“Slayer and Whisper could have it wrong, Gedeon. It’s Whisper’s first life cycle. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. We could be wrong.”
Meiling leaned against the far wall, hands behind her back, looking lost and alone. Gedeon went right to her. Close. Towering over her.
“You’ve been with me a year, Meiling. In all that time, you trusted me to have your back. We’ve been good partners. We never once had to look to see if the other was going to be there. We knew it with certainty. Slayer knows Whisper is his mate. I know you’re mine. I’ve known it all along. You have to trust me to take care of you through this. I swear to you on my life that I know what to do. You can rely on me, just the way you have through this last year.”
She stood looking up at him, her dark eyes filled with liquid, breaking his heart as she gave a slight shake of her head.
He stepped closer, a hand on either side of her head, caging her in. “Talk to me, Lotus. You’ve always been able to talk to me. I need to know what you’re so afraid of.”
“Don’t you know, Gedeon?”
Her voice was a low whisper. So soft. The sound crept over him like a caress. He shook his head. “No, baby, you’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
She took a deep breath. Let it out. She had courage. She didn’t look away from him. She kept her gaze fixed on his. “I’m in love with you.”
She loved him? Meiling loved him? She looked him right in the eye and said the words to him. She said she was in love with him. His legs wanted to turn to rubber, and his heart melted. She could turn him inside out with her honesty.
“I don’t want a little part of you. I want all of you. Watching you with other women is devastating. I can’t risk you ripping out my heart that way. I just can’t. You have no idea what you did to me that night I walked in on you with that woman. I knew I couldn’t have that part of you. Your cock. The sex. You gave that to other women, but your room? That was mine. We had that intimacy. No one else. You gave me everything else. At least I told myself I had everything else. I wanted you physically, but if all I got was what I had, I knew I had the best part of you.”
Gedeon remained silent. He wanted to defend himself, but what the hell kind of defense could he mount? He told her what happened. Her female had made Slayer beyond insane. Gedeon had been just as bad, just as out of control. Rene had never seen him so far gone. It hadn’t been Rene’s fault that he misunderstood what Gedeon was telling him. He’d needed a woman and fast, but he’d wanted Rene to get him to the club, not bring a woman to his home.
“She was there. In my space. Where you belonged to me. I was so devastated I didn’t know how to process. I could barely breathe. Or think. The worst of it was, I was enraged. Had I run across that woman I might have killed her. I’m not like that, and it shook me to know I was capable of such a terrible thing as murder simply because I was jealous.”
He had to stop her. “Meiling. No. That wasn’t you. When your female is in heat, her cycle is vicious on her. On you. I’m your mate. You witnessed me with another female. To you that was a betrayal. A female was with the man who was supposed to be with you. Had you been with another man at the club the other night, I would have killed him. I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. That’s why shifters must be so careful when the woman comes into the Han Vol Dan. The emergence. Passions run so hot.”
“Murder might be passion to you, Gedeon, but it’s horrible and terrifying and shameful to think I would harm an innocent woman because she was with you consensually. You wanted to be with her. In our room.”
Damn it. She had tears in her eyes all over again. Her voice dripped with them. How the hell did men do this? “Lotus, don’t. She was never supposed to be there. I don’t bring women to our room. You know that. I never will again. There never will be other women. I swear to you, Meiling. There will never be another woman. It’s only you. It’s always going to be you.”
“I don’t like who I am, loving you. I don’t want to be a woman who would kill another woman because my man cheats on me. I’d rather kill him if I’m going to kill someone.”