She shook her head then leaned against the counter. “So you’re saying your wolf wants me.” She met his gaze. “But the human half doesn’t.”
His chest ached, but he didn’t nod, nor did he shake his head. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you’re not truly explaining yourself either. I don’t know you, Ryder. And you don’t know me. It’s okay that you don’t love me. I mean, I think this is our first true conversation without anyone around. It’s not like we’re in a fairy tale with hearts and stars in our eyes. I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.”
He didn’t know why that annoyed him, but he wasn’t going to think about it. He needed to get his point across and finish his explanation.
“In a wolf’s long lifetime, they can find more than one potential mate. But never once the bond is in place. So, if for some reason, the first person they find doesn’t work out or they find themselves friends rather than mates, they can find true mates later. Or, if the worst happens and a mate dies, they can mate again.” He thought of the darkness in another’s eyes, thought of the secrets that person held, but pushed that away. Those secrets would be revealed later. They had to, or that person would fade away into an eternity of pain.
Again, he needed to move past the thoughts in his head and work on the words that wouldn’t seem to come.
“Do you have another mate in mind?” she asked, her voice emotionless.
He cursed. “No. I don’t have any mate in mind. That’s the point.”
Her eyes widened again. “So, that means what?”
He took a step forward and put his hand out, only to let it fall. “My wolf wants you, but the man can’t have you.” Won’t. “So, even though the mating urge will ride hard, know you’re safe from me. There will be nothing between us but friendship. If that’s what you want. Or, if you’d prefer nothing, then you can stay with one of my siblings. They will keep you safe while you heal and decide what your plan is.”
She studied his face, and he’d have given the world to have the power to hear her thoughts. His wolf raged inside, screaming at him to take the words back. His wolf didn’t understand. He never did. He didn’t know why the flipside of Ryder’s powers was so horrible. He only saw the woman in front of them, the one woman for them. The wolf only saw rejection from the human it was supposed to trust with everything it had, not the full extent of the agony Ryder felt.
And yet, Ryder felt what the wolf did, so all in all, his world was ending deep inside the cavernous depths of his soul. But he had to remain stoic.
He couldn’t tell her that he was saving her from a life of anguish and a grey existence. He couldn’t tell her because he’d never told a soul why he was the quiet one. He’d never told his family why he was the one to curl into himself when he should have been the one to stand proudly beside his Alpha.
“I can’t think about this, Ryder. It’s too much. I know you had to get it off your chest, but that’s all it can be right now.”
She raised her chin.
“You may not want to tell me why you feel that you can’t have a mate right now. Maybe someday you will. And maybe one day when I’m not grieving and freaking the fuck out over my life, I’ll listen. But for now, I just want to go to bed. Can I do that? Can I just sleep? Maybe I’ll wake up and it’ll all be a dream.”
“We can do that,” he said after a tense moment. “I didn’t mean to make your burden worse than it already is.”
She shook her head and held up her hand. “I get it. If you hadn’t explained, I’d honestly just be thinking about what the magic within me wants. I’m going to stay here, though, rather than go somewhere else. I might not know what to do with the magic that flows through my veins every day, but I trust the way it helps me know what choices to make. So I want to stay here. I feel safe with you. Even if I don’t understand why.”
His wolf scraped the inside of his skin, this time leaving jagged marks along his body. He needed to shift. Now. Yet the fact that she trusted him calmed him enough to know he’d be able to make it to the edge of the woods rather than shift in front of her.
“I’ll show you to your room,” he said woodenly.
She followed him to the back of the house and stayed silent as he showed her around the guest room and bathroom. There was a stack of clothes on the bed that smelled of Brynn, and he couldn’t help but think that his sister saw far too much. All the Brentwoods did.
He let out a shaky breath as his claws slid through the skin on his fingertips.
Time was up.
“I need to go on a run,” he growled out.
She turned on her heel and stared at him. Whatever she saw didn’t scare her openly, but he knew if he didn’t get out of there fast, he couldn’t be responsible for his actions.
“Go,” she said simply.