Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(24)

“You were a guard?”

Kirk nodded once. “I was dominant, bigger than all my half-brothers, and had come to an age where my animal instincts called for a family. A female and babies to protect. It’s all I could think about. All I wanted. Fuck.” Kirk clenched his jaw and shot a hard look up through the branches of the trees. “Let’s walk, or I won’t be able to do this.”

Silently, Alison kept pace beside him. She knew she shouldn’t touch him right now because Kirk’s voice had gone deep and feral and his entire body rigid. His eyes were glowing that sunny gold, and he made the air feel like it had weight, but she couldn’t not touch him when he was letting her in. Hesitating only a moment, she slipped her hand into his and bumped his shoulder.

Kirk gave her a slight smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Fiona chose me for guard duty, along with this * named Rhett, and she assigned us to her prize silverback, Kong.”

“King Kong,” she said softly as it clicked. “Of the Lowlanders.”

“Yeah, and he’s a brawler. He’s the first silverback I ever met who felt more dominant than me. And so I did the job Fiona assigned me. And I watched him fall for a girl in town. Layla. He tried to keep her at a distance. She was feeling something for him, too. I never believed in fate or anything like that, but those two were on this collision course, and I couldn’t stop it. After a while, I didn’t even want to. I wanted Kong to be happy, and he wanted a single mate and children he could raise himself because, deep down, that’s what I wanted, too. And the more I covered for him with Rhett, the more I let him slip into this relationship with a human, the more I knew Fiona would kill me for failing her.” Kirk shrugged, then pulled Alison against his side, draped his heavy arm around her shoulders. “I felt empty. Kong’s gorilla stifled my instincts to want anything for myself. My whole life was devoted to keeping someone I respected unhappy. Fiona was going to off me. Everything had gone sideways, and there was no way out of it.”

“So what did you do?”

“I made a stand with Kong. I didn’t have anything to live for, but I liked Layla, and I wanted Kong happy. Our people were so f*cked up, but he had this chance to be okay with his mate, and I was grasping onto anything that gave me purpose.” Kirk kissed her hairline. “We’d chosen right when we moved here. We found unexpected allies. Kong killed Rhett, and when Fiona and all her guards came for her prize male, Kong and I didn’t face her alone. The Gray Backs went to battle for him too, and that dragon the humans are so afraid of ended Fiona and her reign. She’d been building an unwilling army with the silverbacks she wouldn’t allow to breed, but Damon freed us. Freed me.”

“But…you pledged as a Lowlander. You still pledged with your people.”

“With Kong. He’s a good man, and he and Layla are trying for a baby. And Kong’s mom, Josephine, is in the group. It might not be the life I wanted, but I got to be around good people. It was okay for a while. I was almost happy. I worked at Kong’s sawmill and even stayed in a spare room of his and Layla’s, but it was like watching the life I wanted through a window. Only I didn’t have the drive to actively find a mate because Kong’s animal keeps mine in check. I don’t think he even meant to. I started breathing easier when he released me to come up here and help out the Boarlanders for a logging season.”

“That’s the decision Damon was talking about,” she murmured as it all clicked into place. “You are struggling with the decision of whether to move back to Saratoga and rejoin the Lowlanders.”

Kirk huffed a breath and pulled her to a stop at the edge of a sandy beach on a river bank. To the right, there was a path up a cliff and a gorgeous waterfall tumbling over the edge. This was where she’d seen him and the Boarlanders for the first time when she’d come to retrieve Emerson.

“He’s been calling me.”

“Who?”

“Kong. I’ve been avoiding the talk. I know he wants me to come back to the sawmill. To his family group, but I don’t know what to say. Not yet.”

“What do you want to do? What do you imagine your future like, Kirk?”

She could see the moment he shut down. It was there in his eyes. The spark of conversation was snuffed out as the instant his face closed off. She hated that—his ability to push and pull so easily. Instead of answering her, Kirk pulled off his shirt and kicked out of his work boots.

She watched sadly as he shucked his clothes completely and strode into the waves, then disappeared under the dark water, aimed for the waterfall. And as he cut gracefully through the waves, it struck her for the first time that she loved him.

She’d never loved anyone. She hadn’t allowed herself to, but Kirk—hot and cold, sweet and hard, strong, protective, scared-of-affection Kirk—had drawn it from her. He hadn’t asked for her heart. He’d simply plucked it from her chest and held it gently, then dared her to come take it back from him. She didn’t even want to because at least she was capable of deep emotion. Of deep adoration. Of deep love.

It had taken someone who was damaged like her to give her this completely normal moment. This insecure, breathless, hope-filled, human moment that took a shifter to create.

Alison peeled out of her clothes. She was ready for him to see all of her. He’d tried to share all of himself, but he wasn’t strong enough yet, and that was okay. She would be patient. But she was already there—ready for all-in.