Page 36 of His White Moonlight (Dominant CEO Shifter Romance #1)

I waved goodbye to Sophia and shifted the bag I carried to the other hand so I could send Bennett a text. Three messages I hadn’t heard come in waited for me.

Bennett: Please use the card.

Bennett: What did you eat?

Bennett: Can we grab takeout before we head home?

I looked at the time and realized we were close to dinner already.

Me: I had a roast beef sandwich for lunch and used the card to pay for it. Ready to see your ties?

Bennett: You promised to leave them on my bed.

My stomach did a crazy flip at the thought of going into his room, which was weird since I’d been sleeping in it. But that had been before I knew how he saw me.

Me: I’m fine with takeout. Tell me where you are and I can start walking toward you.

Bennett: I’m almost there.

I looked around and spotted him a block down. His long stride was eating the distance between us at a rapid pace that he somehow managed to make look unhurried. When he reached me, he took the bag and stole my hand, threading his fingers through mine.

He started walking, and I moved on autopilot as that simple contact fried my brain.

“You didn’t buy anything other than ties,” he said. “Does your friend know that you hate shopping in the downtown stores?”

Heat radiated from his palm, warming mine and making my heart beat faster.

“Wrenly?”

“Nope,” I said, tugging my hand free. “She doesn’t know. And I didn’t hate it.”

He tried stealing my hand back, and I quickly tucked both of my hands under my arms. His slow smile didn’t help calm my racing pulse.

“What were you doing?” I asked. “Just walking around, waiting for me, or stalking?”

“I was at Rexbies, having a drink with some friends.”

“You have friends? Since when? How? Did you have to drug them?”

“Even in the middle of your panic, you’re funny.”

“I’m not panicking.”

“Are your hands cold, then?”

“Nope, I’m getting ready to drive us home since you’ve been drinking.”

He chuckled. “All right.”

The easy way he gave in to me made me nervous. Especially when we reached the car in the parking garage and he opened the driver’s side door for me.

“The traffic headed out of town should be light enough at this time of day. Don’t worry. You can pull over at any time.”

He didn’t talk again until we were out of the city.

“Any time I asked a question about how you were in school, she deflected. At first, I thought she simply liked talking about herself. She seemed the type. But then I realized, like you, she didn’t want to talk about what happened at school.”

A surge of old panic and fear twisted my stomach, and I focused on my breathing.

“What happened there, Wrenly?”

“Nothing worth remembering or talking about,” I said. “What are we having for dinner?”

He took the hint and let me change the subject.

“Take the next right. There’s a fast food place.”

For the first time in my life, I drove through a drive-thru. It was a lot harder than Bennett had made it look, and I hit the curb with his fancy car. After the tire thumped back down, I cringed and glanced at him. He was grinning but didn’t comment.

“Not everyone can be born perfect at everything,” I grumbled.

“Is that how you see me? Perfect at everything?”

I snorted. “I’m not feeding your already inflated ego.”

“You think my ego is inflated? More like beaten down and on life support.”

“Yeah, right. ‘Is Mr. Wulf in?’” I mimicked.

“Why do you think the unwanted attention of a few would inflate my ego, when the one person I’ve waited twelve years to see doesn’t want me?”

“I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” I said, leaning forward to look through the windshield. “Crazy how things can go from sunny and beautiful to dark and gloomy.”

He chuckled. “Deflecting isn’t going to help you, Wrenly. Unless you really do want to live with me for the next four years. If that’s the case, deflect away. Keep the distance between us.”

I didn’t say anything as I drove the rest of the way home.

He carried in the food, while I took his ties upstairs and set them out on his bed.

Curious whether I’d picked out anything he already had, I went to check his closet.

The row of my school uniforms stunned me and drew me forward.

I touched the ripped skirt of one, remembering how the rip had happened.

It’d been the day of a power outage. Without the cameras, I’d known Lindi and her group would come for me and had run for the wall.

I almost hadn’t made it. My mad scramble had wrecked the skirt, but I hadn’t thought of it once I’d returned after the power had been restored.

A new uniform had been delivered with the clean laundry.

My fingers found the dirt still clinging to the hem.

When Grandma had said my old clothes helped him, I’d thought he was keeping them until the scent faded and then getting rid of them.

However, the number of uniforms indicated that he was keeping them even after my scent had faded, as if he were collecting them.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I should have been scared, but I wasn’t.

“Wrenly…”

I glanced back at Bennett, who was standing in the doorway.

“Why?”

“I was struggling being apart from you. The staff sent me the damaged uniforms. Your scent helped calm me.”

He looked afraid. Of me. Of my reaction to knowing that he’d been hoarding my dirty uniforms for my scent.

I faced the uniforms again, counting them.

“Fifteen. I know I didn’t wreck that many this year. How long have you been collecting these?”

“Since your sophomore year. Mom made me get rid of the ones before that. She said you were too young and people would think I was—” he cleared his throat. “Being creepy.”

It felt like the floor dipped beneath my feet, and I reached out to steady myself on the wall. He’d been collecting my clothes since the beginning?

Before I completely freaked out, I realized what was happening was bigger than his collecting. He was being honest with me. Completely and totally, unfiltered.

“Are you going to keep your word, Bennett, or are you trying to trick me into accepting you with the handholding, hugs, and a kiss?”

“Both. I hope you’ll accept me if you can do those three things, but if you still want to leave after doing them, I’ll let you go.”

Hearing what I’d already suspected, I turned, wanting to escape the closet, but he didn’t move out of my way.

