Chapter 7

Kane's POV

I came to her room with every intention of putting Ruby back in her place. The thought of her discussing my private business with Gloria, dissecting my past like some medical specimen, made my blood boil. No one had the right to talk about my family. No one had the right to analyze my pain like it was something they could understand or fix.

But when I stepped through that door and saw her standing there at the mirror, something stopped me. There was no fear in her eyes when she turned. It was not the trembling submission I had grown accustomed to seeing in people's faces. It was understanding and that was somehow worse than pity would have been.

She looked at me like she could see straight through the armor I wore. Like she knew exactly what I was and why I had become this way. It infuriated me and disarmed me at the same time.

"How much did Gloria tell you?" I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.

Ruby did not look away. "Enough."

"Enough to what? Feel sorry for me?" I moved closer and she did not retreat. "I do not want your pity, Ruby."

"I know," she said quietly. "That is not what I am offering."

I grabbed her wrist, harder than necessary. I wanted her to flinch and to remember who was in control here. I wanted to throw her on that bed and remind her what happened when people overstepped. But she did not resist. She did not plead. She just stood there and looked at me with those grey eyes that seemed to see too much.

Then she did something that stopped my heart. She placed her free hand over mine where I gripped her wrist and said five words that hit me like a physical blow.

"I am sorry for your loss."

No one had said that to me in years. A decade had passed since my family died and in all that time, not one person had acknowledged my humanity enough to offer condolences. They feared me too much. They saw the monster I had become and forgot that there was once a man underneath.

My grip loosened without my permission. I felt my control slipping and panic rose in my chest because I could not afford to lose control. Not now. Not with her.

But Ruby did not take the opportunity to pull away. Instead, she stepped closer. She was learning and I realized with some distant part of my mind. Learning how to move around me without triggering my defenses. Learning that sometimes advancing was safer than retreating.

She reached up slowly and gave me plenty of time to stop her. Her hand moved toward my face and every instinct screamed at me to grab her wrist and to push her away and to remind her that I was not some broken thing that needed comforting. But I was frozen. Paralyzed by the foreign sensation of being seen and actually understood.

Her palm touched my cheek with a gentleness I had not felt since my mother died. The carefully constructed walls I had spent a decade building cracked. I wanted to push her away. I wanted to hurt her for making me feel anything at all. But I could not move.

My wolf stirred inside me and purred with contentment at her touch. It wanted more. It wanted to lean into that warmth and let someone else carry the weight for just a moment. I hated my wolf for its weakness.

But I hated myself more when I actually did lean into her hand.

Ruby's eyes widened slightly. She felt my surrender and she knew what it meant. She knew she had found a crack in my armor and for a terrifying moment, I thought she might use it against me. But she did not. Instead, she guided me gently toward the bed.

"Sit," she said softly.

I should have refused. I should have established dominance and reminded her who was alpha here. But my body moved without permission and I found myself sitting on the edge of her bed while she positioned herself behind me.

Her hands settled on my shoulders and began to massage the tension there. I closed my eyes and warred with the conflicting impulses raging inside me. Stop this, one voice said. Establish control. Show her that weakness is unacceptable.

But another voice, quieter and more desperate, whispered, Let her. Just for a moment. You are so tired of being alone.

Her fingers worked into the knots in my muscles and I realized how much tension I carried in my body. How many years had I spent wound tight like a spring, always ready for the next attack, the next betrayal, the next loss. I had not relaxed in a decade. I had not allowed myself to.

"Tell me about her," Ruby said quietly. "About Elise."

I should have shut her down. Should have stood up and left. But instead, words started coming out of my mouth and I could not seem to stop them.

"She loved wildflowers," I heard myself say. "Used to pick them on every walk and bring them home in bunches. My mother would complain about the mess but she always found vases to put them in."

Ruby's hands never stopped moving and working warmth into my cold muscles.

"Elise laughed too loudly," I continued. "My father was always telling her to be more dignified and more befitting of an alpha's daughter. But she never listened. She would throw her head back and laugh like it was the most natural thing in the world."

I could see her so clearly in my mind. Sixteen years old with flowers in her hair and dirt on her dress from climbing trees she was too old to be climbing. Always following me around and asking questions about training and pack politics. Always wanting to be just like her big brother.

"She followed me everywhere when we were kids," I said and my voice sounded strange to my own ears. "Used to drive me crazy. I would try to sneak off with my friends and she would find me every time. I told her she was annoying."

My throat tightened and the words became harder to push out.

"The last thing I said to her before I left for training was that I needed space from her. That she was too clingy. That I would be glad to have a few months without her shadowing me." I swallowed hard. "She died calling my name. Gloria told me later. The killers had her cornered and she kept screaming for me to save her. But I was not there."

Ruby's hands stilled on my shoulders. Then she wrapped her arms around me from behind and rested her cheek against my back. It should have felt suffocating. It should have triggered every defense mechanism I had built. But instead, it felt like being held together by the only thing keeping me from shattering completely.

"You could not have known," she whispered against my shirt.

"I should have been there."

"You were where you were supposed to be. They are the ones who did wrong and not you."

"I should have protected them."

"You were twenty-three years old, Kane. You were not a god. You were just a man."

Something inside me broke at those words. Just a man. That was all I had ever been, underneath everything else. Just a man who failed to save the people he loved most. Just a man who had been carrying that failure for ten years and convinced himself that if he never loved anyone again, he could never fail them.

I turned to face Ruby and she let me. Her arms loosened but did not let go entirely. She looked at me with those grey eyes that held no judgment and no pity. Just acceptance of who I was and what I had done and what had been done to me.

"I hunted them all down," I said. "Every single one. It took three years but I found them. Some I killed quickly because they were just following orders. But the ones who planned it and the ones who touched my family, I made them suffer."

"I know," Ruby said.

"Does that frighten you?"

"No."

"It should."

"Maybe," she said. "But it does not."

We sat there in silence and her arms were still around me in that loose embrace. I felt exposed in a way I had not felt since I was a child. Vulnerable. Breakable. Human.

It terrified me.

I should leave. I should get up and walk out and never let her this close again. I should rebuild the walls she had somehow managed to slip through. But I could not make myself move.

"You are not alone anymore, Kane," Ruby whispered.

The words hit me like ice water. I realized with creeping horror that I was starting to believe her and that terrified me more than any enemy ever had.