“She wasn’t confronting me, if that’s what you’re worried about. She asked me, in the nicest possible way, not to hurt you. It’s a good thing that your pack’s protective of each other.”
“They’re good people.”
Makenna nodded. “From what I’ve seen, yes, they are.” She didn’t much like Greta, but she appreciated that the woman was protective of Ryan.
“They’re also smart. They’ll guess that we’re mates. We should just tell them.”
“Ryan—”
“You said yourself that Zac will probably agree to join tomorrow. We don’t have any other reason to keep quiet about it.”
“You mean apart from the fact that you could be wrong?”
“I’m not wrong.”
She twisted slightly in her seat to better look at him. “How can you be so positive? I mean, I agree that us being mates would explain a lot of things. But how can you be so sure when there’s no mating bond pulling at you?”
“I just am. But if you need to feel the bond to believe it, you need to clear the frequency.”
You need to share your secrets and fears, he didn’t say but she clearly heard. He was right, and that put her on the defensive. “I don’t ask you to share all your shit. Whenever the topic of your parents is brought up in even the most casual sense, you change the subject. I’ve never called you on it.”
She was right, Ryan realized. He did do that. But it was more out of habit than anything else.
“And have I asked about your scars, even though the sight of them makes me want to fucking kill somebody? No. I respect that you might not want to talk about painful things in your past.”
Given the soft heart beneath all that armor, he’d expected compassion or pity—both of which would have cut him deeper than any of the implements used on him. But no. She was absolutely enraged. It made him want to smile. “It was a long time ago.”
“That’s not the fucking point. No one had the right to hurt you like that. No one. Tell me the fuckers are dead.”
“Every single one of them,” he verified.
“Good.” Her wolf strongly agreed.
“You have a bloodthirsty streak, don’t you, Kenna?”
“My name is Makenna.”
“No, that’s the name you hide behind. You’ve created an alternate identity, so your past, your pain, and your secrets can’t touch you. But it doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
She shook her head. “You think you know me, but you don’t have a fucking clue.”
Parking outside her apartment building, he switched off the engine. “Don’t I?”
“No.”
“Then stop holding it all in.”
“You know all you need to know.”
Was it really so awful that he wanted to know who she really was and what happened to her? “Trust me, I will make sure that whoever is looking for you never finds you. I will keep you safe. Just tell me.”
Her blood seemed to bubble in her veins as anger unfurled inside her. It was the promise to keep her safe that did it. The last person who’d said that to her had been Dawn when she first arrived at the shelter . . . because she’d been all alone—lost and half feral. She hated to think about that time in her life. “Just let it go.”
“You know I won’t.”
“It’s not your—”
“Don’t tell me this isn’t my business. Everything about you is my business.”
She clenched her fists. “Just leave it.”
Ryan cupped her nape. “Tell me, Kenna. Trust me to keep you safe.”
There was that promise again. “I don’t know!” She practically leapt out of the door and marched toward the building.
Sure he’d heard her wrong, Ryan got out of the car and went after her. “What?”
At the top of the stairs leading to her apartment, she pivoted on the spot. “I don’t know, okay,” she said through her teeth. “I can’t give you the answers you want because I don’t have them.”
Ryan followed her as she stomped down the stairs, unlocked the door, and went inside. He watched her warily as she dumped her purse on the coffee table before heading to the kitchen, where a mug and coffee machine bore the brunt of her anger. “Makenna . . . I don’t understand.”
Taking a steadying breath, Makenna dragged a hand through her hair. “I just don’t remember any of what happened. My mother and I were banished. She told me I was just a toddler at the time, so maybe that’s why I have no memories of the pack or what happened. If my birth name is different, it was changed long before I was old enough to remember. The answers to all your questions died with my mother when she was attacked by a group of falcon shifters, for fun.”
Her pain echoed in every word. Ryan felt something in his chest tighten as he looked at her standing there, eyes blazing with anger and hurt. Before he knew it, he was moving toward her.
She backed away. “No.”
Ryan cupped her nape and pulled her against him, holding her there. He’d never been good at giving comfort, but he couldn’t just do nothing. Her pain pulled at him, made his stomach churn. He stroked a hand over her hair. All this time he’d thought she was keeping secrets from him; he hadn’t for one moment guessed that she’d held back because it was too painful to admit that she simply didn’t know the truth. “I can find them, Makenna. Give me everything you do know about the pack, and I’ll find them.”