Bound by Danger (The Alliance #6) - Brenda K. Davies Page 0,78
had everything to do with the anguish he radiated. She was still mad at him for being an asshole, but her heart ached for him.
“You should have told me you were going through this,” she admonished.
“I should have, but you know now.”
They stared at each other for a long minute before she nodded, but she wasn’t sure what to say.
When she remained silent, he asked the question he’d been holding back for weeks. “Are you going to tell me why you just reacted like you did to me?”
“You… you scared me.”
“I’m sure I did. I scared myself. But, Callie, you’re still shaking.”
Callie couldn’t look at him, so she focused on the bathroom door as she kept her hand against the wall. Her other hand went to her belly as the memories she’d managed to suppress once again bombarded her.
He’d given her the truth and admitted he was losing control. It couldn’t be easy, especially not for someone like him, but he did it.
“I’ve noticed your fear before,” he said. “You cover it well, but I’ve seen it, and it’s not normal. Though you’re the strongest and most courageous person I’ve ever encountered, you don’t always hide that there is something else going on. I believed it was because of me and the way I was in the beginning, but I’ve seen it in other situations, and there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from her as she kept her attention riveted on the bathroom. She was keeping something from him.
The demon stirred again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Callie, tell me what happened,” he said.
She didn’t want to tell him about Carter. He was already on edge; this might push him over, but she couldn’t keep it from him anymore. She’d revealed a lot more than she realized, and he wouldn’t let it go until he had the truth. Trying to keep it from him now would only create a wedge between them.
“Callie.”
The pleading tone of his voice made her tear her attention away from the bathroom. Torment etched his face, and the pleading in his eyes tugged at her heart.
“There was… a… a man.” Though she wouldn’t exactly describe Carter as such, some apes were more of a man than him. In many ways, he was as much of a monster as the Savages. “We dated for a few months, and then….” She shrugged as she held her hands helplessly up before her. “Then it went so wrong.”
Lucien stepped forward and stopped when she held her hands up to ward him off. He ached to hold her, but she didn’t want that.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I’m not really sure.” She stared at him, but she felt like she was looking straight into the past. “His name is Carter. We never had sex, but he started becoming so possessive and strange. He called me all the time, and when I didn’t pick up, he would text me. One day, I received over a hundred messages from him while I was at work.
“All those messages demanded to know where was and what I was doing, even though he knew I was at work. When it first started, I would reply and tell him I was at work and would talk to him later. That wasn’t enough, and the messages and calls continued. At first, I was annoyed and stopped answering, but then I became creeped out and refused to reply. That was when the messages became more frantic and frightening.”
Lucien inhaled a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth. Declan had been teaching him how to keep control of his emotions while he lived in this state of flux and not knowing. However, the deep breath in, deep breath out thing was not helping right now.
“That was when I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore and to leave me alone,” Callie continued. “But the messages and calls continued, and I also started finding things on my doorstep. I was renting a house at the time, and when I opened the door in the morning, there would be roses or chocolates or some other gift there with a note saying he was sorry, to please forgive him, and he loved me.”
Lucien’s fangs lengthened at this revelation. She was his to love.
“I always threw everything out. And then, after a few weeks, things got really bad.” Her voice broke on the last couple of words, and she couldn’t suppress a sob.