Redeem the Bear (Bear Valley Shifters #5)(31)

He released her hand and locked his fingers behind his head. “You were hurt and I was losing you, and dammit, Corin, it felt like I was losing myself too. My people were pissed. No. That’s a colossal understatement. They were ready to skin me alive, and I could either put my head down and barrel through it, or give in and let them have Bear Valley. Fuck.” He flung his hands away and stopped. Facing her, he said, “I killed my own people, Corin. You should know what kind of man I am. I killed my own.” His eyes were tortured and filled with unchecked grief.

She placed the palm of her hand against his chest and he winced and angled his shoulder away.

“How many?”

“Nine, just at my hand. And I wasn’t the only one fighting to kill.”

Nausea bubbled up the back of her throat. She didn’t even want to know the final head count of how many had been killed. “Why?”

“Because if they lived, they would kill me and anyone who supported me, and then they’d take Bear Valley. They’d take you.”

“Was Mace one of them?”

“He led them, yes.”

“And him coming for me, that was his last move?”

Anger flashed across Brooks’ eyes, and he focused his gaze somewhere above her shoulder. “He was desperate. He got what he deserved at the hands of your clan.”

Inhaling deeply, she cupped his cheek with her palm and brought his eyes back to her. “You’re changing.”

The sound of his whiskers scratching accompanied the rough texture against her palm, and she smiled at the contrast of the cold, empty man she’d first met at camp, and the reachable man who leaned into her touch now.

“In a good way or a bad way?” he asked, his expression raw and vulnerable.

“In the best of ways,” she said, her breath hitching. “Don’t let the souls of a battle you couldn’t avoid rest too heavy on your soul, Brooks. They would’ve killed you and any good you had done their clan if you didn’t defend yourself. You’re changing in a good way, and you’re changing the Long Claws for the better too. Everyone spoke of how Nathan was supposed to make history for his clan. It was you who was fated to ally the clans. Only an ancient bear with a heart as strong as yours could bring peace to the Long Claws.”

His fingers slid up the length of her arm and rested on her hand, pressing it to his cheek. “I’m no good for you now, but someday I will be,” he promised in a low voice. His eyes were so steady, so serious, and she believed him.

“Tell me how you came to be with the Long Claws, Brooks. Tell me once and I’ll never ask again. Best you get it out of you and share it with someone who will understand. With someone who was there when you were taken, who knows the sacrifice you made.”

“Corin, please…” His face crumpled in on itself like he was utterly lost and couldn’t go on.

She hugged him so tightly, burying her face against his shoulder. “I won’t even look at you. Just tell me once. I love you, and whatever you have to say won’t change the way I feel. I promise.”

Breath ragged, he slid his hands slowly around her back and pulled her closer. “I don’t remember being hurt, or waking up or anything like that. It’s just bits and pieces before Magdalena. I didn’t have any memories, and she told me I was hers. I thought it must be true because she acted so natural, like I’d just hit my head or something and it pushed my childhood memories away. She was older and strict. She taught me how to hate, and then she taught me to feel nothing at all. She loved me until I wanted to die, so inside, I did.”

A tear slid down Corin’s cheek and made a dark spot against the navy stretch T-shirt pulled taut against Brooks’ chest. “Did she hurt you?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes and hated the question that tumbled from her mouth. “Did she touch you?”

He sighed, long and unsteady. “Yes. She was a Long Claw. She had been trained to take what she wanted, and she had a taste for young boys.”

“Where is she now?” Because if that bitch was alive, Corin was going to kill her slowly.

“She died in a battle against Blood Den. You smell angry, and you’re shaking. Speak.”

“You were supposed to grow into a man beside me. I was supposed to be your first and only, and you were taken from me the day I lost everything.” A sob escaped her lips and she shook her head to ward off the tears that were threatening to spill and never stop tumbling down her face. “And I was taken away from you. Were you even allowed to be a child, Brooks? Were there any happy moments in your life after you awoke a Long Claw.”

He didn’t answer, but his silence spoke volumes on how dark his life had been. No. He was trying and couldn’t even conjure one good memory that outweighed the bad. No wonder he was so empty when she’d first seen him again. Over the course of a decade, he’d been stripped to nothing but vengeance and darkness.

“It doesn’t matter what they made you do, Brooks. You are already good enough for me. You are worthy of love, and you are redeemable. Magdalena doesn’t have you anymore. I do, and I promise my love will be the gentle kind you deserve.”

A helpless noise wrenched from him and he eased back only far enough for his lips to collide with hers. Gripping his shirt, she grazed her teeth over his bottom lip. Fuck the old Long Claws with their heartless hooks in his soul, and Magdalena with her toxic love that ruined the boy she knew. Corin would be patient and would never give up on him. She would fill his life so deeply with love that someday, he would learn to feel again.