Page 41 of The Breeding Cave

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

YEOSIN

Water bubbled around me. Luciano grabbed my hand and led me out of the hot spring, blanketing me with a towel and drying off my body. Once he was finished, I wrapped it around myself and followed him back to the main cave area, the stone cold under my feet.

My stomach twisted into knots. It was almost bedtime.

And I would do anything not to experience those flames again.

In the front, Brent must’ve laid out some pillows and blankets for us. Luciano sat down on them, the fire still flickering a few feet away. The warmth from the flames was the only good thing about them on this cold night.

“Come here,” Luciano growled.

“I want to sleep in a real bed,” I whispered.

Though truthfully, I didn’t want to sleep at all tonight. It was just an excuse because I knew that Luciano didn’t have a bed here. Anything to stay awake for a bit longer so I didn’t have to experience that nightmare again would be optimal.

“We don’t have a bed here.” After reaching for me, he took my hand, his facial features relaxing for the first time tonight. Somehow, I had never noticed how handsome he was without looking all angry. “You won’t have another nightmare.”

I tugged my hand away and wrapped my arms around myself. “Yes, I will.”

“I promise you won’t,” he said. “Not when you’re sleeping with me.”

Tears welled in my eyes, but I pushed them away and hesitantly sat beside Luciano. I didn’t want to visit the flames again. I didn’t want to be tortured again. I didn’t want to see Luciano with another woman again.

Because I loved him.

Yes, it was foolish. Yes, he didn’t love me back. Yes, I had only met him about a month ago. But, God, I loved him. I hadn’t felt this way about Alvin during all the years that I had been with him.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he whispered, tugging me closer. “Please.”

I curled into his chest. “Monsters hurt me when you’re not around.”

Every single time he wasn’t with me, some monster found its way to me. It was almost as if I attracted them, almost as if they knew where I was, had orders to hurt me. I wouldn’t put it past Alvin to have told them to.

Especially Alpha Alf earlier.

They could blame the full moon all they wanted, but how people had begun acting around me when they never did so before … something had changed in the past few weeks since I’d met the beast within Luciano.

Luciano curled his arms around my smaller body and rested his head against mine. “They won’t hurt you when I’m here beside you. They’d have to burn me alive before they could get to you.”

Truly, I wanted to believe him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Alvin might’ve won the war a long, long time ago, but Luciano didn’t know anything about Alvin. He didn’t see Alvin the way I did. He didn’t witness what Alvin was capable of, the manipulation and torture.

“One day, when this is all over and the Dragon Clan ceases to be, we’ll get out of that city. We’ll rebuild the packhouse. We’ll have the nicest bed to sleep on. And you’ll never have to worry about a thing.”

I turned onto my back and gazed up at the ceiling of the dark cave. Some moonlight flooded in through the cracks and crevices, gleaming against the rock. My hand found Luciano’s, and I intertwined my fingers with his.

It was nice to dream, wasn’t it?

Only he didn’t know that I’d probably be dead before then.

Luciano lifted my arm into the air so he could see my scars, but didn’t let go. With his free hand, he drew his fingers against them. When he turned our intertwined hands over so he could see my fingers, I could see the faint scars on his hand.

They were just like mine—burns from the Dragon Clan—but his had healed, almost to where they weren’t visible. Though I could still see them.

“Tell me about it,” I whispered, listening to his even breathing, feeling the heat of his breaths, touching his skin that was rougher than mine. “About your past, about your pack, about life before the Dragon Clan.”

“Life before the Dragon Clan,” he said. “It was so long ago that I almost don’t remember it.”

I playfully rolled my eyes. “You’re not that old.”

A low chuckle left his mouth as he continued to mindlessly play with my fingers.

“We were comfortable. Too comfortable. And I … I was a terrible leader. I should’ve been more on edge, more untrusting of people. I should’ve protected them more when they attacked.”

I released his hand and rolled over onto my stomach. “I said, life before the Dragon Clan, not during the war.”

“What do you want to know about?” he asked.

“Your family.”

Sadness shone in his eyes, which was quickly replaced with hardness.

He wasn’t going to tell me. He was trying to block it all away.

But he didn’t know that I knew that look all too well. I’d mastered that look. I had forgotten things about my childhood, before the Dragon Clan, that I couldn’t remember anymore. I had these long stretches of time that I had no recollection of. At all.

Thoughts and memories that I would never recover, and if I did… I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember them.

I gently cupped his face and kissed him on the mouth. He stiffened at first, then suddenly melted into the kiss, seizing my waist and tugging me closer to him.

When I finally pulled away, I rested my forehead on his. “Tell me about your family.”

“I had two younger brothers,” he whispered. “We did everything together. We made promises to travel the forest one day and see the world, to visit every type of species that we could find.”

I brushed some hair out of his face. “What were their names?”

“Elijah and Gideon.”

While I wanted to ask what had happened to them, I already knew that the Dragon Clan had killed them. And I didn’t want him to become even sadder or shut down like he had before … I wanted him to be happy.

I never saw this grumpy man happy.

“What is your favorite memory with them?”

“Three weeks before the Dragon Clan destroyed everything, I brought them to the lake. Elijah had just turned eighteen, and he told us that he had met someone who felt like his mate. We couldn’t know for sure; we had all been cursed not to have a mate.”

His lips curled into a smile. “I didn’t know how it felt at the time, and I had pushed the thought of it out of my head … but it just came back to me. He must’ve felt the way that I do with you—the warmth, the need, the desire to be a better man.”

My stomach did one of those flippy things, and I pressed my lips to his.

“I may know how he feels, but he will never know how I feel now that I have you,” he whispered, drawing his hand over my stomach. “He will never know what it’s like to finally have a family of his own. One that needs to be protected like this.”

After crawling up into his lap, I gently grasped his chin. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes glowing as he wrapped his hands around my waist.

“Then show Elijah and Gideon what it’s like. I know they’re watching.”

“How?” he asked. “I’ve tried for so long.”

“I don’t know how, but we need Alvin’s head.”

He tugged back on my hair and placed a wet kiss on my neck. “If you want Alvin’s head, I will bring you Alvin’s head.”