“If Nick’s right, yes. He believes they’re triggered by emotional stress. And he’s sure had a lot of that lately, hasn’t he?”

Shaya flinched and bowed her head. “I was hurt.”

“Yes, you were. But you were so wrapped up in your own pain that you didn’t notice his—or if you did, you didn’t care. Did you know that being around you when he can’t claim you physically hurts him?” That made her head snap up. “The mating urges make you uncomfortable. They put him in pain. It was bad enough when he wasn’t around you. Being close to you makes the urges worse.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “I didn’t know.”

“Would it have made any difference to you?” His tone communicated that he believed the answer was no.

Exasperated with both herself and Derren, she met his gaze unflinchingly—not caring that he’d find it odd for a submissive wolf to face the brunt of his anger. “I know you’re pissed at me, but you can’t judge me when you haven’t found your own mate. You don’t know what it’s like to finally find the person who’s so important to you that he’s supposed to make every bad thing that happened before not hurt as much. You don’t know what it’s like to have that person who’s made just for you completely reject you and cold-shoulder you. You can’t know how being abandoned by your mate makes you feel dead inside.”

Derren’s expression and tone softened. “So can we agree that you’ve both suffered enough?”

She exhaled heavily. “Yes.”

“If you’re too hurt to accept him in your life, you need to tell him that, Shaya. Yes, I know you’ve been saying that to him since he got here, but you haven’t totally meant it, and he sensed that. If you really want him gone, tell him, and this time mean it.” Hearing movement in the bedroom, Derren said, “Here’s your chance. I’ll take a walk, give you both some privacy.”

Shaya got to her feet, waiting anxiously. Seconds later, Nick came out of the bedroom with Bruce by his side. Relieved that he wasn’t staggering weakly, her wolf settled slightly. Spotting her, he double-blinked.

“Shay? What are you doing here?” Of course Nick had picked up her scent, but as he’d fallen asleep with the scent of her and of her arousal on his hand, it hadn’t occurred to him that she was there.

A sigh of utter relief left her—he’d called her Shay, which meant his anger had lessened to some degree and he hadn’t frozen her out. Also, although he sounded startled to see her, his tone wasn’t unwelcoming. “Why didn’t you tell me about the headaches?”

Confused, Nick began, “How did you—” Quickly understanding, he sighed. “Derren.” Discomfort rolled through him as he wondered just how much Derren had told her. “I get headaches at times of stress.” He shrugged as if it was nothing. That clearly annoyed her.

“Don’t bother trying to play it down in that typical alpha male way. Derren told me how bad and frequent they are.”

Wanting to leave this topic of conversation, he said, “We’ll talk about it later. Come on, I need to get you to work before you’re late.”

“I’m not going to work.” She cleared her throat. “I came here to speak to you.” When he simply looked at her blankly, she added, “I wanted to apologize.”

Nick felt his brows fly up. It wasn’t just her words that had surprised him; it was the guilt and concern on her face. “Apologize for what?”

“Last night. And for trampling over your feelings and pride during the past three weeks. I can’t say I’m sorry for telling you to leave and for being reluctant to believe the things you said. When you didn’t claim me, it devastated me. Then I built you up to be this big, bad prick in my head…so when you started doing nice stuff and making a real effort, it didn’t fit with the image I’d had of you—an image that had made it possible for me to try to hate you. I convinced myself you were fake and full of shit. I tried to keep you at a distance. But you made it impossible, you a**hole.”

He slowly went to her and tucked a curl behind her ear. “I’m not sorry that my efforts are paying off. But I am sorry that I hurt you.”

“If it’s been so simple for you to step down from Alpha, you would have done it back then. There has to be more to it.” An emotion she didn’t recognize flickered across his face. “There is more, isn’t there?”

It was at times like this that he wished his mate wasn’t so perceptive. “Sit down,” he told her gently, gesturing to the sofa. Without invading her personal space, he sat beside her and twisted so that he was facing her; she mirrored the move. Moment of truth. After a long moment, he began. “I was five when my wolf surfaced for the first time.”

Completely taken aback, Shaya gaped. “Five? But…why did your wolf surface that early?”

“There was a car accident. Only my parents and I were there. My dad died instantly. My mom was unconscious, but someone in a passing car stopped and managed to drag her out. That was when the car went up in flames. I was trapped in the rear passenger seat, and I couldn’t get out. My wolf panicked, just as I did. But I’d hit my head really hard—everything was blurry, and my limbs felt heavy—so I wasn’t putting up as much of a fight to get out as I otherwise would have done. So my wolf burst to the surface in an effort to protect me. Then he squeezed through the gap in the seats and got out through my mom’s door, jumping through the flames. He’s had a thing about fire ever since.”

Too shocked to speak, Shaya just stared at him. As his eyes took on a faraway quality, Shaya knew he was back there, seeing those flames surrounding him all over again. Wanting to bring him to the present again, she said, “Nick?”

His gaze snapped to her. “You’ve heard of shifters whose animals have surfaced early before, right?”

She nodded. “I don’t know any. But I’ve heard that it can happen.”

“Do you know what happens to them in later life?”

At his hard tone, a blast of cold traveled down her spine. “What?”

“Healers aren’t sure why it happens, though they speculate that it’s because the body and the mind were forced to deal with changes they weren’t ready for at a young age and that those changes put too much of a strain on them. It causes the cognitive functions to degenerate later on. When I found you, I was having healing sessions to try to fight it. The sessions worked. But I had that fear that the improvement was only temporary. I didn’t want you to be my caregiver. It didn’t feel fair to claim you and then have you burdened with someone you had to take care of—a patient instead of a mate.”

