to buy us time to get the females away. If she is really on our side, this will be the proof we need.”
“I don’t need proof.” Grif forced his fists to remain clamped tight around his weapon and not sailing toward Malin’s face.
It wasn’t easy. Especially since he could see how, with every doubting word Malin spewed, Nayla’s determination to demonstrate her innocence grew.
No matter what he did. What he said. The need to prove herself remained. As if his approval and support and care wasn’t enough.
“You won’t last the suns’ rise and you know it,” Grif snarled at her.
“Maybe.” She swallowed hard. “But Talg could have killed me many times. He never do. I-I don’t think he able let mate go, and I am only connection to her. I no think he kill me.”
“You want me to risk your life on a maybe?”
“No. I want you have faith in me.” She met his gaze head-on, the echo of their earlier conversation swirling in her wide iridescent eyes. “At the cliff, I show what I am capable of. I no hide behind you anymore.”
“I never asked you to. I just don’t need you throwing yourself in front of an oncoming shuttle for me, either.”
She tossed her chin high in the air. “You tell me to know my mind. This is it.”
“No.” He shook his head. This was exactly what he’d feared all along. “You’re not sacrificing yourself out of guilt or some desperate need for approval. That’s not strength. It’s cowardice of the highest order.”
She recoiled as if he’d slapped her.
“Hells, that’s messed up,” whispered Malin, “even by my standards.”
“Shut it,” he barked at the other male before pinning her with a hard stare. “It’s a bad plan. If you weren’t so caught up in your guilt and a desire to prove Talg wrong about your being unworthy, you’d see that. You may be willing to sacrifice yourself, but I am not.”
“You helped me be stronger. Now that I am, you don’t like.” She shouted back at him. “You can’t control everything.”
His rage flared. “Maybe not. But I can control you.”
Her head snapped up. “What that mean?”
“It means you are now confined to Zale’s tent until I’ve decided on a new plan and assured myself that you aren’t planning to go off half-cocked with Malin. Zale will stand guard.”
She reeled on her feet. “I-I am prisoner again? Even after all you promise me? Even after you say I always have choice.”
Guilt flooded through him, a bitter chalky taste that choked the back of his throat. He swallowed it down. He’d always been ruthless when it came to her. That didn’t change now. “A short-term confinement. I can’t have the distraction of worrying over you.”
Another soft intake. “You making a mistake.”
“At least we’ll both be alive to regret it.”
To his side, he could feel Malin’s approval, see the hint of a smirk creeping across his face. It made Grif feel like more of an ass—until he remembered all over again what she’d just offered to do.
“You say you want to stand by my side,” he snarled at her, “to take care of me like I do you, but all I see is a female who doesn’t think what we have is worth protecting above all else. You’re so ready to die. I want someone who I can count on to live.”
She paled, her golden color leaching to dull yellow. She opened her mouth, shut it.
Without a word, she turned and marched toward Zale’s tent.
Grif wondered if it was the kind of separation they’d never come back from.
44
Nayla paced the length of the tent, anger and uncertainty a tight pit in her stomach.
Outside, the faint rustle of Zale’s boots as he paced the perimeter beat a steady rhythm. He’d checked on her several times already, his gaze not hard, but not warm, either.
She was an outsider all over again.
Swiveling, she strode the length of the tent, worry for the females and her pack a constant.
She wondered when Talg had decided to move them and why. Had her disappearance been the cause? It was as good a theory as any. Ramm would have known she’d been captured. He could have told Talg, who would assume she’d broken and told. He’d always said she was weak and a danger to the pack.
Shame burned her at how easily she’d proven him right. It was also a reminder of Grif’s recent harsh words. Was she so desperate to prove her worth that she’d lost her way