Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,75

you are going to tell me all your secrets.”

“Something to stay alive for,” I said, and she nodded, her eyes bright.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Maddie

* * *

Jensen’s fury was still written across his face when the alarm blew at the end of the workday.

I’d returned to work, moving as best as I could despite the painful welts and bruises across my body. I was moving slowly but I didn’t want to attract any more attention, so I just kept going. Jensen stayed near me, radiating so much protective fury that it made me worry about him.

Once the alarm whooped once, signaling the end of the workday and the beginning of our dinner, the two of us fled into the showers. I just wanted to get cleaned up. I was splattered with mud still, it was caked into my clothes.

“Nothing broken, right?” Jensen asked me as I began to strip off the muddy clothes.

“That hasn’t changed since you asked before,” I chided him gently.

He looked so angry. I didn’t want to touch him when I was filthy from the work and the mud, but I almost couldn’t bear not to. If Jensen was that furious, he must have felt really scared for me.

“I told Silas to do it,” I told him.

He shook his head, his jaw still tight.

“If you want to be angry at someone, then be angry at me,” I said.

“Fine,” he exploded suddenly. “Maybe I will be. God damn it, Maddie, do you always have to be the hero? You could have been killed.”

He said hero as if maybe he meant hero, or maybe he meant asshole.

“No, I couldn’t have; Silas got there first. And anyway, it’s not that much worse than being at the academy,” I promised him.

Despite how blasé I sounded, I winced as I reached to turn the water on. As I tested it with my hand, wondering if the cold spray would ever heat up or if this was the best I could do. I wasn’t sure the Establishment would waste hot water heaters on their captured Rebels. The entire place seemed like an invitation to freeze to death.

“It isn’t?” he asked, his voice like ice, and I knew he’d seen my back. I twisted my head over my shoulder, trying to get a glimpse, but the movement pulled at my sore muscles and I gave up.

I was probably better off without seeing it, anyway. As the cool air slid over my now bare skin, I could feel each raised welt across my shoulders and ass. Silas had made sure he didn’t hit me anywhere that would leave lasting damage; I might be moving painfully now, but I’d recover.

I’d just be miserable during the process

“Does it look worse than the tawse, really?” Hot water sprayed against my outstretched palm, and I stepped into the water with a sigh of relief. I washed away the mud, which pooled in the water around my feet.

“He shouldn’t have hit you like that,” Jensen said.

“He did what needed to be done.” I tilted my head up into the spray, running my fingers through my hair, getting the last of the filth out. “Silas is always focused on the endgame.”

“Is he? Always?” Jensen’s voice was harsh. “Why does he call you rabbit?”

My stomach froze. I’d always been afraid of the moment when the guys confronted what Silas did to me when we were in the coven; now even without those dark moments being exposed, they’d seen what Silas was capable of doing.

“Jensen,” I began softly.

“No, don’t,” he cut me off. He was in the spray with me a second later, his hands on my waist, as the shower soaked us both. He bit off, “You don’t need to use that nice tone and try to make me feel better. You’re the one who’s hurt.”

“I don’t need you to be angry at Silas, then, if you’re worried about me. I told him to do it.”

“Fine,” he bit off. “Then I’m angry at you.”

“You’re angry at me?” I repeated in shock. “Jensen, we have a mission here. That’s what I’m doing—”

“You don’t understand how precious you are to me,” he cut me off. “You would kill me for doing the shit you do and then expecting me to smile about it.”

Okay, maybe he wasn’t wrong there.

“Jensen, I’ve got a job to do, the same as you,” I tried. “You don’t get to see me as precious when we’re out in the field.”

“I can’t turn that off,” he said, his brows drawn together over those magnetic