“It was clear I’d come from a nearby house that had gone up in flames, but while the police did discover the remains of an adult male and female who must’ve been my parents”—she swallowed—“for some reason, those remains were never identified.”
“Ah, hell.” Bastien’s exclamation was rough. “You experienced a severely traumatic event around the same time that you were meant to complete your first shift,” he said, tucking her close. “It must’ve fundamentally altered your development.”
It sounded right . . . yet wrong. “No,” she whispered, a cold chill in her blood. “What if I did shift for the first time that day? So happy, so excited. Then . . . then a bad thing happened.”
Bastien stepped back, took her face in his hands again. “Do you remember?”
“No.” All she had were lingering echoes of emotion. “But I know that’s what happened.” Could almost see it. “Wouldn’t a baby think the two events were connected—the shift and the fire?” Pain twisted her heart. “The human half blamed the animal, and the animal blamed itself.”
“And,” Bastien said harshly, “you had no one who understood what was going on inside you. No packmate to comfort you, reassure you it wasn’t your fault.” He kissed her cheeks, her jaw, her lips.
Finding strength in the affection, she told him the rest. “The only reason anyone knew my first name was that it was stitched into my pajamas.” Her last name, Rosario, had apparently been the name of the street where she’d been found. “That’s the only other piece of information I have.”
“Your adoptive parents might—”
“I was raised in care.” Kirby didn’t like to think of the seventeen long, agonizingly lonely years she’d spent in the system, but if the truth to her present lay in her past, then she had to find the will. “I had terrible, screaming nightmares as a child.” A sympathetic social worker had given her that information after she grew old enough to wonder why she didn’t have a family when other infants and toddlers were quickly adopted.
“I kept being chosen for adoption, then returned.” Like a broken machine being sent back to the warehouse for a refund. “They finally stopped trying to place me when I was six and I spent three years in state institutions for troubled children before the nightmares faded”—as far as the world was concerned at least—“and I was cleared for the foster care system.”
Bastien’s claws threatened to release. He wanted to break something, shred those who had wounded his mate when she’d been a small, vulnerable cub unable to fight for herself.
“I remember, you know,” she said quietly, her eyes on the ground. “Being taken by people who said they wanted me, feeling happy and hopeful, and then being brought back because I wasn’t good enough.”
“Bastards.” So angry he was trembling, he closed his hand around the side of her neck and pressed his lips to her temple.
Kirby lifted her hand to his hair, petting him in gentle strokes. “It wasn’t so bad, being in care. I wasn’t abused or anything.”
Bastien’s leopard growled within at that unwitting indictment on her childhood. “You’re fucking amazing, you know that?” He pressed his forehead to hers, his rage cut with violent pride.
“No, I’m a coward.” Breaking away in a jerking movement, she paced to the end of the balcony and back. “I tell myself I’m still angry at my parents for leaving me, that that’s why I’ve never requested my records. The truth is, I’m afraid.”
Her eyes shone wet, her shoulders knotted. “Because if I read those records, then I can’t avoid the truth any longer, can’t pretend that maybe I’m not alone, that one day someone will come for me.” She dashed away her tears. “I’m twenty-four years old and I’m still hoping. How stupid is that?”
“You don’t get to do that.” Bastien pulled her stiff body into his arms, his fury at what had been done to her a vicious storm within. “You don’t get to hurt yourself, and you never ever get to call yourself stupid.”
She thumped fisted hands against his side. “Why? Who’re you to give me that order?”
Bastien didn’t even think about it—his mate was hurting and needed reassurance. “I’m yours,” he said bluntly, wrapping his hand around her ponytail and tugging back her head so he could look into those beautiful, pain-filled hazel eyes. “You are not alone. Do you understand?” There was nothing in his life more certain than what he felt for her, and it was no longer simply about the primal pull of the mating bond. It was about Kirby. Sweet, strong, sometimes snarly Kirby. “I will always be here for you.”