Page 33 of Love the Way You Lion (Rise of the Resistance #3)

“I’m concerned about you. I’d lay myself down and let you grind your heel on my heart if it helped.

” My voice breaks and I let my head fall again, wanting my face hidden so he can’t see the pain and regret written on it.

“I don’t deserve you. I live with that knowledge.

My choices mean I live with knowing I hurt you because I’m not strong enough.

I hurt others because I’m not strong enough.

I can’t lose you, so whatever I need to do to help you, I’ll do it.

You are my mate, my match, the missing piece from my soul, and I love you with every corner of my rotten little heart. ”

Pain arcs across his face. “Set me free. Release me from the bonds that kept me silent today. Allow me to be me—to not care, to stand up for what’s true.

I didn’t do that today. I let your affection for a cancer in our relationship seep into me, sicken and weaken me. I can’t and won’t do that any longer. ”

This will splash back on me, but I owe it to him to let him be who he is, even if it’s going to make my situation worse.

I nod, still hidden in the long waves around me. “I won’t hold you back anymore.”

It takes everything in me not to sob when he speaks.

“I never doubted, not once, what I mean to you. That wasn’t where my pain was.

I’ve gotten neutered by your affection for Sari and her ilk; I can’t live like that.

She treats me with no respect and she seeks to destroy.

I have nothing but contempt for her, her posse, or the departed mate. I let them do this to me.”

Looking down at himself, he yanks the shard of the sword out of his chest, looking around the room. “I’m doing this while they watch cartoons and pick at semantics and other lunacy. No more.” His expression is fierce as he spears me with his gaze. “I. Am. Not. What. They. Would. Have. Me. Be.”

“I won’t ask you to hold back anymore. I shouldn’t have,” I murmur. I curl tighter into myself, trying not to shake as the emotions rocket through me. “Frankly, I don’t even care if you kill her.”

I’m surprised to find that I mean that.

His brow furrows, and he feels like he’s focusing hard, sweating.

I feel him trying to heal the wounds through our bonds.

I’m proud of that, proud of him for learning, and for being such a part of me that he can.

His breath is raspy when he finishes, and I know that it’s because that’s not an easy feat when you first learn how. It drains you until you learn control.

“You are mine. Wife. Lover. Mate. Everything. You’re mine. I’m not playing by any rules anymore unless they are my own. No more weapons to the enemy. They have enough and are well skilled at using them. They are all enemies. ”

My eyes are empty as I push to my feet, warring with myself inside. I can’t stand him looking at me right now. I’m so filled with black, oozing self-hatred and loathing that it’s like it’s seeping from my pores like a disease. I smile, nod at him, and then I disapparate to the bathroom.

~I know. ~

Popping into the room, he growls. “What is that look for?” I feel him reaching for me inside and I’m not ready to let him in, so I ignore it. “Please talk to me? You can hit me if you’d like. You could use something sharp and pointy, maybe?”

“It’s not about you.” I drape my body over the toilet, having lost the lunch I’d eaten at the orientation.

My face is red and swollen from tears. I lean my head on the cool ceramic fixture.

“I’m frustrated with myself. Things from my past, my life, keep coming back to bite you.

I’ve been too passive about it, and I’m angry at myself. I couldn’t hit you if I tried.”

What I need is space. He had his time to do what he needed. I need self-flagellation time, too. I don’t need him to make it better. I want to burn.

“You’d think not, but I felt like I’d been pole-axed when you popped out on me. Can you not do that? The last time you did, you got drugged, and I thought I’d lost you forever and that’s still a little fresh.”

Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I close my eyes. “I’m not in the best shape. I had to get to the bathroom before I barfed in the gym.”

“You’re—the—are you alright? What’s wrong?” His face is full of panic and I feel terrible.

I don’t want him to worry about Maeve; I simply need some time to deal with my self-destruction.

“I’m fine. I’m a little queasy. I’ve been like that all day and covered it up so none of those jackasses looking at me like a ninety-pound weakling would haze me.

The emotional stuff didn’t help. It makes me sicker. ”

“This is baby stuff?” Almost like he just realized it, he stops. “I’ll kill the entire sodding class if they so much as lay an eyeball on you to haze.”

Sitting back on my knees, I shake my head.

“No, no. I have to take my lumps like every newbie or no one will ever respect me. It’s bad enough that they know who I am and assume I’m skating on your coattails.

I have to stick up for myself. I’m not even supposed to show them what I can really do past some minute mutations until much later.

I had some morning sickness. I siphoned a bit of my emotions off to Rafe to help control it now, so he’s probably a little shaken, but nothing major. I’m okay now.”

He drops to the floor and sits next to me, tilting his head. “I still plan on killing them.”

I watch, hoping he keeps his distance—I crave the balance of being touched, but I don’t deserve it.

I need to feel this ache. Yeah, I’m broken in terrible ways; I’m aware .

“That’s unnecessary, I promise. I’m angry that as soon as I left, she hit up Rafe and then you.

