“What do you mean by that?” She crossed her arms over her breasts, mostly to hide her hard nipples.
He kept looking at them. Though she admitted they were hard to miss.
“I mean, Ms. Marion, that if you move in the right circles, or should I say the wrong circles, you can get away with damned near anything. I have a dozen false identities, social security numbers and passports. All with very illegitimate last names. But I do not have a last name. My mother’s family refused to allow me hers, and it’s hard for a Breed to claim a father. Therefore, I am, lastnameless. ”
“School… Birth records…” She shook her head. This was impossible.
“Schooled myself for the most part. ” He filled the skillet with bacon. Evidently he ate a lot. “My grandfather kept me hidden in the mountains after I was weaned from my mother. As I grew older, he left me there alone. He always provided books, though. Television. I wasn’t deprived. ”
She blinked in shock. “That’s not a childhood,” she whispered.
“I wasn’t a child. ” He looked at her again, his eyes dull. “I was an animal, Ms. Marion. One he had no choice but to protect because his honor demanded it. His blood was in my veins whether he liked it or not. He did his best. ”
There was acceptance in his voice. No regret, no recriminations, no anger or pain. Just acceptance.
“You’re not an animal,” she snapped, trembling in shock that anyone would treat a child so cruelly. “I said I was sorry. I was…” She drew in a hard, deep breath. “I was frightened, Kiowa. I reacted and it was wrong. ”
He stared at her for a long moment before turning away, dismissing her as though she didn’t matter. God, this was hard. The lust rising in her body wasn’t making it any easier.
“Tell me,” he said then, turning back to her as the bacon sizzled on the stove. “What will you do when you’re swelling with my child, knowing you had no choice in its conception, that you’ve whelped a child that is as much an animal as it is human? Will you hold it to your breast and cuddle it with love? Or will you give it to strangers to raise? Will you give that child your name? Or will you attempt to kill it before it has a chance to draw its first breath?”
He worked quickly to open canned biscuits and lay them in a baking pan as Amanda stared back at him miserably.
“I wouldn’t choose abortion,” she whispered.
He looked up at her again as he slid the pan in the oven.
“Will you give me my child?”
There. Emotion. She saw for just a second, bleak, pain-ridden. A glimmer of fury in his eyes before he shut it away.
“No,” she said then, knowing that any child she carried would have her heart. He braced his hands on the counter and nodded slowly, his gaze turned to the floor for long seconds. When he looked back up at her, the possessive glitter that filled his eyes caused her to take a careful step back.
“If you heard much at all, then you know the full truth,” he said tightly. “You’re my mate, bound to me whether either of us likes it or not. I won’t let you go. ”
She shook her head slowly.
“You will,” she whispered softly. “Because you won’t want a woman that was forced upon you, Kiowa. One that doesn’t share your dreams, your needs, or the future you want to pursue. I don’t want your future,” she said painfully. “I have my own dreams. ”
“And your child that you refuse to give up?” he snapped. “What part will it play?”
“My child will be just that. Mine. I would love it, give it my name. I would treasure it. ”
“But not his father?” Those eyes were alive now, and fury fed them.
“What do you want me to say?” she cried desperately. “You’re trying to hurt me, to wrap me in guilt and make me feel responsible for this. I’m not. ”
“That’s a child’s response,” he bit out. “An adult adapts, Amanda. You’re right; when this is over you’re most likely better off leaving. A child could never handle me, let alone my life or the difficulties involved in raising my kid. My kid, lady. I’ll be damned if my kid will be treated like an animal by anyone. Nor will it be raised without its father. ”
She fought to control her breathing, the racing of her blood. She could feel the arousal building with it and she couldn’t afford the weakness. Not now.
“You’re being unreasonable,” she argued. “I don’t even know you. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I like you much. What basis is that for raising children?”
“A hell of a lot better than I had. ” He flipped the bacon with a furious motion of the spatula. What could she say to that?
“Wolf Breeds will be accepted after the Breed Law enacts…”
A hard, mocking laugh left his throat then as he speared her with those black eyes of his.