Wild Hunt - Kali Argent Page 0,21
she hadn’t known any of that, and it wasn’t as if she’d asked him to stay. Even if she hadn’t known about Abby, the Ikandes, or any of the rest of it, she wouldn’t have asked him to stay behind when people needed his help. Still, guilt gnawed at her.
She lifted her head, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry for any trouble I caused you. I can see how much you wanted to be there.”
“What?” Cade shook his head. “No.” Brushing her hair back, he pressed his palm to her cheek and sighed. “No, Mack, it’s not like that. I mean, yes, I wanted to go after Abby. I wanted to do what I could to help all the women being held there. We all did.” Leaning in, he pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “I don’t regret staying, though, not for a minute.”
Whether it was true or not, he clearly believed it.
It was the perfect segue to the conversation they’d been avoiding all day, but that didn’t make her any more apt to start it. “I guess we should talk about that.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “About us.”
There was none of the anger she’d expected. No tension or apprehension. Instead, he nodded a couple of times, then lifted her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles.
“Let me start by saying that up until recently, I had a pretty negative view of the Gemini as a whole. I certainly never thought I would be mated to one.” He slipped a finger under her chin when she lowered her head, encouraging her to meet his eyes again. “I’m not telling you this to hurt you. I’m trying to explain why I’m probably going to be terrible at this.”
“Well, not wanting to be mated to a werewolf will do that.”
Cade shook his head. “You’re not listening. I never said I didn’t want to be mated to you.” He brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I am going to have questions, though, and I’m going to need you to be patient with me.”
As much as she wanted to be offended, she could understand where he was coming from. If her first introduction to humans had been at the hands of Hunters, she’d probably despise the entire race. Before the Purge, Cade hadn’t even known the paranormal world existed. Then, everything had changed, plunging him into a reality where Gemini reigned, and humans were forced to fight each day just to survive.
He’d witness unspeakable violence, experienced firsthand extraordinary depths of brutality. The paranormals he’d encountered didn’t represent the group as a whole, but that wasn’t to say they were the exception, either.
For years, there had been growing discourse among the Gemini, with more and more arguing that they shouldn’t be hiding from humans. They should be ruling them. It wasn’t difficult to see how the sentiment had spread like wildfire given the first opportunity.
“So, what changed your mind?”
Cade paused. Not the way people did when they were buying time because they didn’t want to answer. His hesitation felt more like he was trying to find the right words to explain something he didn’t quite understand. Almost as if he wasn’t sure of the answer himself.
“I didn’t change my mind. Not really. My natural instinct is to distrust the Gemini, but truthfully, I feel the same way about humans.” He stroked her hair as he spoke, an absent gesture that was somehow sweeter because of the lack of awareness. “Maybe that’s not fair, but it’s the world we live in now.”
“But you trust the people here, don’t you?” Her gaze flickered toward the door. “You trust the Revenant?”
He considered her for a moment before nodding. “I do.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she hesitated to push him for more. In the end, though, she couldn’t help herself. “But?”
“Trust is earned. Some have earned my loyalty. Others, I don’t know well enough, and I’m still reserving judgment. Is that fair?” He shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s how I feel.”
It hadn’t been the clearest explanation, but Mackenna thought she understood. “You won’t blindly trust someone just because they claim to be Revenant, but you trust your friends.”
His left eye twitched at the word “friends,” but he didn’t dispute it. “That’s basically it.”
“And you automatically distrust everyone from the ARC.” That didn’t really seem fair, but maybe she was missing something.
“Mack, the ARC is what makes these slave auctions possible. They’re