Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Runa

The growl that emanated from his chest sounded like an agreement before he cut it off with a rough jerk of his head. He was glaring at the wall now, unable or unwilling to look at me. I sighed. If I wanted him to share, I needed to share my own story in return. I didn’t want to, I still didn’t trust him, but if he kept going like he was, he’d end up out of control. Once he lost himself to his animal, he’d need to be put down. He was the father of my seedling. I couldn’t allow that to happen.

“I spent my whole life trying to care for others,” I began, drawing his attention. “I’m a healer. It’s part of who I am, and I love to do it. Creating potions and spells to ease pain and assist healing, it brings me joy. And the babies–” I sighed, a heavy ache in my chest. “–Goddess, how I loved bringing babies into the world. Watching them take their first breath, seeing the love and joy on their parents’ faces when I placed the child in their arms. I would spend every day doing that if I could.”

A lump formed in my throat, but I pushed past it, staring blindly at the ceiling. “When my family was killed, I tried to save them. It was too late for that, they were long gone by the time I came home and found their bodies, but I tried anyway. It was the first time I ever failed to heal someone. It tainted things a little. My work became a matter of survival, not of love. But I still put my heart into it. I did what I could for those I could help, and eased the pain for the ones who couldn’t be saved. I lived quietly, to not draw attention, and those I helped knew to keep it to themselves. But somehow, somewhere, something happened to draw a monster to my home.”

His body tightened and he growled low, but he didn’t interrupt. I was glad for it. I didn’t like telling the story. I didn’t want to repeat myself.

“Tobias Callisto was a monster. Plain and simple. He was willing to do anything to get Aiden’s money. Including kidnapping me and forcing me to–” My voice cut out and I had to grit my teeth to get the words out. “He made me do a great many things I wasn’t comfortable with. If I refused, he wouldn’t have just killed me. He somehow knew every birth, every healing I had done, and he told me he would find them all and kill them too for my defiance. I could’ve accepted my own life as forfeit, but I couldn’t let him hurt the people I healed. I couldn’t let him undo all the work I’d done to save them.”

“What did he make you do?” he finally asked, his voice rough like his tiger was close to the surface.

I hated to admit it. It felt so wrong at the time. “I created spells to hurt people, to try and trap the dragon. I wasn’t very good at them, I’m a healer, not a spellweaver. I used that to my advantage, leaving hints for the dragon to get him to figure it out when the monster wasn’t looking. I wanted him and Tobias to meet. I wanted the trouble to pass to him so I could be free of it. I thought he’d be able to do something about it. I was wrong.”

It still made me angry to this day. I saw the fight that night. I saw the dragon hesitate. He wasn’t willing to kill the man who had slaughtered his guards and kidnapped his friends.

“Ethan saved Andrew that night. And the Blackridge shifters saved me and the two others Tobias had taken when the dragon was captured. I owe no allegiances to that man. I stayed because I had no other choice. The dragon encouraged it, and then the wind demanded it. I had a purpose here. I couldn’t leave.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked after a long moment of silence.

Turning to face him, I raised my eyebrows. “We have all done things we aren’t proud of. If you can’t face it, it will eat you alive. You’ll end up going insane and your family will be forced to put you down.”

If they can, anyway. I still didn’t trust Aiden to do the right thing. Even though his son was a murderer who threatened his mate, Aiden still didn’t do anything about it. He made complaints about sending Tobias away to be locked up. It would have only dragged out the inevitable. That monster couldn’t be saved. And neither could Nathan if he reached the same point.

Nathan

I could hear the emotion in her words. The honesty. She didn’t lie even once. I wanted to trust her. To trust she meant me no harm. But if she found out what I’d done, would she still feel the same way?

Her warm hand settled on my chest, right over my heart. I covered it with my own, trying to work up the courage to speak the words out loud. No one aside from my team knew. Not even my dad. I didn’t know where to start.

The wind rustled through the trees outside and Runa cocked her head with a frown. She narrowed her eyes slightly.

“We need to go to the river.”

I frowned back at her. “What? Why?”

She gave me a flat look. “I don’t know. I’m just telling you what was said. We need to go to the river. Come on. It’s not far.”

She didn’t wait for me to respond. She tossed the blanket aside, sliding out of bed with a lot more ease than she had earlier. The rest had done her some good at least. Still, I didn’t want her walking around when she was so weak.

“Runa, you need rest. Can’t we–”

“If there’s one thing you need to know about me, Nathan, it’s that I trust the spirits with my life. If they say I need to go, I go. You’re coming too or the wind will toss my home to make you and I’d rather not have to deal with that. Let’s go.”

She gave me no room to argue, marching out of the cottage without even bothering to put on shoes. I had no choice but to follow her. I snagged my jeans before I left, but I didn’t have time for anything else. She used the trees to keep herself upright, but she walked a lot faster than I thought she was capable of, and I had to run to catch up with her.

She was right, the river wasn’t far. The walk was less than five minutes before we were at its banks. She tipped her head like she was listening again, then turned and followed the river for a little while longer with me trailing behind her. It wasn’t until we found a small waterfall that she stopped. She sighed heavily.

“You know they’re going to yell at me if I do that. I’m supposed to be resting,” she murmured. I got the feeling she wasn’t talking to me. The wind rustled again and she growled a little, looking over her shoulder at me with a scowl. “We need to get into the water.”

I stared at her for a long minute before asking, “If I say no, you’ll go in anyway, won’t you?”

She just gave me a blank look. “You know the answer to that.”

Annoyance flashed through me, followed quickly by resignation. If I wanted to keep her and my cub safe, I had to go.

