"No, Maman. I would never have gone had I known."
Still she screamed at him, accusing him of leaving them to die while he ran like a coward.
"Nicolette!" his father snapped as he pulled her away from Dev. "What's happened?"
"My sons are dead." She gestured to Dev. "That mongrel bastard ran and left them there to die." She sneered at Dev. "You worthless human! I wish it'd been you who'd died!"
Dev sucked his breath in and held it as his father picked her up and carried her out of the room. The rest of his siblings followed, wanting to comfort their mother. They left Dev there shattered as her words echoed in his ears.
"I wish it'd been you who'd died."
It should have been me. It should have been me.... Guilt and agony ripped him apart as his tears flowed. Why had he bothered coming home? It would have been so much easier had he died with them.
Aimee came out from under the table. She licked his hand before she crawled into his lap and licked his chin. Dev held her then and let out all the pain inside him.
But it was a pain that he still carried with him and it broke Sam's heart. His mother had never really forgiven him for that night. Yes, she'd been grieving and hurting. But for the rest of her life, he'd seen the darkness in her eyes when she'd looked at him. Had heard the sharp tone in her voice that hadn't been there before.
It was why he'd tried so hard to please her and why he'd never left Sanctuary.
Aimee had been his tie that kept him there, and for his sister, he would do anything.
Sam wanted to weep for her bear. Dev was such a good man. Not that she'd doubted it, but now she knew his scars were every bit as harsh as hers. He blamed himself for their deaths and for tearing out his mother's heart. Every time he'd overheard her crying over her children had been like a knife through his soul. He believed that he'd caused it all.
It was why he'd never tried to mate. He didn't want a woman to turn on him, or worse, have her family come for his. So he'd avoided sleeping with his own kind, knowing that it was rare for a Were-Hunter to be mated to a human. Yes, it happened, but it wasn't a common occurrence and even if it did, a human would never be able to hurt them. So he'd played those odds, even though the one thing he really wanted was a family of his own....
Sam swallowed the lump in her throat as she wished Dev was here for her to hug. She wanted to take his pain away from him and to tell him the one thing no one in his family had ever said. Not even the sister he'd risked his life for. The sister he'd hand carried through the darkness to make sure she was safe.
I'm so glad you survived.
She blinked back her tears, angered over the fact that she felt them. Tears were weakness.
They accomplished nothing.
"Why am I channeling his memories?" She couldn't sense them at all when she was around him. So why were they here now?
And as she contemplated that, she swore she could feel Dev with her. Feel his panic that she'd been ripped out of his arms and that he hadn't been able to stop it. Right now, he was in turmoil. Every part of him was desperate to get her back.
For that, he was willing to bust hell itself wide open if that was what it took.
Tenderness spread through her in a way it never had before. And with that warmth came an awful realization....
She was falling in love with him.
I can't be.
But there was no denying the emotions inside her. It was a feeling she knew well and one that had filled her every day she'd been with Ioel.
There was no doubt in her mind. Because right now, when her life was in danger, she wasn't thinking about herself. She didn't care what they did to her. What ever it was, she'd go down swinging. What was on her mind was the fear of what her death would do to Dev.
She didn't want to die because she had a reason to live. She didn't want to die because it would destroy her bear....
"And that's why you're here."
She tensed as that disembodied male voice was back. "Excuse me?"
"You have to let Dev go."
"Why?"
"Because if you don't, it will get him killed."
Chapter 13
Dev paused in the doorway of Sanctuary's office. His stomach clenched as it always did whenever he walked in and saw his mother's empty desk. No one had moved anything on it. They hadn't had the heart. Even the last pen his mother had used was right where she'd laid it by the phone. It was so eerie and as long as it stayed that way, he kept expecting to see her there, looking at him over the rim of her glasses as she waited for him to say something.