My lips part in shock. “I did?”
He nods, his gaze colliding with mine. “It was a few months before you die—went to the Common Realm. You were bugging me about why I wore them, always getting irritated when I burned myself, kind of like you just did now.” His sad smile makes me want to cry. “Finally, after you wouldn’t let it drop, I told you the reason.” He stares off in the direction I threw the rings. “After I did, you pinned me down, pried the rings off me, and chucked them into the trees.”
“I pinned you down?” What?
He nods, his focus returning to me. “You were very strong for how young you were. A lot of the trainers said you had great potential.”
“I’m not very strong anymore.” I fold my arm over my waist where my scars are hidden, proof of how weak I’ve become.
“That’s because you’ve been out of touch with the Midnight Realm for so long. Not to mention, you haven’t been training in over a decade.” His brows furrow. “Unless you were training in the Common Realm to fight? I’m not sure if they train fighters there.”
“They don’t train fighters in the same sense. But there are classes that you can take to teach you how to defend yourself.”
“Defend yourself from what?” He notes my arm wrapped protectively around my waist.
I struggle to remain composed. “Other humans and the few imprisoned paranormals who manage to break through their binding spells that keeps them from attacking humans.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“No, but it happens enough that people do sometimes get hurt by the hand of a paranormal.”
Again, his attention zeroes in on my abdomen, question marks filling his eyes.
“You said you told me why you wore those rings,” I try to distract him. “Will you tell me again? I want to know why you think you need to hurt yourself.”
He closes his eyes and breathes in unevenly. “It’s painful to talk about, and I don’t really do well with talking about … painful things.”
I interlace my fingers with his, a move that’s becoming strangely and increasingly natural. “But you told me once before.”
“I know.”
“Can you trust me enough to tell me again?” I replay my words. “Well, I guess trust probably isn’t the right word since we barely know each other.”
“But we do know each other.” His eyelids open, his eyes glowing brighter than before. “And I do trust you.”
I don’t know if his words carry any truth, but I latch on to the opportunity to discover why he feels the need to self-inflict pain. “Then tell me.”
His gaze lowers to our interlocked fingers. “I think you’ve probably already caught on that my father isn’t very kind. And he’s not. Not to my mother. To my sister. To his pack … To me.” His throat muscles bob as he swallows. “He’s always been a little worse with me, though, He likes to put me through vigorous hours of training to the point where I nearly bled to death a couple of times. And he was always the one I was fighting against during those training sessions.” His hand twitches. “And if I cried, the sessions would always end with more pain. Pain and pain and pain. Physical pain, that’s what I grew up knowing. It’s how I learned to handle things.”
He rotates my hand over, brings my palm to his nose, and breathes in my scent with eyes shut. “When I was seven, he gave me the silver rings and told me to wear them all the time. To use them to block out my emotional pain because, according to him, emotions make werewolves weak.” He moves my hand to mold around his cheek and lays his hand on top of mine. “At first, I didn’t believe him, so the first time you threw the rings into the trees, I let you. Then you disappeared, and I …” He pauses, gathering a breath. “I didn’t want to deal with the pain of losing you, so I put the rings back on. It seemed easier at the time to deal with things.” He tilts his head, nuzzling into my hand. “Maybe it was, too. But now …”
My broken heart breaks a little more. Not for myself, but for him.
“And now what?”
His eyelids lift open, his shimmering eyes basking me in violet light. “And now I think I’ll let the rings stay in the trees.”
“Good. I’m glad. No one should intentionally hurt themselves.” I chew on my bottom lip as his eyes alter between violet and blue. “Jules, I want to know—need to know—why your eyes keep glowing violet? Is it a werewolf thing?”
He hesitates. “Sort of.”
“Will you explain it to me?” I ask as he positions my knuckles in front of his lips.
“I’m not sure you’re ready to hear that story just yet.” His lip rings graze my skin as he kisses along my knuckles.
