Chapter Ten #2
Shane’s dominance revved up as Gage stalked deeper into his space. He wouldn’t be moved or intimidated.
“If we want to see each other, you can’t do a damn thing about it.”
“Watch me,” Gage growled, bearing his own fangs and face twisting with the threat. “She is my pack. She is my responsibility. If you know what’s good for you and what is best for her, you won’t let this go any further. No more dates. No more hanging out. No promises.”
“Did you plan on coming here and telling me what to do?”
“I have a right to protect my pack.”
“I’ll see her as long as she wants to see me.”
“You want her to cry over you again? You want her to be a miserable wreck after you leave? If you care anything about her, you’ll end this now. Kimberly deserves someone who’s going to stick around.”
Shane opened his mouth to argue, but he had no comeback.
He didn’t want to break her, but he still needed her, needed her to be a calming force while he tried to make sense of who he wanted to be as an alpha.
Part of him still considered the idea of ripping Kimberly away from Gage and taking her with him whenever they moved.
He didn’t think she deserved a half-assed alpha like Gage.
Yet, standing toe to toe with the wolf, he began to second-guess his initial assessment.
Gage had the balls to stand up to him, take the brunt of his dominance, and stand up for the well-being of his pack.
Because of that, maybe Shane misjudged him.
“You’re right. She does deserve better.”
Gage didn’t waver but waited for Shane to withdraw some of his dominance before taking a step away. Shane had to hold back his wolf from the instinctive need to reclaim the ground he just ceded to this other alpha.
“I’ll talk to her,” he assured.
“Let her down gently,” Gage advised. “We’ll take care of the rest.”
What Gage didn’t know was that Shane had no intention of backing down from Kimberly.
He never said he would. He said that Gage was right, she deserved better, and that he would talk to her.
What Gage assumed from that was his own problem.
Gage could puff up all he wanted. Shane wasn’t about to let anyone, not even Gage or Dominic, tell him what he could or couldn’t do with Kimberly.
What they shared was none of their business.
What he had to decide was how to go forward.
Kimberly clearly had some reservations. If she didn’t, she would have told him all of this long before it got this bad.
She would have told him everything about Nathan, but she didn’t.
She didn’t trust him. She kept secrets from him.
He thought they were beyond that. If he couldn’t trust Kimberly to share her fears and past with him, how could he expect her to share anything else?
What more would she hide from him? Could he trust her after all of this?
Once Shane laid eyes on her, he felt as if he could breathe again.
Now, he was back to holding his breath, bracing for betrayal, for another fallout.
Kimberly was supposed to be his peace, but all that felt gone now.
Deep down, he knew they could reconcile.
He just didn’t know how or when. He needed more time to process, more time to come to terms with their new situation.
Whenever they talked again, he had to do so carefully and with a clear head.
*
Friday had rolled around and Kimberly was thankful for the distraction of the upcoming wedding preparations.
That didn’t keep her from obsessively checking her phone for any sign that Shane was ready to talk.
It took her all of one night to realize she had been in the wrong.
Pride be damned, she should have told him what happened the morning after her panic attack.
She should have let him in, even if it hurt, even if it felt awkward and vulnerable.
It was Shane. He would have understood and they could have avoided this whole mess.
And now, she knew how it felt to be brushed off and iced out.
It wasn’t until Gage approached her the morning before the ceremony, while she arranged the garland over the wedding arch, to reveal just why Shane had gone radio silent.
He confessed that they had talked, that Gage told Shane everything about the attack and to stay away from her until she regained her footing again.
Her alpha deserved a swift kick to the nuts for overstepping his bounds.
Instead, the moment it all came out, Kimberly’s body went cold and numb, her knees weak, and she stared into the distance as all she could feel was her heart thrumming painfully hard in her chest. Shane knew everything, and she hadn’t been the one to tell him.
