Chapter 38 #2
A gleam that’s now teary comes into her eyes. She looks down at the clothes in her arms, and something stiffens her stance.
She jerks her head toward the bedroom at the far end of the suite. “Can we talk for a minute, just the two of us?”
I wasn’t expecting the request, but I’m not going to deny her. “Yes. Of course.”
As we head over with Elodie in the lead, Cosgrave hollers after us in a joking tone. “Give a shout if he turns into an asshole again, mia amata.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she retorts without any rancor.
She flicks on the bedroom light and shuts the door behind us. I position myself a few feet away from her, because even with my gloves on, it’s probably not a good idea to be within touching distance when she’s wearing that curve-hugging dress and there’s a bed beckoning just steps away.
Not that her current demeanor provokes any lust. She’s gazing down at the clothes she brought with her, twisting the fabric of the undershirt between her fingers.
Her gaze darts up. “How much do you know?”
The rawness in her voice brings out all my protective instincts. She’s so afraid of something.
Partly, she’s afraid of me.
“I picked up some impressions… I thought you’d want the extra options for covering up,” I admit. “I don’t completely know why. And I didn’t try to divine the answers. I don’t need them. Whenever you’re ready to tell us, you can.”
Her shoulders ease down from their tensed position, but the wryness in her voice still sounds a little forced. “So now you trust me even when I’m not telling you things?”
I can’t help wincing. I earned that jab. “Elodie…”
As I grope for the right words, my mind slips back four nights to barging into the dance club’s basement and finding her crumpled and bloody on the floor. To the surge of fury that came over me, the need to tear apart whoever had harmed her, reverberating through my body with the clang of my glim.
And then her voice cut through the furor with my name and a simple plea. That was all it took to bring me back from the verge.
I was already horrified that she’d have charged into danger on her own because she didn’t think she could count on us—on me. That moment threw everything about our bond into sharper clarity.
I force myself to look at her. “You know my glim almost took over at the club the other night. You stopped it.”
She manages a crooked smile. “I had the feeling it’d cause more problems than solve.”
“I’d imagine you’re right. And you were also right…
” I press my hand to my chest. “The fenris in me knows you. It knows you’re my match.
I felt it so strongly when you called me back…
You knew what you were doing when you trusted our connection, when you woke up my power.
You were right to trust your own judgment. I was just…”
My throat closes up, but I have to say this last part.
I force out the words. “It scared me.”
Elodie’s expression softens more than I probably deserve. “Your glim?”
“No. I mean, yes, that too.” The memory of staring down at the dead mouse brings a surge of nausea with it. “But mostly because of what I thought it could have done to you. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
The idea that I might have turned my innate power on her, might have summoned some fate more horrible than she’s already facing, made me want to tear myself apart. And because I was too much of an ass to admit that, I tore into her with my words instead.
Elodie spreads her arms as if displaying her body for my inspection. “You’ve seen for yourself how little chance there is of that.”
Not even a bullet can take her down. And maybe I knew that even before. But there’s more to the fear.
My voice drops. “It does hurt you, though, doesn’t it? When you first take the injury? If I’d attacked you in wolf form, or invoked some painful disease, or… It would still have hurt even if you got better after.” I pause. “And it hurts you knowing that you’ve cast the pain onto someone else.”
She looked so miserable seeing the woman who’d shot her lying dead on the floor—and that was someone she had every reason to hate.
“I just feel so guilty—oh.” Elodie’s eyes widen. “I’m such a void-head. You’d feel horrible imagining you might put me through pain even if I came out okay. Of course you were upset, and I just brushed it off.”
I grimace. “That’s not the point I was trying to make. I should have trusted you. I’m used to being the one with all the answers, and having to let someone else lead the way when I was in the dark… It set me off-balance. I shouldn’t have taken my discomfort out on you.”
She ducks her head. “I probably should have told you more about what to expect beforehand.”
“I can understand why you didn’t. I haven’t made myself easy to talk to.
” My hand flexes at my side, fighting the urge to reach out to her, not sure if that’d be wise, if she’d even find the physical contact reassuring.
“I’m going to keep working on that. With your other matches as well as you.
It doesn’t do any of us any good to keep fighting. ”
A trace of a smile returns. “I’m glad we agree on that.”
I make an aimless motion around us. “If there’s anything else I can do—now or later—to prove how much I mean this, all you have to do is say it.
If you have frustrations to get out, go ahead and yell at me.
You need me to leave so you can process all this with the other guys, I’ll go.
Hell, if you want to deal out a spanking as payback, who am I to refuse?
I know the other me was better to you, but I can get there. Whatever it takes.”
Because she sees me, and that scares me too, but she’s the only person who’s bothered to really look. The only person who’s cared other than my brother, who kind of has to since I’m all he has.
She managed to look past my assholery to come to me for help, to offer me my full power, and I nearly chased her off.
No crime I’ve ever committed could be worse than doing that again. Than losing what might be my last chance to preserve the bond I’ve waited so long for.
Losing the woman at the other end of that bond, who impresses me more with every day.
Elodie lets out a rough laugh. “I don’t think spanking will be necessary. And I don’t want you to leave. But maybe…”
She sets the bundle of clothes down on the dresser behind her and walks up to me.