The softness of his lips is extremely distracting and conflicting. On one hand, the sensation of his lips caressing my skin sends wonderful tingles across my skin. However, below the scars, in the pit of my stomach, nausea burns.
He’s a werewolf.
A wolf.
Just like those werewolves who hurt you.
“Jules, I think maybe we should …” A soft whimper fumbles from my lips as his mouth trails up my forearm, kissing, touching, branding my skin.
“You smell just like you used to. Do you know that?” he whispers as his lips reach the curve of my shoulder. “And you threw the rings into the trees, just like you did when we were younger.”
I’m not quite sure what he’s getting at, nor do I care at the moment. All I care about—can comprehend—is the way his lips trace over my shoulder, across my neck, along my jawline. When he reaches my lips, he pauses, his breath dusting across my mouth.
“Lake.” He struggles to breathe steadily. “I want to … I think …” His eyelids lower as his lips inch toward mine.
Maybe I should run. Perhaps if I were smarter, I would have. Instead, I remain frozen where I stand, half-panicking, half-wanting.
Desire.
Desire simmers through my veins in a way I can’t even grasp. A foreign feeling, I realize then. I’ve never felt anything like this before. The heat so intense. Or so I thought. Then his lips connect with mine in a featherlight kiss and my body erupts in flames.
I groan as Jules parts my lips, tangling his tongue with mine, digging his fingers into my waist. When he pulls back an inch, I gasp.
“Good fucking wolves, this is better than I ever imagined,” he whispers shakily, then moves in for another kiss, this time with far less control.
Our teeth clank together as his lips crash into mine, and he entangles his fingers through my hair as he draws me closer. My chest presses into his as he bites my lip, the metal of his lip rings cutting my skin in the most wonderfully confusing way ever.
A pathetically needy whimper flees my lips as he bites at my lip again, rougher this time, a shudder rippling through his body. Then he kisses me deeper, fiercer, while backing me into a tree.
When my back hits the trunk, the bark scrapes through the fabric of my shirt. Then he presses his body against mine, and heat sparks from somewhere inside me, my knees knocking together, a haziness webbing through the inside of my mind, a ghost of a whisper telling me this is okay. That I should be kissing Jules.
Okay, this is okay.
Is it?
I grab his shoulders as confliction dances inside me, an internal tug of war.
Would he be kissing you if he knew the truth?
Should you be kissing him when he’s the same kind of creature who ruined you to begin with?
You’re broken.
He won’t want you.
You don’t want him.
You’re broken.
Broken.
Broken.
I wrench back, the back of my head smacking against the tree.
Jules’ eyes fly open, the violet flashing wildly inside his pupils. “What’s wrong?” he chokes out, his fingernails clawing at the bark of the tree as he breathes profusely.
“I just … I don’t …” I suck back the tears threatening to come out. I feel ashamed for almost crying. Ashamed for kissin
g him. Ashamed for wanting to kiss him. “I’m just not ready for this.” I motion between the two of us. “Not when I just learned that I’m a werewolf. There’s so much to take in.”
He nods, his eyes flickering like little fireflies. “I get it.” He pushes away and turns his back toward me. “Can you do me a favor? Can you hike down the trail until you find Shade, then wait there for me? He won’t be that far away.”
“Are you okay?” I reach out and touch his shoulder.
Tension steams off him as he steps away from me. “I’m fine … Just go find Shade, okay?”
Is he mad at me because I stopped the kiss?
Anger and humiliation simmer under my skin. “Yeah, okay, fine.” I turn and hurry up the path with my hands balled at my sides
By the time I find Shade, I’m beyond embarrassed, resting somewhere between enraged and confused as fuck.
“Where’s Jules?” Shade asks, straightening from the tree he was leaning against.
“Back down the path, having a fit.” I stop in front of him. “Where are Legend and Rune?”
He hitches his thumb over his shoulder. “They headed farther down the path toward the pit.” He searches my eyes. “What is Jules having a fit over?”