“Move.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“Not this time, Wrenly. Talk to me.”

What could I say? Anything close to the truth—that I didn’t know how to do the things he wanted without feeling something—would doom me and elate him.

No matter how I tried to fight it, I was attracted to Bennett.

I had been since I first saw him standing on the stairs when I’d come home.

But I’d known then that I couldn't acknowledge it. He was supposed to be a brother. At least, that’s what I’d thought.

Now that I knew better, my attraction to him was even more dangerous.

I wanted my freedom. I’d earned it by surviving seven years of hell.

“You’re frustrated. Why?”

“Because I’ve suffered enough, dammit!”

His arms closed around me.

“How? Talk to me. That was supposed to be the best school in the country. I researched for months before deciding. What went wrong, Wrenly?”

I froze in his arms, not believing I’d heard him correctly, and slowly pulled back to look up at him.

“ You sent me there?”

The worry on his face disappeared behind his mask.

“It was you ?” My voice shook along with my limbs, and I pushed at his chest.

“Wrenly, please, baby, talk to me. What happened?”

My breathing started coming faster and faster until I was hyperventilating.

It was Bennett. Bennett sent me there. Bennett was the reason for all my abuse. School. Office. Pack. The one person who was supposed to love me above all reason had condemned me to seven years of hell. Why? Because he was in hell, he wanted me to suffer with him?

“You get one chance to let go of me,” I said, barely keeping my head above a complete panic attack.

He seemed to sense it, too, because he immediately released me.

“Please don’t do this, Wrenly.”

“Do what? Hate you? It’s too late for that.”

I left his room on shaky legs and closed myself in my bathroom, where I turned on the shower, sat on the floor, and cried my heart out. After the pain faded, a numbness crept in along with exhaustion. I sat there, listening to the shower and thinking of nothing.

A knock on the door, and Mom’s voice penetrated my mental haze a while later. My legs had lost feeling. It took two tries to stand and unlock the door.

Mom immediately pulled me into a hug. I didn’t hug her back. I couldn’t. Something inside of me knew that welcoming her concern would open the floodgates to my own emotions, and I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“What’s right?” I asked with no inflection.

She pulled back to look at me, her hands framing my face and her thumb wiping at the tears trailing down my cheeks. I thought I’d stopped crying. Maybe they weren’t tears but liquid pain leaking out because I just couldn’t contain it anymore.

“Sweetheart, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

I focused on her face, seeing her concern. Her love.

“You want me to say something reassuring. Something to make you feel better, but I won’t. He sent me to hell. Four years of being chased. Cut. Burned. Held down. Suffocated.”

Tremors rocked through me, and Mom’s pupils exploded wide. She stumbled back a step and held her hand to her mouth.

“What?” she gasped.

I was done trying to protect the people who loved me like they’d failed to protect me.

“I hated school. I asked you to let me come home, but you told me to hang in there. That it was the best school for me. People put their kids on waitlists before they were even born. I was supposed to be grateful.”

Something crashed somewhere in the house.

“I’m done being grateful, Mom. I’m done cooperating with your plans for my future. I’m done.”

I closed the door and returned to my spot on the floor.

Another crash shook the floorboards. I leaned my head against the wall and stared at the water raining down from the shower.

* * *

I woke up with a headache in a dark room. The reason for the heaviness in my chest slowly resurfaced. I didn’t cry. Sleep had helped me move past the pain-filled tears.

“They don’t know what to do,” Grandma said from the darkness. “I told them to stop trying to do anything. That’s what caused the problem in the first place.”

The pain leaked out again, and she wiped it away.

“Life is hard, my little Wren. Sometimes it’s harder than it needs to be. I’m sorry for everything you’ve suffered.”

Her hand closed over mine.

“It’s so easy to want to protect you. Your smile and laughter light up a room. You shine so bright, no one wants you broken. But sometimes, when we hold too tightly, we break what we’re trying to protect.

“Now, tell me what you need from me.”

“Keep them away for now.”

“Done. Anything else? Do you want Karter or Aiden to come home?”

More pieces fell into place. The pictures of their partying. Their Bennett-centric replies. Aiden and Karter weren’t actually seeking their mates. They hadn’t been sent away because they’d asked about Bennett’s mate. They’d been sent away because of me. Or rather because of Bennett’s jealousy.

A flat laugh escaped on an exhale. “Why bother? I’ve been isolated for years. Why change things now?”

“Because we’ve realized how badly we’ve managed things.”

“We? Were you part of the decision-making?”

“By keeping silent, by not speaking up for you, wasn’t I?”

Another drop of pain trailed down my cheek.

“I don’t want to think yet.”

She patted my hand. “Then don’t. I’ll be here when you need me.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. It took forever to fall asleep again.

When I woke, the room was still dark, but I could tell it was daytime from the faint glow coming from around the curtains. A soft rumble of thunder and the steady patter of rain against the windows soothed me.

“Thirsty?” Grandma asked.

I accepted the cup she held out and sat up to drink.

“You were crying in your sleep,” she said.

“Did I say anything?”

“No. Do you talk in your sleep now?”

“Sometimes I scream myself awake. I don’t know if I actually talk.”

“Were any of the years you were gone okay?”

I reached out to turn on the light so I could see her. She looked tired. I scooted over on the bed and patted the spot next to me. She smiled and switched from the chair to the bed.

“School was hard,” I said. “Some years were harder than they needed to be.”

She made a noncommittal sound and wrapped an arm around me. I rested my head on her shoulder.

“I’m always here for you, my little Wren. Whenever. However.”