It frightened me, as his response to my words was frightening me.
What was going on?
Why was he doing this, reacting like this, when he'd finally heard the words he'd been pressing me to say for weeks?
I didn't understand it, but I feared it.
God how I feared it.
I crossed my arms and leaned forward on my knees, my hands clenched out of his sight. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said abruptly, then sighed and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. "And everything."
"That doesn't tell me a whole lot," I said, and this time there was a touch of anger in my voice. But its source was the fear. The concern over the way he was reacting.
He looked at me for a moment, then shook his head. "You really don't see the problem, do you?"
"If I did, I wouldn't be sitting here feeling so sick to my stomach. I'd be trying to fix whatever it is."
He leaned forward and pulled a hand free from under my arm, wrapping his fingers around mine. His skin was warm compared to mine, his touch strong and steady. "Why didn't you ring me when you couldn't make lunch?"
Exasperation ran through me. An exasperation wrapped in anger, and it made my voice sharp. Or maybe that was the fear twisting deep inside. "Because a psycho knocked me out and kidnapped me."
"So why didn't you ring me when you were free?"
"Because there was still stuff to do, things that needed cleaning up."
"So they were all more important than making a simple phone call?"
"I just wanted it all over so I could concentrate on you." You and me. I bit my lip and blinked.
Dammit, I would not cry.
I wouldn't.
Not until I was sure there was something to cry about.
He caressed my wrist with a gentle finger. As warm and as good as his touch was, it only succeeded in stirring the butterflies in my stomach to an even greater frenzy.
"As I said before, I'm never first in your thoughts, Riley. I'm never the one you turn to, never the one you share hurt, or pain, or dreams with. I care for you—care for you a lot—but I'm beginning to doubt the feeling is returned."
"Which is why we go solo—to discover if this is the real, soul mate deal, or just another good thing not meant to last."
"But I can't go solo as things stand. The last few days have proven that."
Maybe I was dense. Maybe the last few days had been tougher than I'd thought, because he was confusing the hell out me. And yet I had a feeling that he thought it should have been all so perfectly clear. "What do you mean?"
He smiled, and it was a tired smile, a smile filled with sadness. "I'm an alpha, remember? As I keep reminding you, it is in my nature to want to protect all that is mine. But there can never be any protecting you. Not with your job."
"I'm not expecting—"
"I know, and that's not my point." He hesitated, then added more softly, "Do you know what it is like, being left behind? Knowing that you're in danger, that at any second you could be killed, and that there's nothing, absolutely nothing, I can do to help you?"
I touched his cheek lightly. He didn't lean into it, didn't react in any way. It seemed he was holding more than the emotion in his words in check.
"But I'm here, I'm safe," I said, after a moment.
"And one day, you might not be here, might not be safe." He squeezed my hand, then released me and sat back. Moving away from my touch. And I felt sick, so sick, that bile rose up my throat and I had to swallow heavily.
"I can't live like that, Riley. It's just not in my nature."
"But—"
"The only way we could work is if you give up your job. Otherwise, there's just no way we could last."
"I can't—" The words came out an agonized cry. Of all the things I wanted in this world, that had to be second in line, right after a family of my own. I'd love to give up my job as a guardian, and just be another wolf working for the Directorate. Like I had been, before Talon and Misha and their psycho brother had come into my life.
But with the drug in my system starting to make huge changes, I dared not walk away, even if I could. Who knew what was yet to come?
I couldn't handle it alone. Couldn't rely on Rhoan. We simply didn't have the resources to monitor what was going on in my body.
"Can't, or won't?" he said, harshly.
"Dammit, Kellen, this is unfair!" I thrust to my feet and began pacing. "You've asked for a commitment and now that I'm ready for that, you're backing away and saying we can't work. Where is the justice in that?"
"There's no justice, just honesty, which in this case is more important."
He stood and walked up behind me. But I stepped away from his touch, unwilling to feel the familiar warmth of his arms. Control was tenuous enough as it was. I might just lose it if he held me tenderly while in the middle of breaking up with me.
He dropped his hands to his side, then added, "I can't help what I am any more than you can. I don't want to make this decision, Riley, honestly I don't. But I can't spend a lifetime waiting at home for you. Wondering if this time will be the time that you don't come home. I believe we could be good together, but I want the whole white picket fence ideal, and that just doesn't include a soul mate who risks her life and our happiness on a daily basis."
I wrapped my arms around my body and just looked at him. I was shaking, shivering, because suddenly there was no warmth in the room. Or maybe it was because my future suddenly seemed as bleak and as lonely as it had in the worst of my dreams.
Why do this now? I wanted to scream. You knew what I was, you knew about my job. Why do this when Yd finally decided to take that step, to take a chance?
But I kept the rage and frustration and hurt inside, and didn't do or say anything.
Because deep down I understood.
I mightn't like his words, might hate his actions, but the truth was, I understood them. I wouldn't want to be committed to someone whose job was so dangerous that I knew one day he simply wouldn't come home. That one day, I'd feel his death and know my life and my heart had just turned to ashes.
It was a big thing to ask of anyone.
Cops and firemen knew all about it. They had the highest percentages of divorce and relationship breakdowns for good reason.
Even so, I couldn't help saying, "Don't do this." Please don't do this.
He sighed. "I'm sorry, Riley, I really am. But the last few days have really brought home just what life with you will be like if you don't give up work. And I'd rather live without you than live with that."
My eyes were stinging, my body shaking, and my heart seemed to be just aching deep in my chest. And I couldn't think of anything to say, because there was nothing to say. His mind was made up, and nothing short of me quitting my job was going to change that.
I should have let myself smash down on the rocks. It would have hurt a whole lot less.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, then said, "Go. Just go."
"Riley—"
"No," I said. Forcefully, flatly. "No more. There's nothing else you can say or do to make this any better."
He stared at me for several seconds, an aching, angry heat I could feel more than see, then turned on his heels and walked out.
As the door clicked shut, the tears came. Great, sobbing gasps of pain that came from deep within, from the place that had held so many dreams.
Dreams that now lay shattered and broken on the ground.
Just like my heart.