One breath.
Then another.
The third one finally came easier and the crushing compulsion to take her mouth right then and there took a shaky step back. Even his companion was shaken to the core, the sheer need to touch, overpower and claim lashing at deeply entrenched instincts. By some fucking miracle, he brushed a kiss against her forehead, the soft contact nowhere near the iron fist locked around his control. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dinner passed at an easy pace. A little awkward and tentative at first, then easing into a steady rhythm of lighter questions through dinner. Her curious as to how he’d come to work as a tattoo artist with Priest. Him peppering her with details on sports and what she liked about her studies. A seamless back-and-forth exchange that seemed to push the rest of the world farther and farther away and left her open at a level he’d only seen when she’d thought no one was watching.
But as soon as the dishes were cleared, her demeanor changed. Not a shutdown, exactly. More of a cautiousness that pricked at his awareness.
She cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak, then promptly clamped her lips shut and stared at the table.
Long-honed social reflexes prodded him to fill the silence. To nudge and open the door a little by asking what was wrong.
But his beast sat quiet. Waiting. Patient. Urging him to do the same.
He settled for stretching his arm across the intimately sized table and offering his hand palm up.
She stared at it for long moments, her back perfectly straight, her hands fisted in her lap and her gaze distant as though combing through a wealth of memories. Finally, she placed her hand in his and met his eyes. “Will you tell me something about you? Something unique to you. Something...important.”
Important.
Not some random data share about why he was who he was, but something tangible. An offering. Or maybe just a request for someone else to go first.
The memory that raised its head was one rarely revisited. Not because of the remembered pain, but because the hurt that had come with it had long-since served its purpose and been released.
“Our clan’s a lot different today than it used to be,” he said. “Or at least that’s what Mom used to say. Priest isn’t like the high priest who served before him. While he’s got access to all the magic the different houses hold, he honors them all. One house isn’t more important than the other and no one person outranks another. Everyone holds value, no matter how much magic they’re given or what their companion is.”
“How was it before Priest?”
Just like it was yesterday, the old shame and fear of disappointment he’d harbored for years growing up resurfaced. “More segregated. Locked in old traditions and highly competitive.”
Elise wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I’d like that very much.”
“No. I didn’t either.”
She cocked her head, quickly homing in on the distinction in his response. “But you weren’t alive then.”
“I wasn’t there when the old high priest was still alive, but my dad was deeply grounded in the old ways. And the most competitive house of all were the warriors.”
“So, your dad was a warrior?”
He nodded. “A strong one. Strong enough he gave Priest a run for his money a time or two. And back then, when the darkness was still riding Priest’s ass all the time, that was really saying something.”
She held her silence, her body slightly leaned in and her eyes wide. Captivated.
“I wanted to be like my dad. Was just like every other eight-year-old boy and wanted to make him proud.” He shrugged. “Only problem was, I was a runt of a kid.”
“No way.”
“Oh...way.” For the first time in a long time, he was able to look back on the day that had marked him so deeply and actually see it without the judgment. Without all the hurt and agony of an innocent kid’s heart, thanks to Priest’s patience in the months and years that followed. “I was small and weak enough my dad never took me with him to train. And back then, even without a lot of us located in one place, they trained every day. It was a thing with them—they all brought their kids if they thought they’d end up in warrior house.”
“But you wanted to go.”
“Oh, I more than wanted to. I went. Followed him on a boar hunt one day.”
She must have sensed the ending wasn’t a good one, because her shoulders curved in just a little. As if she were bracing to bear the brunt on her own. “What happened?”
“The short version—I came about three inches from taking a tusk to my right lung, another kid was almost fatally wounded and my dad ended up bearing the brunt of my stupidness for months. A few of the men actually told my dad the clan would’ve been better off if he hadn’t pulled me out of the boar’s attack and kept the other kid safe.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
Pure anger fueled her gaze and the way she held her body, Tate was a little surprised she didn’t get up and pace just to blow off some steam. “That’s cruel.”
“Maybe. But it was the way they lived then.”
“That’s no excuse. No child is worth sacrificing. Never.”
“No, they’re not.” Tate squeezed her hand and lowered his voice. “I’m not going to lie. That day hurt and it put a huge hole between me and my dad. One we never got over before he died. But it also made me who I am today and was kind of a turning point for our clan.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters, Priest put his foot down. By that point, he already treated Jade and I like we were his own kids. Learning people in his clan would value one kid over another made him realize how segregated things were. So, he shifted how training worked. Made them like they are today and shifted the focus of warriors from beating their own chests to being all about protecting the other houses.”
She studied his face, openly soaking in the details and piecing together the information as though painting a picture of her own in her head. “And you?”
He chuckled and hung his head, the stubborn determination he’d nursed back then somehow funny when he looked back at it. “I worked my ass off.” He met her gaze and let the warm memories he’d earned in the days that came after wash over him. “Not one day went by I didn’t train. For every one of them, Priest was with me. Jade, too, when she got older. Or, she was when she wasn’t too busy running around with her friends.”