There was almost a click in Shaya’s head as everything he’d done or said since they first found each other fell into place for her. She finally understood. But…“Nick, you’re a f**king idiot.” There was no anger or harshness, just pure and utter exasperation. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this in the beginning?”

“You would have insisted on sticking by me.”

“And you wouldn’t have done the same if the situation was reversed? Don’t dare tell me that that’s different! It’s not! You should have told me! You should have given me the choice to stand by you, to be there for you!”

“When I found you and realized I couldn’t claim you without endangering you, it seemed…fitting. It made sense that I wouldn’t be allowed to have my mate, considering the shit I’ve done and not regretted. And you’re so damn sweet and perfect, whereas me…I have more coldness in me than I care to admit.”

“You still should have told me! Why in God’s name didn’t you mention this to me three weeks ago?” To think how much of a bitch she had been to him when all he’d been trying to do by not claiming her was, in his own warped way, protect her.

“I didn’t want a chance out of pity. I wanted it because I’d earned it.”

Dominant males and their pride. “You still shouldn’t have kept this from me.”

“And you don’t have your secrets? Don’t think I don’t know that you’re keeping things from me, Shay. You have a huge issue with being alone. I haven’t pressed you about it because I didn’t feel I had a right to when I was keeping things from you. But I’d say it’s only fair that you tell me.”

“I don’t like talking about it.”

The ache in her voice made Nick’s hackles rise. “I don’t like talking about what happened that day in the woods…but I told you when you asked.”

Okay, that was fair. It was a long moment before she spoke. “I was a twin. An identical twin. My sister, Mika…she died in the womb.”

His eyes fell closed, and he cursed. He took one of her hands in his. “Baby, I’m sorry.”

“Even then, before we were born, we’d bonded. That probably sounds dramatic and impossible. But it’s no different from saying that babies can hear their parents’ voices from the womb and can find them soothing. Mika and I had each other all those months. As I was growing up, that ‘empty’ feeling was always there. That feeling of being alone.” She smiled as a memory came to her. “When I was little, I used to pretend that Taryn was my twin.”

The image of a small version of Shaya feeling so lost and empty that she used her friend as a substitute sister almost broke his heart. “I’ll bet Taryn was happy to be part of that game.”

Shaya’s smile widened. “Yeah, she was. She never had any siblings, so we both got a lot of fun out of that little fantasy.” Her smile faded as she continued. “But maybe I would have coped a lot better if it hadn’t been for what happened when I was four.”

It was a struggle for Nick to keep his voice even when anger was riding him at the idea of anything hurting her. “What happened, Shay?”

“For the first four years of my life, my parents and I didn’t live on pack territory. The Alpha—Taryn’s dad, Lance—didn’t approve of my mom mating a human, even though my dad was her true mate. So they lived in a house close by. But my parents…See, my dad was a Navy SEAL, so he went away a lot. My mom wasn’t very good at handling it—not that I can blame her. It must have been hard. Every weekend, she’d go out with her friends to bars and clubs. She used to leave me alone in the house while she went, even when I was little.”

Leave a child alone? “But surely there were members of your pack who would happily have taken care of you while she was gone.”

“Of course there were. But she liked leaving me there alone because she knew I didn’t like to be alone. She liked to hurt me. Maybe it was that when she looked at me, she always remembered that there should have been two of me. Or maybe it was because she felt my dad paid more attention to me than to her when he was home. Or maybe it’s just because she is, naturally, a very self-centered person.” And a hypochondriac, to boot. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Keeping his touch gentle was a struggle, but he managed it for her, massaging her hand with both of his. “Go on.”

“I remember I used to sit on the stairs, crying, waiting for her to come home. Sometimes I’d fall asleep like that. Other times I’d stay awake until she was back. But one Friday night she went out…and she didn’t come home that night. Or the next night. Or the next night. The longer she stayed away, the more I panicked—not just because I was alone, but because I was really worried that something bad had happened to her, that she’d been hurt or worse.”

Her pain was so deep it felled him. His wolf growled, hating it. “Shay, what happened to her?” Her answer surprised him.

“Nothing. She was fine. She’d stayed away because she wanted to—she was laughing at how shook up I was. I swear, Nick, by the time she got back I felt like the walls were going to close in on me.” When he pulled her onto his lap and held her tight to him, she didn’t fight him. She melted against him and greedily took that comfort. “My dad hit the roof when I told him. I wasn’t supposed to tell him, but I was so angry with her that I did. He insisted we all move to pack territory, because he wanted to be sure that I was safe whenever he was away. Lance didn’t want us to move there, but Taryn’s mom raged at him until he allowed it. Then I met Taryn, and I was never alone again after that.”

Nick exhaled a long breath. “Shit.” And now he understood just how badly he had hurt her by not claiming her, by abandoning her—even if he believed he’d done it for the right reasons. “I really did f**k up big-time, didn’t I?”

“That’s not the only thing I’ve kept from you.” Pulling back to meet his gaze, she nibbled on her lip. “I’m a salient submissive.”

Nick’s brows almost hit his hairline. Salient shifters could be dominant or submissive and were very rare and unique in that they existed near the periphery of dominant and submissive. The fact that they were almost a perfect blend of both gave them an advantage over all shifters—their submission couldn’t be forced. Even Nick, despite how powerful an Alpha he was, could be forced to submit if the dominant vibes being directed at him were powerful enough to do it. But neither salient submissives nor salient dominants could have their submission forced…which explained why Taryn had looked shifty when Nick mentioned that dominant females could defeat Shaya simply by throwing their dominant vibes at her. As it was, such an attack would have no effect on her.