“I don’t know.” Lukewarm heat flushes across my face as the kiss replays through my mind. No, that was more than a kiss. Way, way more intense than just lips brushing against each other.
“I think you do,” he nudges. “So, fess up. What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I snap. “Well, anything he should be pissed off about, if he was a good guy, that is.” I guess he’s not, though. I don’t know why I’m surprised—he’s a werewolf, after all—but I am mad. Jules seemed so different from those guys in the alleyway. Then I saw the same uncontrollable anger as I did in them.
Shade’s brow meticulously arches. “What’d you do?”
“I already told you. Nothing.”
“Obviously, you did something. Why else are your cheeks cherry red right now?”
I grit my teeth. Fuck. I’ve always hated that I blush so easily. Hate that I feel embarrassed about this at all!
I cross my arms. “Fine, you want to know what I did? I let Jules kiss me, and then stopped it when things became too heated and I became a little overwhelmed. And if Jules was a good guy, he would’ve been okay with it. But he got all pissed off and told me to leave.”
“Well, first off, Jules isn’t a guy—he’s a werewolf—and you really should stop referring to him as one.” Shade folds his arms across his solid chest. “And secondly, he’s a werewolf.”
“Yeah, I got your point the first time. I don’t know why you had to point it out twice. I’m not stupid.”
“No, you’re not, but you don’t understand a lot about our kind.”
“Okay, then explain it to me. Stop tiptoeing around whatever it is you don’t want to say.”
He gives me a cocky grin. “I’m trying to keep that pretty blush on your cheeks from getting more out of hand.”
I carry his gaze despite the increasing temperature of my face. “Just tell me.”
“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He shrugs. “Jules sent you away so he could calm down his wolf that your little kiss unleashed inside him. He’s probably beating the shit out of a tree right now to get rid of all the sexual tension bursting inside his body.”
Yep, flames, flames, flames burning hotly across my cheeks.
“That seems like a stupidly barbaric thing to do just because I asked him to stop kissing me.”
He gives a shrug. “Like I pointed out a bunch of times, we’re werewolves, which means we’re part animal and more barbaric.”
A cold trickle shoots up my spine, and Shade more than notices my squirrely-ness.
“Lake, he would never hurt you,” he promises. “Jules isn’t like that. Most werewolves aren’t.”
“But not all.” It’s not a question.
“No, sadly not.” He doesn’t even bother lying to me, and I’m kind of grateful for his honesty, even if his words make me want to puke. “But we do have laws in our pack that protect werewolves from hurting others.” He offers me a small smile. “I promise you, you’re safe here.”
“I hope so.” I picture Jules back down the trail, bashing his bloody fists against a tree after I just convinced him to get rid of those damn rings. “Maybe Jules and I shouldn’t kiss anymore. I mean, if it’s that big of a deal, he should probably just kiss another werewolf.” Who’s a bit more mentally stable.
“Yeah … that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? I’m sure there’s a ton of other werewolves who’d love to kiss him without stopping.” Although, the idea of him kissing another werewolf does make my heart sting.
“You’re blushing again,” he teases then sighs when I scowl at him. “Look, I’m glad you’re concerned for him, but Jules isn’t going to find another werewolf.”
“I highly doubt that. There’s no way he’s only going to want me forever.”
“Doubt it all you want. You’re just living in denial.”
I shake my head, doing exactly what he implied. “I’m not living in denial. I just know that Jules is attractive and seems pretty sweet when he’s not having a temper tantrum.” Plus, he’s a really good kisser, but I’m not about to say that aloud. “And I’m sure, if he tried, he could find someone way better to kiss than me.” The broken werewolf princess who fears her own kind.
“And again, I stress: you’re living in denial,” he says. I open my mouth to protest, but he talks over me. “Because what you’re saying can never happen, will never happen, and hasn’t ever happened.”
