My head suddenly aches. I lean my forehead against hers. "You don't want to know, baby."
"I told you mine. You tell me yours." Her voice is firm, the challenge clear in her eyes. My female is alpha all the way.
"I killed my stepfather." The only person I've ever told before is Sam, although Garrett might know if he's done any research into my history.
To her credit, Kylie doesn't flinch, doesn't show any shock. She touches my face. "What happened?"
"He was the pack leader. Alpha. A first class asshole. Beat my mom regularly. Not like a spanking, the way wolves establish dominance. With his fists."
Kylie pales but remains quiet.
"He put my mom in the hospital once. Shifters heal fast, so you have to know how bad it was." The memories raced back to him. Seeing his mother bloodied and battered on that hospital bed. I'm not going back, Jackson, she told him. You don't go back, either.
"She didn't heal. I can only guess she didn't want to. Or that he'd battered her mind so badly, too, that the ability to heal shut off." I was only fourteen. Old enough to want to fight my stepfather, but too small to stop him. "She died three days later. I watched her just slip away. And I…" My throat works. I don't want to tell her this part.
She strokes my arm, listening. Waiting.
"I killed him."
"How?"
"Don't ask me that, baby. I don't want you to think of me-"
"You can tell me," she murmurs. "It won't change how I feel about you."
Like hell it won't.
"I ran home from the hospital. My fangs were probably down like they were tonight. I'd only just started shifting and had little control of the animal inside. He heard me snarling and came outside the house. Stood there like a son of a bitch with his hands on his hips. What? he sneered. Your mama send you after me, boy? Is she still pretending not to heal?
"It's hard to kill a shifter. A bullet to the head usually does it. Or severing the head. There was an ax sitting there on the chopping block. I picked it up and came at him. I said something like, She's dead, you miserable piece of shit and then I swung. I figured he'd stop me. Maybe kill me, too. I'd tried to fight him before and always ended up bloody.
"But he just stood there as I came at him. Probably the shock of hearing he'd really killed her. He shifted after the blow, but it was too late. He died just a few seconds later."
Her breath hitches, but she keeps her face smooth. "Wow. That's... intense. I'm sorry, Jackson. I'm sorry you had to go through that." She blinks her big doe-eyes up at me, and they swim with sympathy.
Not horror.
Relief pours through me. Lightens the heaviness in my chest I've carried every day since my mother's death. Sharing my terrible secret with Kylie eases the burden of it.
"So then what happened? You left? Do you have a buried identity like me? Are you wanted for murder somewhere?"
"Yeah, I left. I didn't lose my identity. No one ever came after me. No police reports were filed, but I'm from the backwoods of North Carolina, where the entire town was made up of shifters, sheriff included. Shifter business is generally kept to shifters."
"And you haven't been back?"
I shake my head. "Never. I left a much younger stepbrother behind. I hate myself for that. But the whole town was made up of my stepfather's extended family. He would've been well taken care of. I knew that much."
"You took Sam in to make up for it."
My eyebrows shoot up at her guess. "Yeah, I suppose so."
She tucks her head under my chin and hums softly. I can't believe I'm snuggling. With a human. And nothing has ever felt so right in my life.
I stroke her hair. "I won't let anything happen to you, kitten." Even if it means protecting her from myself.
Kylie
Jackson wakes me in the morning by pulling a T-shirt over my head and picking me up into his arms. "Come on, sweet girl. I'm taking you back to my house." He carries me out of the cabin to his car. "There's not enough good food for you here. Besides, I want Sam nearby so he can protect you if anything happens."
I make a contented purring sound in my throat. I love being carried like I weigh nothing, gently deposited in the car seat. Jackson even buckles my seatbelt for me. When did the big bad wolf turn so damn sweet?
He climbs behind the wheel and drives down the mountain, shooting concerned glances my way every now and then. "How do you feel this morning?"
I stretch, still hatching from sleep. "Good. You?"
He drops a hand to my thigh and drags it up to my bare pussy, lightly brushing his fingers over my sensitive flesh. "How about this sweet pussy? Too sore?"
I flush a bit at having my pussy be the topic of conversation before eight a. m. "A little sore," I admit. "But I'm not complaining. That was the hottest sex of my life last night."
Jackson makes a choked sound, and pride battles with disbelief on his face. "You were a virgin two days ago."
"So? It still was hot."
"It was fucking nuclear. Baby, I want you to know, I've never had sex like that with any female before-human or wolf."
I smile at the serious tone he adopted.
He shoves the hem of my T-shirt-his, really, but the one I'm wearing-up to my waist, exposing my bare pussy. "Spread those creamy thighs, baby. I need to see your pink heart."
My breath stutters, but I part my legs. He cups my mons. "You remember who this belongs to?"
I flush.
"It's mine. And if I was too rough with it, you'd be within your rights to pout a little, kitten. Make me kiss it better when I get home tonight."