“Cain’s got nothing to do with us.” Derren bit her bottom lip when she would have spoken again. “I don’t want him here.”
Between us, he didn’t say but she clearly heard. Not wanting his mood to turn sour by pushing him, Ally sighed. “Fine. But you can’t say I didn’t try to tell you.”
“I don’t want to know.”
Maybe it really wouldn’t be important to him, thought Ally. After all, they had agreed their relationship would be temporary, so whether or not Cain was her mate wasn’t relevant.
Derren nipped her neck, wanting her attention solely on him. “I have another question. Who taught you to shift so easily between forms?”
“My mom taught me how to be at peace with my wolf. Without that, it isn’t possible. But if someone can manage that, it’s easy for them to do what I do.”
“So it’s not a Seer thing?” he asked. She shook her head. “When did you have your first vision?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been having them for as long as I can remember.”
“They must have been hard to handle when you were a kid.” They seemed hard enough to handle now.
“They could be scary. But even back then it bothered me more when something happened and I didn’t see it coming. People don’t understand that Seers don’t ‘see’ everything.” She shook her head as she added, “You wouldn’t believe the amount of times someone blamed me when something bad happened. Some even accused me of having a vision but not warning them. Even when I was a kid.”
He double-blinked with astonishment. “You were advising a pack when you were a kid?”
“My grandmother—who sadly died with my parents—was considered Seer of the pack, but, yes, if I had a vision that needed to be shared, then I was naturally expected to share it.”
Derren traced her collarbone with his finger. “So you got the gift from your grandmother?”
“Yes, it skips a generation. The eldest Seer always trains and guides the child until they hit at least eighteen. At that point, the eldest Seer will either ‘retire,’ or one of them will move to another pack. Two adult Seers can’t exist in one pack without being at each other’s throats.”
“A little like two Alpha males or two Beta males.”
“Exactly.”
Unable to resist that mouth, Derren flicked his tongue over her upper lip. “So your grandmother trained you?”
“Right up until she died that night the pack was slain, yeah.”
Not liking the sadness in her voice, Derren smoothed his hands up and down her back. “Who guided you when you moved with Cain to his uncles’ pack?”
“No one. They didn’t have a Seer there.”
“And I’ll bet they expected you to act as the pack’s Seer.” He didn’t like that.
“If I had a vision, I shared it.”
Protectiveness surged through him at the idea of a six-year-old Ally being held partly responsible for her pack’s safety. She didn’t sound at all angry or resentful of that or anything else that had happened to her; he admired that. “It’s a shitload of responsibility to put on a kid.”
Ally tilted her head. “You despise responsibilities, don’t you?”
Ah, so she’d picked up on that. “Much like you, I don’t like feeling trapped.” He couldn’t like anything that made him feel confined, which was why he strongly doubted he’d ever mate. Even if he somehow recognized his true mate, his reluctance to be part of anything that took away his choices or freedom could prevent the mating bond from ever fully developing.
“You know, feeling trapped doesn’t mean you’re trapped. It’s just what you feel. I know I’m damn weird for sleeping most of the night outside—”
“Waking up to find it’s dark after just having a nightmare where you were trapped in the dark is bound to make it hard to fall back asleep. A lot of people stay awake after nightmares. You’ve found an alternative—albeit uncommon—way to cope with it. That doesn’t make you weird.”
“And feeling the weight of responsibilities isn’t weird either—especially when you’re responsible for the well-being of an entire pack.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I think you worry you’ll let them all down.”
His smile was stilted. “My conscience isn’t developed enough for that.”
“And I think you don’t believe you deserve their faith in you.”
“I don’t. They’ve given me their trust. But I can’t give it back.” Not to all of them.
“You don’t want to trust. It’s a self-preservation thing for you. I’m not being judgmental, just making a point.”
He swirled his tongue inside the hollow of her throat. “What’s that point?”
“That your responsibilities aren’t trapping you.” Her words came out a little breathless, since what he was doing felt too good. “Taking on responsibilities means taking charge of your life. It’s your own personal shit that’s trapping you.”
Maybe. But while he was hard as a rock, the only thing he could really think about was being inside her. “Finished preaching?”
She sniffed. “For today.”