Chapter Forty-Eight
Falcon
Robin is gracious enough to take me on a walk around the academy’s gardens while I try to get my fangs to turn back into regular, non-threatening teeth. I didn’t expect our bond to hit me so hard when I got here. It’s like it’s making up for before by being extra potent now.
One kiss, and every nerve on my body feels like it’s on fire.
It doesn’t help that she seems so open to it.
It would be so much easier to shut my urges down if she wasn’t in that mood, but she’s as filled with lust and need as I am, maybe even a little more so. There was something hungry about the way she kissed me back, and now that’s all I can think about.
My jeans are tight, and they don’t get any looser while we walk.
Lucky for me we’re alone out here, and she’s too busy pointing out the different plants now to notice much of anything else.
“Actually, I’m not sure what this one is, but it’s pretty,” she goes on as we get to the furthest point away from the academy building, and the gates where that guard was standing.
“I don’t know much about plants.”
“Oh, I don’t really know about them either. Just whatever Colleen could tell me.”
“Colleen?” I ask.
“Ivan Hamilton’s Housekeeper,” she clarifies. “She looked after me when my mother died.”
“That must have been hard.”
She shrugs, her gaze hard to read. “It was fine. I … My mom died when I was too young to remember her. I think that asshole tried to sell me as an Omega’s daughter, but Colleen knew what he would do, and she kept me safe in whatever ways she could.”
My blood boils at the thought of her captor and his disgusting ideas.
Anyone who would hurt a child deserves to be sent straight to hell.
Anyone who tries to hurt one of my mates will have me as their personal escort.
I bite my tongue before I can have an enraged outburst.
She doesn’t need my anger.
It’s not going to help anything right here and now.
“I’m glad you had someone you could trust while you were there.”
It comes out slightly bitter, but at least I didn’t scare her with a list of the things I’d like to do to the creep who bought her mother and kept her captive for years.
“I don’t know what might have happened to me if Colleen hadn’t been there.”
“Have you spoken to her since you got out?”
“No. She has a family. She got to go back home to them. I didn’t know until the police told me. I don’t think she was working for him because she wanted to be.”
“If I start to swear, it’s only because I hate that bastard and what he did to you.”
She gives me a weak smile. “That’s okay. I hate him for what he did to my mother, and I didn’t even know about that until I woke up here, at the academy. I think Colleen kept it a secret so I wouldn’t try to kill him while I was supposed to be working for him.”
“He was starving you to death, Robin. You really needed help when I left you here with the doctors.”
“I know,” she admits, after a second of hesitation.
“Colleen decided what I could and couldn’t eat.
I think she was trying to make sure I wasn’t healthy or attractive enough to be sold, because she did other things to make me look ugly when I was younger.
She was only trying to help me. I don’t think she was trying to hurt me. She wouldn’t have done that.”
I didn’t think I could hate Ivan Hamilton any more than I already do, but after hearing what Robin went through because of him, I’m shaking with rage. Clenching my jaw, I let her hand drop out of my grasp and I turn away from her while I try to contain my anger.
The usual steps feel useless, but I go through them anyway.
As I suspect, they don’t work. I grind my teeth.
“I’m better now,” she tells me, a hint of uncertainty in her soft voice. “A lot better.”
She is, and she doesn’t need to meet the monster that lives inside you.
So, put it the fuck away and pull your stupid ass together.
This woman needs you.
Sighing out a heavy breath, I turn back to find her with her arms crossed, her gaze worried while she waits for me to explain. She’s owed an explanation.
Even if it messes things up for me and my pack, I need to be honest.
I clear my throat. “I’m sorry. When I get angry, sometimes I need a minute.”
“You got angry?” she sounds surprised.
“It’s kind of hard not to,” I admit. “Hearing about what you went through …”
“But, I didn’t … I didn’t go through anything.” She shrugs.
I blink, and then I study her face closely.
She really believes what she’s saying.
She hasn’t had time to process what happened.
That’s the only answer that fits.
I let out a relieved sigh.
She didn’t have to go through that alone, at least.
My pack will have the chance to be there when it hits her.
If I needed more proof that this was a fated connection, I have it.
She smiles and offers me her hand again. “Let’s go tell Lana we’re having lunch in the cafeteria.”
I nod slowly as I reach out and curl my fingers around hers.
She leads the way, and I follow her down the garden path.