Page 36

“Shut up.” She snatched the antibiotic ointment.

“As you wish.” He grinned.

She continued to work while they waited for the healer to fix some of the bigger issues. As she stared down at him, the questions swirling in her mind came pouring out. “Bell said you were drugged. Is that true?”

Nico stared up at her. The eye with the cut over it already began to swell shut. “Are you sure you want these answers?”

Did she? Probably not. Should she have them so she could make a more informed decision for herself? Yes. “I do. I need them.”

Nico grunted. “I only want to tell this story once and then I never want to speak of it again, little wolf. Understand?”

She nodded. “Same.”

He made himself comfortable on her lap then threaded his fingers with hers. “I was fucked up in the head. I thought... Shit, Hayden.” He pitched his voice low. “I thought I got you pregnant. I worried about what would happen to us. For four weeks I barely functioned. The fear was so great within me. I knew all the rules and why they were put in place for us and all I could think was, Kalkin’s going to kill me because no one goes against the Alpha.”

That she could understand. Even though she knew her body better than Nico would, she could see where he might be worried they’d have an oops baby. She also couldn’t say it didn’t freak her out too. It had. But, they should have dealt with it together not alone. Not like they had. “We both didn’t handle the situation very well.”

"Exactly. I was so messed up in the head because despite how scared I was, I came up with a million scenarios in my head for why we should do it over and over and over again until I knocked you up." Nico let out a shaky breath.

“I wanted you too,” she admitted. “I also didn’t want you to get into trouble either.”

“Same for me,” he replied. “Anyway, the weekend after you took the fourth test, and it came back negative, I went out with the guys. Something I’d been doing all along, only I never, ever, participated. They drank, hooked up with women, and I watched their backs.”

Hayden’s heart began to crack again because she knew what was coming. “What happened? Why did you all of a sudden want to bring some woman home?”

He grimaced, squeezing her hand. “That’s just it. I can’t tell you. I don’t remember.” His whiskey gaze pinned hers. “I can’t for whatever reason, touch another woman. The minute I do, I get violently ill.”

Hayden blinked then scrunched up her face. “What?”

He chuckled then groaned. “I can’t touch other women. Since we mated, because we did, Hayden, I haven’t been able to touch another woman sexually. It makes me sick.”

Was that why his jaw was tinged with green, and he forcibly pushed Reagan away from him? None of what he said made sense to her. She’d never heard anything of the sort before. Then again, it wasn’t like she knew a whole lot about wolves, specifically mated wolves. “That doesn’t change the fact you did though.” She frowned, unable to put together what happened.

“Of course not.” His serious tone gave her pause. "Because I still went out intending to blow off steam and came home with another woman. There are no excuses, Hayden. If I wouldn't have given in and gone with the guys, none of this would have happened. We both know the truth of the matter."

“Do you remember anything?” she asked a bit hesitantly. “From that night?”

He shook his head. “One minute I was alone drinking my beer, waiting for the guys the next I was waking up to you pounding on my door.”

She frowned. “So, when did you get drugged?”

Again, he shook his head. “I don’t know. Dani thinks someone hit my beer with it. I would have seen it though, right?”

She would assume so. “Well, yeah. I guess. What kind of drug was it?”

Nico frowned. His gaze dropped from hers and the scent of his humiliation and pain hit her square in the chest. “The same one your father was dosed with.”

Bile bit at the back of Hayden’s throat. “No.”

“Yes,” he answered. “Danielle has all of the results at the clinic. She thinks the dosing was mild. Almost as if someone set me up that night. Like you were supposed to find me in the state I’d been in. No one counted on my reaction to the drug or being touched.”

“Who?” She swallowed hard. “Who’d want to hurt you so badly?” The idea of him having to suffer as her father did through the full moons, unable to touch anyone but her, broke her heart all over again, this time for him, not because of him. Someone destroyed her mate’s life. All for what? Why? “Uncle Kalkin said PBH was through, finished. You killed all those men for me. So, why now?” She swiped away tears as she sat there. Why couldn’t she be normal? Why couldn’t their lives be normal?

“We don’t know.” He exhaled roughly. “With as sick as I got after I kicked that woman out of my apartment, I doubt I had sex with her. The concentration of the drug wasn’t very high either which means I hadn’t been given a big enough dose. I’ve wracked my brain over the last few years trying to remember everything from that night and I can’t.”

Hayden didn't know what to believe. Her brain said, listen to him a bit more. Her heart said to forgive him and move forward. Yet, if he was telling the truth, he'd been violated which meant he probably didn't want anyone to touch him, which she understood. "I need to set you free, Nico. It's for the best."

He snarled at her, sitting up and grabbing her face so she was only inches from him. “Leaving me is for the best? Setting me free?” He growled low and long. “Why? Because you think I was raped? Because you pity me? Because you see your father now when you look at me?”