Ice_Reaux - Laura Wright Page 0,37
if you can’t?”
She looked up at him like he’d just punched her in the gut. “That’s not the point. I have to try. I have to know. They’re my babies, Reaux. I can’t rest until I know they’re safe.”
He released a breath. “I understand. I don’t mean to imply they won’t be found, Karen. I’m only concerned for your emotional well-being.”
“I’ll deal with that.” She gave him a sad smile. “I am dealing with it. But they are, and will always be, my first priority.”
Reaux looked at her a long time. Then a gentle smile touched his normally hard mouth. “You’re a wonderful mother.”
Karen gasped softly. “How can you say that? How can you know that?”
“Because I had the opposite. My mother was always around. Always knew exactly where I was. Not out of love or care. But to censure me.”
They were only a foot apart, but Karen felt herself leaning closer. “Why would she treat you like that?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Those startling gray eyes locked with hers, and inside her ribs that muscle she’d always protected, or ignored, beat with awareness.
“This thing I was born with,” he told her. “She saw it as a curse. As an embarrassment. As a sign I was wicked. And she always let me know how disgusted she was by me.” He inhaled sharply. “I apologize. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
“No, don’t feel that way. I’m glad you did.”
Something, for a half second at the most, glistened in those eyes of his. His cat? His emotions? The child, or cub, he’d once been? She couldn’t read it. And then he pulled back and said in a cool tone, “I think we’re done for the day.”
Everything in her said to push him, encourage him. To be treated like that by the one person you should be able to trust above all others…it had to have cut very deep. But if anyone understood that feelings only came out when they wanted to come out, it was her.
She stood up and pushed her chair back into place. “Tomorrow?” she asked, turning to face him again. “Same time?” She tried a little smile. “Same place?”
He didn’t bite. “Let me check my schedule. I’ll let you know.”
She tried not to show her concern, but it wasn’t easy. When she went to the door, she stopped before she crossed the threshold into the reception area and glanced back. “Reaux?”
He looked up from the file he was holding. His face was a mask of impassivity. “Yes?”
“I feel a little better. Lighter. I think I released some of it today.”
“I’m glad, Karen.”
But he didn’t look it, and she wondered, as she headed out, if she was going to hear from him again. Or if this was their one and only session.
***
After the bombing, a temporary Headquarters had been set up the garden house near Raphael and Ashe’s home. It could barely contain the personnel, many of whom worked outside on makeshift tables or even up against trees. No one seemed to take issue with the close quarters. Except Reaux. He rarely went anywhere with crowds or clusters of female Pantera. It was expected of him, and a habit now. But today he needed to see a friend.
As he walked through the house, searching, he tried to keep a low profile. But it wasn’t long before his scent gave him away.
“Hi, Reaux,” a female called, glancing up from her desk. Which she shared with another female and a Hunter male called Night. All three of them grinned with intent and beckoned him over.
He nodded, but kept going. As he did, low growls and deep inhalations followed his every movement.
“Causing problems?” an amused male voice said the second Reaux entered a bedroom the size of a closet.
“Not trying to,” Reaux answered, dropping into a chair near the male’s metal desk.
Irek gave him a grin. “It’s good to see you, Cursed One.”
Reaux laughed. Always did. His cubhood friend had been there through it all. Seen and heard everything, and even shared his own troubles from the past. “You know I wouldn’t normally come to you, but I need your help.”
Irek was a spy, and had been living in Germany for the past five years. But just recently, like so many, he had been called back to the Wildlands.
“I’m wide open,” the male said, his blue eyes flashing with interest.
“No you’re not,” Reaux countered. “I’m sure your ass is deeply entrenched in this bio weapon thing.”
Dark brows lifted.