie. Maybe she was right. But the thing is, baby, every girl that came before her had walked away. Every one of them. Hell, even my own mother had left me. To me, marriage is forever. I wasn’t going to bind myself to someone unless I was certain they weren’t going anywhere.”
“Helena walked out because you didn’t propose?”
“She left me for a guy she worked with who had been her ‘confidante’ throughout all the trouble with Kylie.” Butch snorted. “She said he was sensitive, made her smile, and cared enough to be open with her. The oh-so-perfect guy dumped her a month later. She came back, but I sent her away. The next time I was in a war zone, I was Turned into a vampire. I never looked back.”
I moved to him. “Now I get it. All of it.” I grazed his jaw with my nails, knowing he liked it. “Butch, they didn’t walk away because you weren’t good enough for them to want to stick around or because you couldn’t make them happy. They blamed you because they didn’t want to admit to you or themselves that they were letting Kylie win after swearing that they wouldn’t.” He had to see that…but he was shaking his head.
“With you, I’m happy. No one could do anything to make me walk away.” His hands settled on my hips. “If they had been this happy, they’d have stuck it out with me.”
Oh, he was too adorable…in his own weird way. “If they weren’t this happy, you aren’t at fault for that. And to be fair, Kylie made things nearly impossible for you.”
“I’m not going to lay the blame at Kylie’s feet. I was never good at relationships. You know me, baby. I’m not a master of communication. I’m not patient or gentle. I don’t have a great sense of humour, and I’m probably the least compassionate person you’ll ever meet. Hell, I find it easier to kill than I do to talk about what I’m feeling. I don’t blame them for leaving.”
He honestly didn’t, and that just pissed me off. “That’s a load of crap. You know that, right? The first night you announced your intentions to me, you said you don’t know how to make people happy. You make me happy.”
His expression called me a liar. “Baby…”
“It’s true. Sometimes it’s simple things, like when you cook my favourite meals or run me a bath without being asked. Then there are big things, like taking care of me during the transition and making my safety your priority. You’re always there when I need you. Oh, and you give first class orgasms. Just sayin’.”
His mouth curved into that lopsided smile I loved. “You happy enough to stick around?”
“Totally.”
He kissed me, savoured me, until I melted into him. Tapping my ass, he said, “Come on.” He led me to the living area, where we settled on the sofa. “Here.” He grabbed my Kindle from the table and handed it to me. “I’m going to watch the game. You’re going to stay with me and just relax.”
So—tired and eager to read a book that had recently been released—that was what I did. Until I received a text message from Fletcher. I gasped. “Ryder’s awake.”
Butch’s eyes shot to me. “About fucking time.”
I jabbed him with my elbow. “It wasn’t Ryder’s fault he was in a freaking coma. According to Fletcher, he’s a little weak right now but he’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“At which point he’ll mind-swipe Marco, Tait, and Juliet and tell us who the fuck hurt you.”
That was the hope. “I think—” I paused as a knock came at the door.
Sighing, Butch headed straight for it and swung it open, revealing David, Max, Salem, and Chico.
“Hey.” David smiled as they walked in, like it was their regular hangout. When Butch just looked at them blankly, David added, “It’s your turn to be host.”
“You forgot,” guessed Chico, pulling out his cell phone. “No worries. I’ll order pizza.”
“Don’t forget chicken wings, potato wedges, and onion rings,” said Max.
Soon enough, my living area was packed with Butch’s squad members. I ended up sitting on his lap to make room on the sofa. Others settled on the floor or hauled in the breakfast bar stools. As I watched them interact, I quickly realised that this was a guy apology of sorts. It was a shit one, in my opinion, but I supposed if one alpha had trouble apologising, a whole bunch of them at one time were bound to be shit at it.
I drowned out all the noise, concentrating on my book. Though I did pause to eat two slices of pizza and a few onion rings.
Once the game was over, David—who was sitting beside me and Butch—gave my leg a little shove. “How’ve you been, Imani?”
I smiled. “Good. I’d feel a whole lot better if everyone here who’d been utter dicks to Butch would actually make a real apology. This version of one is totally crap and it ain’t gonna fly with me.”
David’s mouth twitched into a smile while Salem grunted, seemingly in agreement. The others all looked at each other, rolling back their shoulders and cricking their neck.
Chico cleared his throat. “Imani’s right, Butch. We were dicks.”
I waved my hand, encouraging him to continue because, yeah, that wasn’t good enough.
“We should have had your back but we didn’t,” added Chico.
“And you’re sorry,” I prompted.
A muscle in Chico’s cheek ticked. “And we’re sorry.”
Half-placated, I looked at the others with an expectant brow. “You’re going to make Chico do all the work?”
Reuben straightened. “I was out of line, asking you to leave the arena. Totally out of line. I won’t insult you by trying to make excuses. All I can say is that I swear I’ll always have your back in the future.”
“We took our protectiveness of the girls a little too far,” Harvey admitted. At my snort, he added, “Way too far. That’s not an excuse, though, I know.”
Denny nodded. “Judging you like that wasn’t fair, and it won’t happen again.”
The image of self-recrimination, Damien spoke. “I was a total ass, and I had no right to say the shit I said.”
“I won’t lie and say I think my concerns were unfounded,” said Stuart. “They weren’t. But it still wasn’t my place to voice any of them. And I truly am sorry for not giving you the be
nefit of the doubt.”
“We won’t blame you if words aren’t enough for you,” said Max. “We’ve got to show you we mean it, and we will.”
I looked up at Butch, who surprisingly seemed to be stifling an amused smile. “What do you think? Shall we give them the benefit of the doubt, even though they didn’t do the same for you?”
His amused smile broke free. “I guess we could.”
“Yeah. They’re not too bad at grovelling, are they?”
Affronted, Max objected, “We don’t grovel.”
David snorted. “It was impressive. Maybe not as impressive as Imani’s behaviour in the arena, though.”
Oh, how males moved on from emotional moments so quickly.
“I gotta say, Imani,” began Damien with a grin, “when you called Sam’s blood, I was totally envious. That would be a cool ability.”
“I thought you might lose your gift,” said Stuart, swirling his NST. “I wasn’t expecting you to develop another.”
“I don’t think I did develop another,” I told him.
Chico frowned. “We all saw what you did.”
“But it’s not a gift. It’s just…something weird.” Something I didn’t like.
Harvey smiled. “Whatever it is, it’s awesome.”
“How did you do it?” asked Denny, fascinated. “How did you call the blood?”
“I didn’t mean to. When Sam started to bleed, I recognised the scent, and suddenly the taste was in my mouth…like a sensory memory.”
Butch curled my hair around his fist. “You fed from her during the transition.”
Well that explained it. “I couldn’t stop looking at the blood. But I didn’t have an urge to leap on her.”
Reuben bit into his pizza. “Why do you think you can suddenly do it?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Butch gave my hair a playful tug. “Lena said the serum could cause side effects. Maybe this is a side effect.”
Chico put down his beer-flavoured NST. “See if you can do it now.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I’ll cut my arm. You call the blood.”
I jerked back. “Hell, no! I don’t want to call people’s blood to me.”