Rapture Untamed (Feral Warriors #4)(62)

"Something happened in your bedroom."

He stroked her rear. "Damn straight it did."

"Something other than sex. You let me see the man you really are, Jag. You didn't hide behind the bad attitude. Something happened between us. I felt it. I know you did, too, because you're hell-bent on ruining it, now."

"This isn't good for you?"

"Don't play stupid, Jag. You're not. Though, goodness knows, I think you're blind. I see what you're doing but, honestly, I don't think you do."

He rocked against her. "Let me move, Red."

"Are you so afraid to hear what I have to say?"

His brows lowered in a glare. "I'm trying to get off, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Listen to me for a few more minutes, then I'll help you get off any way you like."

"Any way?"

"Any way that doesn't involve fur." Olivia stroked his chest with her fingertips. "You blame yourself for your mother's death, Jag. You hate yourself for it. And you have for nearly three and a half centuries."

His eyes lost all trace of humor. "Careful, Sugar." The words dripped warning, but he needed to hear this whether he liked it or not.

"You've got to face that day, Jag, look it in the eye, and not from the vantage point of a sixteen-year-old kid. Look at it as an adult. Then you have to forgive the kid you were, Jag. Forgive yourself. Because, whether you see it or not, the guilt has taken over your life. It destroys every good thing that comes into your life."

His fingers bit into her hips, anger snapping in his eyes. "You don't know anything about me."

But she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. "You didn't mean for her to die, Jag. If you had, you wouldn't still be living with the guilt all these years later. You made some mistakes, but it's past time you forgave yourself.

"Bitch. Get off me."

"No." She pressed her hands hard on his abs. "You're going to hear this, Feral. You're being incredibly selfish, making everyone else miserable just to punish yourself. Stop doing it. Leave it in the past and get over it!"

His hand shot up, gripping her jaw almost painfully. Fury fired his eyes. "Why in the hell do you think it matters to me what you say? You have no right shoving your nose into my business. Into my past."

"I care about you, Jag. Goddess knows why, but you've started to matter to me."

Beneath her, he went utterly still. Then like a volcano exploding, he pushed her off him, onto the grass, and stood up, turning on her. "I don't need you to care about me."

His voice rose with each word. "I don't need to matter to a draden-kissed, life-stealing bitch!"

Olivia flinched as if she'd been struck. She'd known he wouldn't want to hear the truth, but goddess, his words hurt, as he'd meant them to.

"Get away from me, Olivia." He yanked on the pants he'd shucked earlier. "Just get the hell away from me."

His every word twisted like a knife in her chest as her own insecurities rose up, threatening to choke her. He was the only one in the world who knew what she was.

She knew he'd struck out at her to hurt her as she'd hurt him, but she couldn't help but wonder if he'd told her the truth. She was damaged. Wrong. And no one who truly knew her could ever really care about her.

No one could ever love a life-stealer.

Feeling hollow and beaten, she rose and grabbed her clothes, pulling on her pants.

But as she pushed her arms through the armholes of her tank, Jag suddenly moved beside her.

She looked up in surprise, and that was when she saw them. Lyon and Tighe standing in the woods, watching them.

Her pulse leaped with fear, her skin going cold. Had they heard what Jag said to her?

What he'd called her?

A draden-kissed, life-stealing bitch.

The shimmers of light told her all she needed to know - five shimmers that circled the small clearing where she and Jag stood. Her heart thundered in her chest as the five Ferals - lion, tiger, wolf, cougar, and snake - shifted into their animals, into a form they must think was safe from a dangerous life-stealer.

A dangerous enemy.

Her.

Chapter Nineteen

Jag's head pounded, his body turning to ice as the Ferals surrounded them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Olivia sway, reeling from the shock of his inadvertent betrayal.

They knew what she was. And the five animals now circled as if to destroy her.

Are you draden-kissed,Olivia? Lyon's hard voice rang in Jag's head.

"Yes." Beside him, Olivia answered, a small quaver in her strong, sure voice, and he knew she must be as terrified as he was.

"She's safe, Roar." Jag grabbed Olivia's arm and pulled her in front of him, his hand going around her waist. Against him she stood ramrod straight. "She's been draden-kissed for centuries."

What had he done? He'd attacked her verbally, hitting her where he'd instinctively known he'd hurt her the most. But he hadn't foreseen an audience. He hadn't foreseenthis !

Is that true,Olivia? Lyon asked.

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"I've been like this for more than four hundred years, Lyon. I'm in complete control."

But a note of doubt slipped into her words and he knew she was thinking of the past day and the Daemon energy that had made her too strong. "Let go of me, Jag." She pulled at his arm.