Silence in the car. So deep. So painful.
“How did you know?” she whispered, such naked vulnerability on her face that his leopard shuddered under the blow. “I didn’t even know until you said it.”
“Because I can’t forgive myself either.” He kissed her and it was soft, a whisper. “I’m sorry, Tally. I’m sorry.”
Talin’s heart broke into a thousand pieces. With a jerk, she wrapped her arms around the big body of this man she adored beyond reason. Her fingers dug into his back and she buried her face against his chest, able to hear the powerful beat of his heart under her ear. “I never blamed you,” she whispered. “Not consciously.”
He leaned back against the seat, taking her with him until she was almost on his lap. “You have every right to blame me.”
“No, Clay. We were children.”
“Speak the truth now, baby. Only I and the forest will hear you.”
She didn’t answer for long minutes, letting the hush of the trees settle around them. So many years, she’d kept that knot of anger and pain inside of her, letting it fester, sharing it with no one. And all that time she’d been telling herself that she was doing fine, that she’d make it. But how could she?
“I called your name,” she whispered, ripping open a wound so painful, it had never before seen the light of day. “When it started, I didn’t have anyone to cry out for. But the first time it happened after we met, I called your name.”
Clay’s arms squeezed, threatening to cut off her breath but she didn’t complain.
“Maybe I blamed you,” she admitted, bleeding inside, knowing how much her words had to cut him. “But it wasn’t anything so simple. You were the most important thing in my life. I wanted to protect you, too. That’s why I never told you the truth.” So many layers, so many hurts. “And you blame me for my silence.”
“Not for what happened, Tally. Never that.”
But she knew he did blame her for stripping from him his chance to help her. “I would still make the same choice.” This moment, this instant, it was about honesty. “Orrin would have killed you if I’d told and you’d come after him. You were too young when we met.” Nine years old and mostly skin and bone, as if he couldn’t eat enough to keep up with his growing body. Not to say he hadn’t been tough-but Orrin had been a killer.
“I’m a leopard,” he said. “Our women are everything to us. I would rather die than have you hurt. Don’t ever try to protect me again.”
“I can’t promise that.” He was her life. It was that simple.
“You’re the female.” His teeth grazed her ear. “You have to be submissive.”
She was tempted to use her teeth on him in retaliation. “Does that ever work?”
“It worked when you were five.”
That made her laugh and though it hurt, it was also good-with her acceptance of the truth, a truth that was a child’s, not a woman’s, she had unlocked the shackles binding her to the past. But even as she laughed, she wondered and worried about the impact of her words on Clay. He was protective and loyal to a fault. He also had a temper that could simmer for hours, days, sometimes weeks, before snapping. If that temper turned inward…No!
She set her jaw. She would not let that happen to her beautiful, wonderful Clay. Let this damn disease try to kill her. She would not let it win, not until she’d brought the light back into Clay’s eyes.
CHAPTER 17
Safely alone in the car with Clay, it had been easy to make a promise to help him. Now that Talin was in the presence of his packmates, she wondered at her arrogance. He was clearly a much loved and respected member of DarkRiver. What had made her think he had any need of her interference?
Then he glanced at her from where he stood with Nathan and her panic calmed. No matter how much he belonged to these leopards, he belonged to her first.
“I’ve never seen him look at a woman that way.”
Startled, she turned to face the tall brunette who had walked up to stand beside her. Clay had introduced her as Tamsyn, the pack healer. Nathan was her mate. “You don’t have to say that,” she began, leaning back against the kitchen counter.
“Don’t worry.” The other woman shook her head. “I might be a healer, but I’m no soft touch. Just ask Kit and Cory.” She nodded out the window-at the two teenagers who appeared to be running herd on her twins. “They want chocolate chip cookies, they babysit.” She grinned.
Talin found herself smiling in turn. “Excellent trade.”
“I thought so.” Tamsyn’s eyes were warm, an unusual color closer to caramel than true brown. “And what I said earlier, I wasn’t doing it to be nice. If you’d been a threat to Clay, I’d have kicked you out of DarkRiver land myself.”
“You could’ve tried.” No one was going to separate her from Clay.
“Atta girl.” Tamsyn’s grin widened. “Sascha said you had spine. She likes you.”
Talin didn’t drop her guard, though the abandoned child in her melted at the small sign of acceptance from Clay’s new family. “Do you? You don’t think I’m not good enough for him?”
“Hmm, well, now, maybe you’re not.”
It wasn’t what Talin had wanted to hear, though she knew it to be the truth.
“But,” the healer continued, “Sascha wasn’t particularly good for Lucas when they started out, either. There were some damn heated discussions about him falling for a Psy.”
Talin kept getting thrown by these leopards. “Really?”
A nod. “In the end, it doesn’t make a difference what anyone else thinks. DarkRiver men make up their own minds.” The healer’s expression grew pensive. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t poke my nose into it. You should know that-we’re crazy protective of our own.”
The back door swung open with a bang and one of the teenagers stuck his head inside. “Juice?” His tone was plaintive.
Tamsyn waved a finger as she went to the cooler. “Your debts are adding up, Cory.”
“You totally fleeced us on the cookies-Julian and Roman are like demons on crack. Do they ever stop?”
Talin was taken aback by the boy’s smile-a bright slash of unvarnished affection. The teenagers she knew never smiled with such absolute and utter trust.
Walking over, Tamsyn put a jug of something cold and almost colorless in his hand, reaching out to muss up his hair at the same time. “You were exactly the same.”
“Aw, come on, Tammy. Don’t tell baby stories about me in front of a pretty girl.”
Talin was about to turn around and look for that girl when she realized he was looking at her. The cocky charm on his face made not smiling impossible. Just like with Jon. Her smile dulled.
“She’s way too old for you.” Clay’s voice was relaxed as he came to stand beside her. “Go play with girls your own age.”
Cory took the glasses Tamsyn was holding out. “Hah! I told Kit you were hot for her!” A gleeful look on his face, he backed out the door and jogged to the others.
Feeling her face flush at the boy’s estimation of Clay’s feelings, she didn’t know what to say or where to look. As long as he’d thought of her as a…a slut, she forced herself to think, it had been easy to not examine her own reactions too deeply. Why torment herself with things she couldn’t have?
But after the devastating honesty of those minutes in the car, she’d started to wonder if maybe there was hope. He’d been direct in expressing his desire to kiss her, but this confusing need aside, what did she want? She felt no fear when she lay with a man. Worse, there was an absence of emotion. But with Clay…so many feelings, chaos inside her mind, her heart.
Would she feel if he touched her? What if she didn’t? Her mind chilled. No way in hell she was letting the ugly isolation of sex taint their new relationship. If they slept together and it made her go to the cold place inside herself, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. And Clay would know. It would wound him. She couldn’t do that to him.