“You grew up,” she said softly.
“I grew into who I knew I was, but it took the pain to push me. To take the bad and make something of it.”
Her gazed drifted to their hands. “You make it sound easy.”
“It wasn’t. Not even close. But I had people to help me.”
He waited, a heated back-and-forth debate going on in his head on whether or not to say more looking like Wimbledon on fast-forward.
She kept her focus on their hands and, when she spoke, it was so quiet he’d have missed it had it not been for his heightened hearing. “Do you think it’s weird a twenty-three-year-old woman’s never been on a date? Never been kissed?”
This was it.
His first real chance to show her she was safe. To build a foundation that would hold her steady. And he’d never been so terrified of fucking up in his life. “I think it’s rare.”
She frowned and lifted her gaze to his. “What’s the difference?”
“Weird implies it’s something bad or awkward. Things that are rare are precious.” He stroked his thumb along the hammering pulse at her wrist. “Considering I got to claim both of those firsts with you makes them pretty damned precious in my book.”
The current that moved between them was potent. A palpable and startling energy drawn tight and untamed. She must have felt it, too, because her hand trembled in his and her lips parted. She snapped them shut
just as fast and ducked her head. “I want to tell you something.”
He was too far away. Too physically disconnected to give her the tangible support both his human and animal halves insisted she needed. But at the same time, he was too afraid to move. Too worried he’d startle her out of the moment and ruin it. “Okay.”
She splayed her free hand on the table then ran a finger along the side of her silverware, the entirety of her concentration fixated on the motion. “When I talk about it now, it feels stupid.” She peeked at him first before fully lifting her head. “Kind of like realizing you made a big deal over something you shouldn’t have, but it didn’t feel like a small thing at the time. It felt huge.”
“Everything feels bigger when we’re in the middle of it. It’s instinct. How we’re engineered to survive. Dealing with the fallout’s usually a much bigger proposition.”
She huffed out an ironic chuckle. “The therapist Mom took me to for about a year after high school said the same thing. Though, you’re a lot nicer to look at when I talk and you got the point a lot quicker.”
A quip to lighten the mood was tempting. Hell, at the moment his torso was locked tight enough it hurt to breathe, and he wasn’t even the one poised on the edge of sharing something obviously uncomfortable. But dodging the issue further wouldn’t help her get on with things so he kept his silence.
Her grip tightened in his for a second, then loosened enough to pull her hand free. With a sweep of her hands toward her torso, she shrugged and gave him a sardonic look. “So, clearly I’m more of a full-figured woman than one you’d find on a fashion runway.”
Fuck, yeah, she was. And as soon as his gut gave him the all clear, he had big plans for showing her how much he appreciated every curvy inch. “That fact hasn’t escaped me, no. Though, we’re going to have an issue if you try to tell me that’s a bad thing.”
She pursed her mouth in a wry grin. “No. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.” Her expression sobered. “Or at least I don’t think it’s a bad thing today. I used to hate it.”
“Why?”
Her lips thinned as though forming the answer she needed sat bitter on her tongue. “Because it drew attention to me at a time when I didn’t want it.”
Breathe.
Don’t react.
Don’t assume.
Fine guidance from his far more patient companion, but hard words to act on when his brain threw all kinds of worst-case scenarios at him at once. Forearms braced on the table, he fanned his thumb along the tablecloth, forcing what he hoped was a casual response. His voice wasn’t nearly as cooperative, the depth of it bordering on a growl. “Attention from who?”
“In a small school like the one I went to? Everyone.” She shrugged. “I developed a lot earlier than the other girls and a lot faster. Which might have been okay and easier to cover up if I hadn’t been so active in sports, but even the most high-impact sports bra can only do so much.”
“And people rail against different.”
She chuckled at that, the sarcasm in her tone thick with bad memories. “Boy, do they. Especially teenage girls.”
Which explained her guardedness with Vanessa. “What did they do?”
Elise shrugged, but at least some of the tension in her shoulders eased. “What you’d expect. Teasing. Passive-aggressive comments. Spreading stories. I mean, I was used to the way they operated to some degree. A lot of us had competed for years and I was really good at dance and gymnastics, so I got a lot of jealous backlash. But by the time I hit my sophomore year and I couldn’t hide my figure anymore, the stories started changing. Boys I’d allegedly slept with at school. Things I did outside of school with men much older than me.” She paused a beat and shook her head. “They weren’t pretty. Definitely, not the kind of stories that died fast in a small school prone to gossip.”
“What happened?” That there was still more to her story was a given. It practically hung in the air between them, a dark and weighty ghost that made his coyote pace.
“I think the girls meant for the talk to backfire and ostracize me, and it worked with other girls. But the boys?” She cleared her throat and hung her head. “It fired them up. Made them curious. Bold. Even the ones who’d been my friends.”
