his hand was there, cupping my chin, urging me to look at him, I did as he silently asked, because he’d been gentle with me. Gentle when another man might have responded aggressively to what I’d done.
“What was that?” he inquired.
And I couldn’t blame him for asking.
“It was…” I blew out a breath, because how did I put into words what I didn’t even know I’d done? “I-I think I was putting memories in your mind.”
“Memories? Of what? Someone treated you like that?” His voice went from confused to angry, but it wasn’t an anger I had to be scared of. It was for me. In my defense.
Kali Sara, I wanted to cry at the thought.
He wanted to tear apart my past. Rip into my memories because they dared hurt me.
What a man.
“My parents,” I rasped. “That was how my father treated my mother.”
His mouth tightened. “Then he was a disgrace. Disgusting.”
I nodded. “I know. I’m sorry I did that, I didn’t mean to, it just happened.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Is it something I did to make you feel that way? Something that made you feel unsafe with me?”
I shook my head as my eyes widened at the thought. “No! Not at all!” I clambered onto my knees, not stopping until I straddled him again. I lowered myself so my tits were against his chest, my elbows on the ground beside his head, not letting him look away without registering how much I trusted him with me and my body.
My perfections and imperfections.
“It was instinctive. A defensive maneuver, to be honest, even though I know Ethan and Eli are just like you, I’ll still do it.”
“Why?”
“Because my she-wolf insisted.”
And just like that, his concern whispered away on the wind. “Ah.”
His acceptance, so immediate, had me blinking at him. But it was the truth. I hadn’t fed him a lie. That part of me I’d discovered earlier, the part that was able to growl deep in my soul, and who had feelings and thoughts and urges, was the one behind that ‘scan.’ Because me? I didn’t have a damn clue where to start with my powers, never mind do something I sensed was advanced.
I bit my lip, relieved at his acceptance. So relieved, in fact, that I dropped my head to his and pushed our foreheads together.
I sighed, letting it brush over his lips. “Thank you.”
“For what?” His brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
“For not getting mad at me.”
“I wasn’t mad.”
“What were you then?”
He snorted. “Confused. I had all these thoughts in my head, and they weren’t mine. I didn’t know where the fuck we were, but then, all of a sudden, I’m doing weird shit and thinking weird shit?” His eyes flared wide like the memory was too real. “It was surreal, and I’m just glad those thoughts weren’t like, I don’t know, burrowed away in my head or something.”
“No, they were my memories,” I assured him.
“How did you do that?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t lying, and the deepening of the furrow in his brow confirmed he knew I wasn’t.
I reached up and traced the furrow, gently lining it with my fingertip, before I trailed it up to his hairline.
“You’re more powerful than we expected,” he said softly, “but then, why wouldn’t you be when you unite an alpha and a beta together?”
“And you,” I inserted.
He shrugged. “I’m nobody.”
I shook my head, annoyed. “Don’t say that! That’s so wrong.”
His nose crinkled. “I’m not, love. That’s okay—”
“No, it isn’t. Eli says he’s putting you on the council.”
“I don’t think that will work.” A sigh gusted from him. “He can start the ball rolling, which he has, but he can’t make a place on the council. That’s something the entire pack has to agree with, and honestly, that’s not going to be easy. If he wanted to create a space for Brandon, then I figure the pack would allow that. But with Ethan on there already, and then the fact that I’m a twin—”
“This twin shit is really pissing me off. What the hell is wrong with these people? There’s nothing wrong with being a twin!”
“It’s a cultural thing,” he replied softly. Sadly.
So fucking sadly that I wanted to scream.
Either that or sob on his behalf.
I didn’t like it, not one bit, and I sure as hell didn’t like that he was thinking of himself as some kind of poor relative.
There was nothing I could do about that, nothing I could do to change his opinion of himself immediately, but