Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Asher

I needed to kill him

In my mind, it played out over and over. Phil, torn in half, his viscera oozing all over the ground. His fucking head torn from his shoulders, his blood fountaining over me, each splatter a blessing. That fucking sneering mouth caved in and then… The bear was right there with me, proposing more and more brutal ways for the man to die, primarily at the hands of his fangs and claws, when all of a sudden he went quiet. I was just left with the pain, the sweat, and the shock of my fists driving themselves into the heavy boxing bag over and over until he forced me to turn around.

I didn't want my mate to see me like this. Not stripped down to the waist, sweat pouring off me. Not red faced and panting, every muscle trembling with the effort of keeping myself right where I was.

To stop from running towards her, sweeping her off her feet just to feel the weight of her in my arms.

"Asher…"

The way she uttered my name would always haunt me. Little more than a breath, I'm not sure if a human man would hear it, but I was no human. My feet moved of their own accord, taking one step than another, but when she stiffened in the doorway, I stopped. I'd never do anything to scare her. Never hurt her, make her sad.

Never lie…

That thought was a rope around my neck, cutting off the air I was sucking into my lungs, leaving me breathless.

"Asher." Her voice was firmer now, and she stepped into the gym. Me, the bear, heard every single step on the sprung wood floor, willing her to come forward. "Asher, I…" I needed to hear the end of that sentence like I needed my next breath. "I…"

I was the one that turned into a wild animal, but she? She looked like one right now, her limbs carrying the same kind of tension a deer's might, ready to spring away. Or run forward. Imogen forced herself to take slow, measured steps towards me, and as she got closer, I breathed her in.

Her scent was always honey sweet, but right now there was an edge to it. The sour of fear, but more than that, a strange kind of fire that had my tongue sliding across my teeth as if to get a taste of it.

"I just wanted to say thank you." I shook my head, not wanting her to ever feel like that was needed, but she forged on. "God, what would've happened if you didn't come?" That sour scent grew stronger for just a second, but it faded when she stopped staring into space, seeing the horror of it all over again. When she looked at me here, now, with her. "But you did. You did."

"Always will." I was too fucking close to the edge. The bear and I were always an uneasy alliance. Every day I had to bargain with him to just get through what I had to do. But now? With my mate standing right there in front of me, her eyes tracing the shape of the body that got that fucker away from her. Who'd tear apart the world for her the moment she indicated that's what she wanted. "Always, Imogen. He'll never get within ten feet of you if I have a thing to say about it."

"Yes." She nodded to herself, her confidence growing as her eyes slid upwards and then locked with mine. "You mean it, don't you?"

This was a perilous time and the smart part of me, the bit that listened to Elodie's advice when she did whole staff training days, told me to step the fuck back. Imogen was so bloody vulnerable right now, ripe for trauma bonding, but a relationship based on shared pain was doomed to always revisit it. I should get the fuck out of here, grab the psychologist and then make sure my mate had a session with her.

But I didn't.

I watched Imogen step closer as if tugged by an invisible cord, but I knew what it was. The mate bond was an almost physical presence. Every muscle locked down to stop me from closing the gap between us.

So she did it for me.

Imogen's eyes seemed to follow every trickle of sweat, frowning slightly as she watched it pool in the space between my clavicles before trailing down my chest. Her good hand twitched, the fingers shifting before her arm did, raising her hand, and I just watched. When I saw Phil threatening her, I was all action, but that certainty died now. Instead, my breath was sucked in as her hand hovered in the air, close enough to touch, but not doing so yet. My heart pounded in my ears, my lungs burned with the need to breathe, but I couldn't until she did this. One tiny little fingertip sliding down my slick chest, it pulled the words from her.

"Why would he…? If you didn't…?" She swallowed hard, her eyes following her fingertip. "But you… You…?"

There was a wariness in her gaze as it finally flicked up to meet mine, but that was quickly shoved aside by something far hungrier. That's when I saw how perfect she was for me. She needed everything I had to give, everything, including the darkness, and that was just fine because I couldn't do anything but give it to her.

"I will kill anyone who dares to hurt you." The bear and I swore an oath right then as my hand covered hers. Her palm flattened against my abs, catching the moment I sucked another breath in. "If Phil even breathes in your direction, it'll be his last. You will be safe. No one, not Mike, not Phil, not anyone, will be allowed to lay a single finger on you."