“They hurt you?” This time covering the agitation in his voice was impossible and his skin prickled with the need to shift.
“Not physically, no.” She faced him with a sad smile. “But one of the guys took it pretty personal when I kept telling him no and kept him at a distance. He wanted a mark on his belt whether he’d earned it or not, so he changed tactics and somehow got access to the girls’ locker room. Sports were all I had by that point, so I was there a lot. Turns out, he was pretty handy with a smartphone camera and graphic programs.”
Tate fisted his hands on the table, but otherwise held perfectly still, modulating every breath the best he could. “He doctored them up and spread them around.”
“And no one ever questioned the content. Not once. Not with all the other gossip that had gone on before they went out. The few friends I had dried up. One of them even told me that nice girls couldn’t risk being seen with a slut like me. Said it right to my face.”
God, no wonder she was so reserved. So hesitant to drop the mask she maintained around people she didn’t know. And to think she’d spent what was supposed to be some of the best and most formative years of her life hiding mentally and physically made him want to hunt the lot of her tormenters and bathe in their blood. “What did you do?”
“In a nutshell? I lost it. Mom had an insane time getting me to go to school. My grades dropped, and my heart wasn’t in sports anymore, so I did horrible there, too. One day I just lost it. I needed to run. To get away. So, I did. I took off after school and let it out. Unfortunately, running while you’re sobbing isn’t exactly the safest thing to do. I wasn’t paying attention, planted my foot wrong mid-stride and ended up tearing my ACL. After that, sports were officially over. Mom worked out a home school program for me and that’s how I finished my junior and senior years.”
“And that’s when you figured out what you wanted to be.”
The sad smile she paired with her answer nearly broke him. “Like you said—take the bad and make something of it.”
Oh, he wanted to take the bad and make something of it. Preferably, broken bones and bruises for those who’d hurt her. Which was a lot better than the severed limbs and shredded flesh his coyote craved. “That’s why you haven’t been on dates? Hadn’t kissed anyone?”
“Pretty much.” She mirrored his pose and leaned her forearms on the table. “The thing about small towns is that not many people my age want to stay. Not unless they don’t have other options. By the time I got some counseling and started looking at the things that had happened from a new perspective, most of the people I knew had moved on with their lives. Gone to college, or moved away for jobs. Plus, commuting to school in Lafayette and taking online classes gave me an excuse not to put myself out there.”
“Well, you’re out there now.” Granted, hell would freeze over before he let anyone else get close enough to introduce her to the things she’d missed, but they’d cover that ground later. Hopefully well after he’d spoiled her and made it so she couldn’t even imagine anyone else’s touch. “You’re on your first date. Had your first kiss. What do you think so far?”
For the first time since she’d started her story, her eyes sparked with lightness and a shy smile tipped her lips. “I think I’m starting to see what all the fuss is about.”
Oh, she didn’t have a clue. Had only brushed the surface. And it was going to be him who pulled her into the dark still waters and taught her how to swim. “Does that mean you’re ready for another first?”
She froze the same as small prey caught unaware in the center of a clearing, but a heady jolt of excitement buzzed between them. An alertness that made him it
ch to hunt. “What kind of first?”
He reached across the table and captured one of her hands in his. She might not be ready for the kind of intimacy he wanted, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get her next to him and show her how good it was to live and have fun on top of it. Plus, Rogue’s Manor already had wards in place. “How do you feel about dancing?”
Chapter Eight
Dating and dancing were fun. Or at least they were with Tate leading the way. Granted, Elise’s feet ached from the heels Katy and Jade had talked her into wearing, and both she and Tate were horribly overdressed for the casual bar he’d taken them to, but after the night he’d given her, she didn’t care. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt normal. Alive. Feminine and desirable in a healthy way.
But most of all she felt free. Void of the weight of her past. As if in recounting her worst memories, she’d finally broken the anchors that kept them welded in her soul and let them drift away.
She shifted her cheek where it rested high on Tate’s chest, closed her eyes and surrendered to the band’s sultry blues rhythm and Tate’s easy back-and-forth sway. He’d shucked his suit jacket shortly after they’d arrived and pulled her onto the dance floor the second the band kicked into a slow song.
Lordy, what a treat that proved to be. The hot, hard feel of him against the length of her. His hands on her back. Her neck. Her hips.
And his scent. It was everywhere. The earthy richness of it permeating her lungs. Buried in her skin. She loved it. Gloried in the fact that she carried such an intimate part of him on her physically. A mark no one else could see, but that resonated on the deepest level.
The bass from the song’s final note played out far too soon, lingering in the room with the same sense of longing she’d wrestled all night. As if there was more that needed to be said, sung or felt, but the way to express it was still unclear.
Tate cupped the back of her neck and pulled away just enough to graze his lips against her forehead. “You liked that one.”
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