“Do you know that werewolves love forever, too? We’re not immortal or anything, but we love just as fiercely as vampires do. Maybe even more so,” Jules had said to me.
“Wait. Are you saying Jules has never …?” I can’t even finish the sentence.
Shade nods. “Jules has never been with anyone else. Never wanted anyone else. Never had one of those drunken nights where you get faerie wine goggles and end up going home with what you think is a werewolf. But come the next morning, you realize you’re snuggled up in bed with a pixie.” He hisses the last part with astounded shame.
“I thought pixies were supposed to be pretty?”
“Wolves no. They’re not even close. And they have a lot of strange sexual fetishes that …” He shudders, eyes wide. “Anyway”—he clears his throat—“never sleep with a pixie. Not just for Jules’ sake, but to protect your innocent mind from very dirty things.”
“Okay.” I try not to think about the alleyway, but the memories consume my mind. “You do have me really curious what a pixie looks like.”
“Curiosity killed the wolf,” he warns. “If you want a good idea, just picture an ogre’s face on a snake demon’s body.”
“I don’t know what either of those look like.”
“Lake, Lake, Lake.” He clucks his tongue. “We really need to start teaching you more about our realms and the paranormals who live in them.”
I raise my brows. “Maybe you could start with why Jules has never been with anyone else. And why his eyes glow violet sometimes.”
“Um … yeah … I’m not sure if I should tell you—”
“Tell her what?” Jules appears by my side like a stealthy ninja wolf.
I press my hand to my racing heart as I whirl around. “Holy shit, I didn’t even hear you walking up.”
“Sorry I scared you. Although, I’m kind of glad I did.” His eyes, which I notice are now blue and dull of light, shift to Shade. “It lets me know that my so-called guard isn’t doing his job.”
“She distracted me,” Shade gripes, his fingers wrapped around the knife tucked in his shoulder holster. “And I was about ready to draw, but I smelled your scent.”
“Your draw would’ve been too slow,” Jules growls out. “If it hadn’t have been me approaching, she would’ve been dead.”
 
; “No, she wouldn’t have.” Shade releases his hold on the handle of the knife. “You know as well as I do that, slow draw or not, no one can move as quickly as I can, except for you.”
“Fine, maybe not dead, but she could’ve gotten severely hurt.” His chillingly cold gaze bores into Shade. “Don’t ever be too slow to draw again. At least when you’re protecting her.”
Shade bows his head. “I’m sorry it happened. It won’t ever happen again, I promise.”
Jules nods once, the stiffness in his muscles gradually unwinding. “And I’m sorry I had to go there. It’s just really important to me.”
Shade raises his head and fleetingly steals a glance in my direction. “I know.”
What Shade and I were talking about earlier, about Jules not being with anyone else and how he won’t be with anyone else but me, crosses my mind.
Why am I so important to him?
“We good?” Shade asks, sticking out his fist.
“Of course.” Jules bumps his knuckles against Shade’s then turns to me apologetically. “I’m sorry I freaked out on you back there. It’s just …” He massages the back of his neck sheepishly. “I needed to take a breather.”
“It’s okay. Shade explained …” I drift off as Shade shakes his head and puts his fingers to his lips.
“Don’t tell him I told you,” he mouths. “Not right now. Not when he’s still …” He clasps his hands together and makes dreamy eyes at me. Whatever the hell that means. “Or else he’ll …” Then he pretends to punch himself in his manly parts.
“Shade explained what to you?” Jules starts to turn his head toward Shade.
Shade pulls an oh shit face “Nothing. I told her nothing at all.”
Jules stares him down hard. I can almost feel the amped up adrenaline pouring off him. Apparently, Jules worked off some of his tension, but not all of it.
Deciding to help Shade since he did tell me more than anyone else has, I step between him and Jules, then ask Jules, “What happened to your cheek?” as I cup his cheek and tenderly brush my fingers along a diagonal cut below his eye.
He instinctively leans into my palm. “A tree branch cut me.”