Her world spun out of focus with the implications of such thoughtlessness on the part of her alpha. For a second, she thought she’d faint.
But she didn’t. She just chewed him out and ignored his insistence that he felt obligated to protect her from Shane after all he had done in the past. While she could appreciate the thought, his actions were far from appropriate, and Kimberly wasn’t so sure she could forgive Gage this time.
He went behind her back and tried to change the natural course of things.
He was trying to keep someone away from her without ever taking her feelings into account.
Shane very well might have ghosted her again because of what Gage had told him.
She was done being gentle. Done waiting on him.
Done playing phone tag. Done with the radio silence and the secrets.
Shane knew her past, and there was only one way he’d come to a full understanding of the present.
That was how they had any hope for a future.
She just had to act on her decision before she could talk herself out of it.
After her responsibilities at the wedding were wrapped up, she went straight for Shane’s apartment. He had shared it with her after her panic attack because he wanted to make sure that she could find him if she wanted to talk. Well, he was sure going to get an earful now.
*
Shane zipped up the compartments on his duffle bag and double-checked that he had everything packed.
Distance from Tolstone was the last thing he wanted, but probably what he needed.
It’d be the first weekend of several that he would spend away from the pack and Kimberly in his search for a new territory.
He decided to start with the closest town and work his way farther, taking more days to travel as needed.
This trip would only last the weekend, so he didn’t have to request any time off work.
He wouldn’t be gone for long. That was what he tried to assure himself.
The floorboards creaked down the hall outside his apartment, but he assumed it was one of his neighbors. He heard them leave an hour ago and some talk about a grocery store run.
When the knock on his door came, and the scent of Kimberly hit him like a freight train, he rushed out of the bedroom. When he was two feet from the door, a pulse of uncharacteristic hesitation brought him to an abrupt stop.
He checked himself. Was he ready for this?
The last few days, he refused to open the box in his head labeled Kimberly.
All of his efforts were poured into researching towns and coming up with his game plan.
He didn’t want to continually ruminate over how she didn’t trust him.
He wasn’t entirely sure he was prepared to have this conversation, especially when he was about to leave town.
Her urgent knocking told him that she meant business.
She entered his territory on a mission, and it was his wolf that propelled him toward her with no reserves, no strings attached.
If his wolf was ready to see her, maybe his own heart would fall in step, and they could both get their footing again.
He let his wolf make the call and continued headlong toward the door.
Kimberly stood in the hall, arms crossed in a pretty olive-green dress that showed off her lean but strong figure and made her eyes nearly luminescent under her dark eye makeup.
She looked like she had just left a party, and he remembered something about a wedding the flower shop was supposed to service soon.
The whole package made his body hum with want for her, even if she pierced him with a glare that could cut through diamonds.
“I want in,” she demanded flatly.
Shane moved aside without question, and she rushed inside, the potency of her flowery scent making his eyes want to roll with pleasure.
He hadn’t realized how much he missed her smell so much.
She had to know what she was doing, what she always did whenever they were close.
The night at the gym was the only exception to his reflexive panting after her, but only because righteous fury overpowered any desire.
Knowing the bastard that hurt her was long dead helped to bank that fire since he and Gage talked.
That left plenty of emotional fuel for other things, but passion must have been the last thing on Kimberly’s mind.
Kimberly turned on her heels as he closed the door behind them. She didn’t bother to look around the apartment, making Shane her sole focus.
“Now isn’t the best time.” Shane was careful to keep his tone even and not antagonize her any further.
“I don’t care. Gage told me you two talked.”
“We did.”
“He told you what happened.”
“He did.”
Fire sparked in her glare. “He had no right to, even if you asked. I don’t like people talking about me behind my back.”
“You weren’t exactly an open book about it.”
“That doesn’t matter!” Her voice rose to a near shout. “I would have told you when I was ready or when it was important for you to know.”
“You didn’t think it was important to tell me that someone almost raped you before we got physical?”