Rafe said she acted like everything was fine.

She made him play the ‘hard question’ game—poking about you and about Talia.

She seemed normal when she left. He didn’t know the two of you had a fight. ”

“I’m through with her, baby, and through with the dearly departed sod of hers. She’s cancer.”

“Sari tried to make him paranoid about the both of you. She failed, but she pushed the right button to try. She said she was nervous because Talia had told Wilde she loved him, but hadn’t been around since he left.

She said Talia hasn’t been upset, but she realizes now that it’s because she’d replaced him with Rafe.

She said it was convenient for Talia to step right in as Rhea left, falling for Wilde, and you becoming my mate as she’d aimed for her spot in our family. ”

I know this because of Rafe, who quietly handled his own panic over this shit.

“That’s sodding funny. I mean, come on. That’s funny.” He chuckles, shaking his head.

I arch a brow, not finding it funny at all. I find it appalling. “How in the hell is it funny?”

He laughs like a loon. “Talia’s set herself in our family. Oh, come on! That’s a bloody riot! Man, that ‘our circle’ shit kills me.”

“I think the drugs fried me because I don’t get it. Speaking of those, remind me later that I want to talk about those. I have some thoughts.”

“Christ, woman, you’ve really got to stop yammering at that bint about us.” He brushes my cheek with his fingers.

“If I don’t talk to her at all, she thinks I’m holding stuff back from her.

She’s not perfect, but she lost her mate.

I’m trying not to abandon her—because that’s what she implied with the resurrection stuff—so I text her back and drop by sometimes.

If she stays off the Wilde thing with me, I figure it’s better for the entire community if she’s not on a rampage.

I try to keep some stuff private because I don’t feel she needs to know. ”

Plus, I need her to stay away from Rafe so he can heal. It’s my turn to take some lumps.

“From what she did, I see little that you haven’t told her. You gave her all the weapons, love. Honestly, until my sweeper team confirms her story about the writer, I’m not buying all this mumbo jumbo about a quest and bringing him back. I’m not convinced, and neither is Talia. ”

“I’m trying to be a good friend and avoid causing a problem with us because she’s off the rails.

I can’t even think about the possibilities of her ‘quest’ because I think he’s dead and I think she’s trying to bring him back.

Everything about what I hear about these journeys is troubling to a real practitioner like me.

She’s doing the work, but not the soul stuff. ” I sigh and rub my temples.

I should have never, ever let inexperienced people work Beltane with me. It opened up far too many dangerous doors.

“From where I’m sitting, you’ve given her plenty of firepower through idle chatter.

You left out how it’d affect you if she used it.

Meaning, she knows almost as much about our relationship as we do except how different and important it is from anything else in your life.

I can’t rightly figure why it matters if she thinks you’re holding back on her, but that’s your gig, not mine.

It explains why today was such a bloody good time, though.

” He leans back, stacking his hands under his head and pausing as if to think.

“I’ve been trying to get her to be—I don’t know.

It felt hypocritical not to share if I’m asking her not to conspire in the background like a secret agent.

If I ask her not to do things like the bar again without at least talking to me, but don’t reciprocate, then I’m no better than her.

She’s so very unstable right now; I’m worried about the quests and those bints whispering in her ear. I’m worried about the community.”

Sari is a seductive, manipulative bitch. Without my physical relationships holding some of these looney tunes close, I don’t know that I will keep them from joining her side on anything important. That goes double for Belle, who I believe whores her family out to help keep people on their side.

“The irony in all this is that I made sure it was only me at the house today so Talia wouldn’t get a ‘woe is me’ about Wilde and get forced to admit her connection with Rafe.

” He shakes his head, still sitting a few feet away from me.

“Here’s the deal. From now on, remember that while she may be your friend, she’s not mine, and she’s not Talia’s.

We’re enemies. Please don’t give her anything else she can use against me.

Not that it matters because next time I see her, I’m setting a few truths on her doorstep. ”

“I will be much more careful about what I share with her,” I murmur.

I don’t tell him I believe that this moment has put the shreds of what was left of my friendship with Sari on a slab.

We no longer have Wilde to bond over. She never cared for me as a mate, and now I can’t even have a casual, girly conversation with her.

She’s done nothing but seek to destroy everything I am or have for months.

I have to figure out how to do this without her leading a fucking mutiny.

“I love you, baby. Come hunt with me. I’d like to make some things bleed now.” He stands, holding his hand out and giving me a grin.

Nodding, I stand and take his hand, still feeling the need to earn forgiveness.

It’s not him asking, but I’m not ready to let my transgression go yet.

However, I can get behind taking my frustrations out on others.

I clear my throat and force a small smile.

“Let’s go make some people scream. Then maybe I’ll make you scream, too. ”

“I like the sound of that.”

With that, I head off to take my vengeance on everyone but the person who deserves it—and I forget to mention my thoughts on the drugs that almost killed us.