And now she could feel him silently calculating the best way, exactly what to say, what to do, to ensure that she remained safely out of any vengeance he intended to exact.
As if she was going to stand back on this one. That was two attempts against her, and this time, they’d nearly succeeded. Whatever the hell was going on centered on her, not the operation she’d been working on. Cullen could just unruffle his Breed fur and get over this whole me-Tarzan-you-Jane attitude.
“Just a word of warning,” she informed him with a scornful look before he had a chance to come back with an argument guaranteed to piss her off. “I will make certain you regret leaving me behind every miserable day of your existence if you do so.”
“Emphasis on the ‘miserable’ there, bro,” Graeme pointed out with less-than-helpful amusement.
A little help from his brother would have been nice, but it wasn’t really expected. Though, come to think of it, she had no doubt Graeme’s wife, Cat, would be right on his ass when he headed to the Cerves compound. Cat wasn’t exactly the sit-at-home-and-be-safe type. And she’d be right by his side with his eager agreement, no doubt.
“Give it up, brother,” Graeme advised him somberly as he rose to his feet, ignoring Cullen’s glare. “Like Cat, her spirit is far too wild and independent to be caged. Keep her at your side instead, where you’ll know she’s safe from the trouble she might consider getting into. You’ll be happier for it.”
And keeping her out of danger was proving to be rather impossible, Cullen realized, not really certain how he felt about the situation. He’d spent so many years trying to protect her that he wasn’t certain how to go about just watching her back, let alone allowing her to walk into danger with him.
Hell, it continued to amaze him that she didn’t want to be protected or saved from the danger. She wanted to fight her own battles, and he was damned if he knew how to handle all that wild courage.
“Plan to be at the caverns early evening,” Graeme stated then. “I’ll text you the exact time later. I want to get some intel on Cerves first and see what we’re looking at.”
Moving to the back door, he shot Cullen a gloating smile. “See you and your mate later.”
The door closed quietly behind him and did nothing to drown out his taunting laughter once he was outside.
“I knew you were plotting something devious before I ever left the room,” Chelsea snapped as he rubbed at the back of his neck and shot her an implacable look. “I learned not to leave overprotective males alone together before I even hit my teens.”
Her father and grandfather had been horrible about secretly trying to protect her. Plotting and calculating, always searching for ways to make certain there were protective eyes on her at all times. Her early teens were an exercise in just finding somewhere to breathe without someone counting each breath.
“Is that when you developed your eavesdropping tendencies?” he shot back, the brooding look on his face hiding more than it revealed. “It might occur to you one of these days that you’re not invincible.”
“I never imagined I was invincible.” She arched her brow back at him smugly as she propped her hand on her hip, refusing to be intimidated by him. “What I am is well trained, and you damned well know it. Giving someone else control of my life isn’t going to happen, Cullen. Not now, not ever. Not even you.”
His eyes flared with anger then. “I don’t want control. I want your safety.”
“On your terms,” she argued back, determined to remain calm. “On your terms, Cullen, not mine. Some trick of biology or chemistry may have ensured we’re tied to each other, and I understand you hate the hell out of it, but I will not sit back and be something or someone I’m not. Even for you.”
The chemical reaction wouldn’t dictate her life; she’d already made that decision. She could handle being tied to him sexually for the time being, but she wasn’t counting on him to stick around because she knew he didn’t want to be here to begin with.
“And if you end up dead because of something I could have prevented?” he asked, a haunted, shadowed look crossing his expression. “What then?”
“Then unlike your first wife, I promise not to blame you,” she said, knowing the look for what it was. “I never asked you to save me, Cullen. I just wanted to fight beside you. If I can’t have that much of you, at least, then what use is a mating or anything else between us? I accept you for the asshole you are; the least you can do is accept me for the woman I am rather than the woman you can’t forget.”
Lifting her chin with a small amount of pride, she turned on her heel and stalked back to the bedroom, and no doubt the shower, her accusation ringing in his ears.
She thought he wanted Lauren back? That his need to protect her had something to do
with whatever he might have once felt for his dead wife? And as much as the accusation stung, as much as he hated it, he wondered if she had a point.
Not so much that he wanted his wife back, because that wasn’t the case. Even had a cure for her disease been found, their relationship had ended the day she had flung her knowledge of his Breed status in his face and accused him of not loving her enough to cure her. He’d told her he was a Breed before their wedding, unwilling to go into their marriage with any secrets between them. Just as he’d explained what recessive Breed genetics were. But, he’d realized later, she’d already known.
The tabloid stories had fed her belief that Mating Heat could cure her. The revelation that Chelsea’s uncle Ray had been aiding the Genetics Council resulted in the proof that Ray had actually pushed Lauren into believing the stories. Ray had preyed on Lauren’s fears and her desperation to live, with the information he’d gained on mating and the mating hormone’s ability to reverse diseases most often incurable.
The final year of Lauren’s life had been hell on both her and Cullen. She’d been so desperate to live, and he’d understood that desperation. But a Breed didn’t control mating; he couldn’t call it up or force its retreat. And in her final moments that knowledge had consumed her with rage.
After her death, Cullen had deliberately isolated himself, not because of the overwhelming grief everyone assumed, but because he couldn’t forget that he had loved her when they married, only to pay the ultimate price for giving someone that much of himself.
Even here, in the house he’d bought after Lauren’s death, he’d kept his life as barren as possible. He’d worked, slept and ate when he needed to. He’d fucked when the urge couldn’t be denied, but he hadn’t formed relationships.
The sound of the shower was a faint pulse of life in the house and Chelsea’s presence a vivid splash of color against the dull shadows of the rooms.
She too was a reminder of his failures, though, in some ways. Because she was his mate, and that wild independence she possessed wasn’t going to change. It was such a part of her that she’d never be able to contain it. And because Lauren had known that even though she wasn’t his mate, still, she had known his mate was close.