Stomping toward her, I stopped at her side and scooped her up before marching into the river. It was cold, but not overly so. Not so much that I’d worry about Runa anyway. Aside from a small gasp from the shock, she didn’t seem overly bothered by it when we got to the deepest part of the river. She just pointed toward the falls, her other arm tossed around my neck.

“In there.”

On the other side was a small cave with a flat rock on the bottom. Runa pointed to it and I sat her on the edge before pulling myself up next to her. We were both soaked and the chill wasn’t as pleasant now that we were out of the water. We had to sit hip to hip to stay warm. It was comforting, though, having her that close. The falls blocked the view and was loud enough that I couldn’t hear anything outside of it. It was like we were alone in the world, and I finally worked up the courage to speak.

“I was recruited into the military when I was in my early twenties. Not many people know there’s a small branch of the government that purposely seeks out shifters. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life at the time, and the recruiter made it sound like I’d be doing something to help people.” I huffed a laugh, shaking my head. “Now that I’m older, I realize that was on purpose. He made everything sound so good, and left out everything I’d lose along the way.”

The number of friends I’d lost was hard enough to stomach. But the connection to my tiger stung the most.

“My tiger is rare. We’re tough and really good at tracking. I was getting close to the end of my enlistment contract when they transferred me to another unit. By that time, I felt dead inside. I’d lost friends and allies and it hurt too much to face. I didn’t argue with them. Dad told me not to go, begged me to come home, but I couldn’t face him. I kind of hoped my next assignment would kill me so I wouldn’t ever have to.”

My tiger snarled at the thought, but I ignored it. I didn’t feel that way anymore. I couldn’t go. I wouldn’t be able to protect my family if I left like that.

“The assignment was simple. Find the out-of-control shifters, the ones who couldn’t be saved, and put them down. We were usually called in by clans or neighbors who’d seen them go off the rails. The ones who weren’t strong enough or who didn’t have enough clan power to take the shifters out themselves. They called us instead.”

I could’ve lived with that. For a little while, the assignments were easy to manage. The proof was right in front of us. The shifters were a danger both to the population and to the secret that kept us safe. They needed to be dealt with or so many more people would suffer because of their actions.

“I started to question things on my last few assignments. The shifters we were targeting didn’t look too far gone. I felt like they could be rehabilitated, given the right resources. But nothing like that exists right now. And when I mentioned it to higher-ups, they said there wasn’t enough funding for it. It was better to finish them off before they went too far. I even suggested sending them to a cage to protect them, but it fell on deaf ears. It felt… wrong. I hated it. But I had no other choice. Or maybe I did, but I just didn’t see it. I don’t know.”

I dropped my head into my hands, the regret eating at me. Runa stayed silent through all of it, but I felt the weight of her gaze on me. I was too afraid to look at her face and see what she thought of me.

“During my last assignment, everything went wrong. My partner for the job missed his shot and the guy ran. I had to go after him on foot. I chased…” I gripped my hair tightly to distract myself from the sharp pain in my chest. “I chased him down like he was prey,” I croaked. “I don’t know what made me do it, but instinct kicked in and I couldn’t back off. Couldn’t think straight. I got him pinned and kept him there, sobbing and begging for his life. He was fucking terrified.”

I could still hear it. The sounds he made. The smell of fear in the air. It was enough to make me pause, but I couldn’t seem to move to let him go. My tiger demanded it, but my training said he was dangerous and needed to be put down. So I froze.

“I was supposed to end him. It was my job. But I couldn’t move. I was at war with myself. He didn’t sound out of control to me. He sounded scared. He just needed a little help.”

Tears burned my eyes as I stared helplessly at the water beneath me. I still felt frozen. It felt like I was stuck and I couldn’t move on from what happened. Like I was still crouched over the guy, keeping him in place so we could end his life.

“I took too long to make a decision,” I murmured, closing my eyes against the pain. “My partner showed up before I could. He told me to end the guy and when I wouldn’t move, he pulled out his pistol and did it himself. All while I had him pinned to the ground.”

Which was when my tiger took over. He forced a shift and attacked my partner without hesitation. It was only the fact that the guy was a flight shifter and saw it coming that saved him. “They had to tranq me to get me to calm down and when I refused to suit back up again, they discharged me and sent me home. I’d been stuck ever since.”

I felt Runa move, but I didn’t look up until she slipped into the water. It still wasn’t safe for her to swim. I lifted my head, forcing myself to look her in the eye. She didn’t look angry or disgusted like I expected. She looked… sympathetic.

When she offered me her hand, I frowned at it, confused. Her lips quirked up in the corners like my reaction amused her.

“Water is used for cleansing not just the body, but the spirit as well. The water called for you. It’s time to wash the blood away.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but I couldn’t breathe all the same. I took her hand, letting her draw me into the water and against her. And when she took a deep breath, I mimicked her and we sank under the waves together.

The world went quiet under the water. It blocked out the noise in my head, clearing it for the first time in months. I felt weightless and numb, but not in a bad way. The cold numbed the pain in my gut, and the heaviness on my shoulders disappeared. When I opened my eyes, all I could see was Runa. She smiled at me like I wasn’t some kind of monster. She would know, too, after everything she’d been through.

I found myself reaching for her, and when my lips pressed against hers, she softened and kissed me back. It was… everything I never knew I needed.

It wasn’t until my lungs burned and I worried for the cub that I dragged us both to the surface. I sucked in a lungful of cool air and felt it sweep through my body, numbing the pain inside and out. And for the first time since that day that broke me, I felt like I could breathe.