Chapter Eleven
Jasmine
After my shower, I walked out with a towel wrapped around me to find a maid making my bed. “Ah, my apologies,” she said. “I am almost finished.”
I bit my lip and nodded to her, waiting as she hoovered the glass from the floor. “I’m sorry about all the glass,” I told her sheepishly.
She smiled. “Ah, this is nothing.” Then she looked at my legs. “You want me to help you with the Band-Aids?” My brow furrowed, and I looked down. A couple of cuts from the glass were bleeding again.
“No, it’s fine. Thank you.”
“It is no problem. Anything you need, you ask for Stacey.” I smiled and nodded. “Mr Killion said to make your way to the living area when you are ready.” Then she left.
I was alone again.
I started to change and cleaned up the droplets of blood before securing the cuts with Band-Aids.
I looked like a patchwork quilt by the time I’d finished.
The glass had even cut my throat and the side of my face!
It wasn’t anything that wouldn’t heal, but I was still shocked at the damage I’d done with my voice.
I was in no mood to dress up, so I pulled on a pair of joggers and a t-shirt.
It was quite warm in the penthouse, considering it was turning into an ice rink outside.
When I was ready, I stepped outside the room and into the hallway, preparing for an onslaught of verbal abuse. But what came was quite the opposite.
Kade saw me first. His eyes searched my face, and I saw something in them that made my chest constrict. Not possession or hunger or any of the things I'd learned to watch for. Just... wonder. Like he was looking at something precious and fragile, something worth protecting.
“Your voice,” he said, “is extraordinary. I've never heard anything like it.”
“I'm sorry,” I blurted out, the words tumbling over themselves. My voice came out small and rough, barely recognizable as mine. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I broke your glass. I shouldn't have.”
The shame was hot in my throat again, choking me. I'd destroyed something that belonged to him, had proven I couldn't be trusted with nice things, with professional equipment, with any of this.
“Jasmine,” Kade's voice cut through my spiral, firm but not harsh. “Stop.”
I pressed my lips together, felt them trembling, and stopped.
“It's only a glass,” he said, walking toward me, and his expression softened into something that might have been a smile, faint and barely there. “It's replaceable.”
Only a glass. Replaceable. But it had probably cost more than I made in a week of singing on street corners, and I'd shattered it with a single note, how could that possibly be replaceable?
Kade stopped before me. “You are all that matters,” he said, and the words landed with such weight, such certainty, that I felt them settle in my chest like stones. “Not the glass. Not the equipment. Not anything else in this building. You. Your safety. Your comfort. That's what matters.”
My throat closed up completely. I couldn't have spoken if I'd wanted to, couldn't have forced words past the emotion lodged there like a physical obstruction.
No one had ever said that to me. No one had ever made me matter more than objects, more than convenience, more than the function I served. I'd always been secondary, an afterthought.
But Kade was looking at me as if I were the primary concern.
I didn't know what to do with that.
Movement from Kade's side made me track it automatically. His free hand went to his pocket, then emerged with something white and folded. A handkerchief, I realized. Linen, neatly pressed, the kind of thing people didn't actually carry anymore except in old movies.
He held it out toward me, extending it in the same careful way he'd offered his hand.
“You're crying,” he said gently.
I was? I touched my cheek, felt the wetness there. Tears had been sliding down my face without my awareness, leaving cool tracks on my skin. When had that started? I hadn't felt them fall, hadn't noticed anything past the fear and confusion.
But my fingers came away damp, proof that my body had been expressing things my mind hadn't fully processed.
Kade's hand with the handkerchief moved closer, not reaching for me but placing it within easy grasp. “Take it,” he said. “Please.”
I stared at the white fabric. It looked impossibly clean, crisp, and perfect, entirely too nice for me to touch with my tear-stained hands. But he was offering it, was waiting patiently for me to accept.
My arm moved almost without conscious decision, hand extending from where I'd held it defensively. My fingers reached for the handkerchief, and for a moment our skin touched again. I bit my lip as he caressed my fingertips, pulling me closer.
I fell into his arms, warm, solid arms that held me tight, soothing the tears from my body. The contact sent a familiar jolt of heat through me. Not painful, not threatening, just warm and present, somehow right in a way that scared me as much as it comforted.
And then I smelled it.
Oak, rich and deep and unmistakably Kade. His scent filled my nose, invaded my senses, and made my Omega biology respond with a surge of want that I couldn't control.
Safe, something in me whispered. This scent means safe.
The intimacy of his arms around me was overwhelming. It was a gentle caress I hadn’t experienced before. No Alpha had held me like this. No Alpha had held me full stop. My old pack only wanted me for one thing, and that didn’t involve cuddles and kisses.
Now I was thinking about the taste of his lips, the feel of his body sliding against my own. I looked up at him, and he smiled, releasing me from his arms. I almost groaned as he stepped back.
“All better now?” he asked.
I smiled and nodded, unsure what to say, except, “Thank you,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
His smile widened slightly, reaching his eyes and making them crinkle at the corners. “You're welcome.”
A strange thought filtered through my mind.
It seemed almost impossible. But when he’d held me, it felt nice.
.. good even. Like he was meant to hold me every day till my last. I almost shook my head in confusion.
Because here I was, standing normally, not shaking, and my pulse slowing toward something sustainable. .. with no inkling of fear beneath it.
That had to count for something.