More sunglasses appear.
“No sunglasses,” I say. “He likes the sun in his eyes.” I don’t know how I know; I just know.
Kiro gazes down at me, expression haunted. Something’s wrong—very wrong. What happened?
The youngest woman brings over an oversized plaid shirt for him to try. The black-brown matches his hair, the blue contrasts with the gold of his eyes. “Try this one,” she says.
He fingers the fabric, still with that haunted look.
I hand over the sunglasses. “I’d love if you’d all double-check on some of those large sizes for the jackets and shirts,” I say, but my real meaning isgive us a moment.“What is it?” I ask after they’re gone.
“You don’t see it?” he asks.
“No. What?”
“Me. On display as a savage. Dressed as a circus animal.”
I clamp my hand on his arm before he can walk off. “That’s not what they’re thinking.”
“They all know what I am. Everyone here. The way they stare—”
“That’s not why they’re staring at you! They think you’re hot. Gorgeous. Kiro—you’re not a savage.”
His faraway gaze is directed over my head now, not meeting my eyes. He sounds so vulnerable, so angry.They want to kill me because I’m different.
That’s what he thinks. It’s what he really, really thinks. “I swear to you, that’s not what’s happening here.”
He shakes his head.
“You spent time lost in the wilderness. It doesn’t make you savage.”
“So you say.”
“I know that of all the people in the Fancher Institute, you showed me the most humanity.”
His lips twist. He doesn’t believe me. “The professor who caged me up had a theory. He said my primitive brain, my lizard brain, was in the driver’s seat. He thought it was because I’d lived with wolves. He didn’t understand I was born that way.”
“What? No kid is born that way.”
He takes hold ofmyarm now, eyes boring into mine. “Ask me how it felt to choke him. To feel him die in my hands. Ask me.”
“You need to let go,” I whisper.
His gaze burns into mine, stripping me bare, stripping us bare. “I loved it. I loved to feel the life draining out of him.”
“He kept you in a cage.”
He lowers his voice to a growl. “Ask what I want to do to you.”
Energy pulses between my legs as I try to pull from his grip. His eyes sparkle as he tightens his fingers. I’m back in that hotel room with him pressing me against the wall. My belly feels melty.
His voice rumbles with emotion. “Ask me.”
“Kiro—”
“You can dress me up and cut my hair, but you can never cover up the savage.”
He lets me go and storms toward the men’s dressing room.