"Not even you?"

Her throat worked as she stared, her gaze one part dare, one part disbelief.

"Not unless…" Shit, my mouth was now bone dry and my throat worked frantically, trying to lubricate itself. "Not unless you want me to. You tell me what you want, and I'll make sure you get it."

I watched Imogen, the one woman I'd ever love suck in a breath and caught the moment when the fear left her eyes. When she stared at me like I was a toy for her to play with, not some random guy horning his way into her life. Like I was hers. All the pain, the exhaustion, fell away as something settled in my chest. It was as if a vertebra that was out of alignment since the moment I killed my foster father was suddenly pushed back into place. I could take a full breath and another, each one drawing light inside me to drive out the darkness.

Of course that could never last.

"Asher…"

Elodie, our psychologist, had come into the gym without me noticing it, but her steps slowed when she looked the two of us over. With those lightning-fast observation skills, she took in Imogen and her arm in a sling, but her focus settled on me. Elodie never told any of us to do anything, something that caused all sorts of frustration in different circumstances. Instead, she famously waited us all out until the moment came for us to blurt out what we knew needed to be done. "Ursula let me know that we have a new client."

Client, I hated that word. Too clinical, too distant to describe what Imogen was to me, and that was deliberate, I quickly realised. Elodie was reminding me of my position. That I could only protect the women and children that stayed here if I maintained some sort of distance.

"Big, burly men who are super protective," she'd told me and Kyle. "That's an extremely attractive prospect to a woman who's feeling vulnerable. You will need to be careful in your dealings with clients."

That had never been an issue for me before this. I kept my distance from everyone because that was my first instinct, but now? This was the moment when I truly realised what she meant. I would rather have pushed myself face first into a wildfire than step away from my mate, but I had to.

The bear roared, my control fracturing as he shoved and shoved against the bond. I was lucky his fur was white so it didn't show up that much along my bare arms, there and gone again. My hands became fists again, my claws pricking my palms, my fangs aching as they snapped down. Take her , he insisted. Mate her. Make her ours before something… His pleas went unanswered so he went for broke, showing me over and over what could happen to Imogen if I didn't claim her.

Broken bones, contusions, and sickly bruises. Scars old and new, burns and abrasions. Spirits crushed, women beaten down so much they couldn't get up and even then it didn't stop.

"Asher…"

Imogen stared at me, willing me to do something, anything, because I saw it then, that she wanted to claw back the moment we just had as much as I did.

But I couldn't.

If I cared for her at all, I needed to step back, and I made that plain to the bear. Protecting her meant giving her space to heal, and there was no way I could do that if she was touching me. He didn't relent, not until I drew my own ace card.

You remember what happened to Ursula.

The memories were shadowy, distorted by time, but my sister's sobs? I remembered them well. Not the harsh cries of someone first confronted by abuse, but the soft, hopeless ones of someone habituated by it. He snarled, backing away, but I delivered my coup de grace.

Touching Imogen, kissing her, dragging her down the hall to my bed where I'd do everything I'd dreamed of to make my mate happy, would be wrong right now. We'd be the looming figure in the doorway, ready to satisfy my own disgusting urges while disregarding Imogen's needs. That was enough to push him so far down I wondered if he'd ever surface again.

"This is Elodie," I told Imogen, introducing the two women. "She's a psychologist who works with us. She has a quick chat with everyone who comes here." My mate stiffened, taking a step towards me, but I resisted the urge to meet her half way. "She'll take you to see where her office is, just in case you'd like to book a session with her at some point."

Imogen didn't. I could smell it in her scent, see it in the way the light died in her eyes, but Elodie just smiled down at my mate.

"If you come with me, we'll let Asher shower and get changed…"

I watched the two of them walk out of the gym, the space suddenly cavernous. The air was stale, stinking of body odour, plastic, and iron without her scent to perfume it. Sweat cooled on my skin, making goosebumps prickle everywhere. A shower… It'd been Elodie's not-so-subtle suggestion for me to get myself under control, but it seemed like the best way forward. Under the hot spray of the shower, maybe… Maybe I could send all the shit of the day swirling down the plughole just like the soap and shampoo. I snorted, knowing that would never happen.