Page 81 of Bad Blood Wolf

Chapter 31

Later that night, after too much food and several amiable wrangles over what sports channel to watch on TV, Jasmin drifted off to her shed.

The night was cold and clear, the stars bright overhead. She could hear muffled shouts from inside the house, as one hockey team or another scored.

She lit the woodstove, opened the skylight and lay down on the futon, looking up at the stars, glad to have a few moments of solitude to just be.

Mates. She and Brody were mates. She didn’t regret a single thing, and she loved him completely.

And yet… there was still a part of her that was afraid.

She’d submitted to him. What would things be like between them now?

She heard the door open, and looked up to see Brody standing there. He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, his muscular body relaxed.

He was so gorgeous, so loyal, so brave. So vulnerable, in his secret heart. A wave of fierce love swept over her.

Ours, her jaguar said. Not alone anymore.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”

She sat up. “You live here too, now,” she said.

He shook his head. “This is your space,” he said. “We’ll build a cabin, eventually, but Tristan said I could use his room for now. So I don’t crowd you.”

Her heart melted a little at his thoughtfulness. “Come in,” she said. “Please.”

He came over and sat on the futon next to her, brushing her hair back. “You’re worried about being mated, aren’t you.”

She shrugged, looking away. “I love you,” she said. The words felt strange coming out of her mouth.

He ran his fingers through her hair. “I know that,” he said. “But there’s still something. There’s always been something holding you back, something besides what happened to you in Grant’s cells. Something that was triggered when Sloan made that crack about me keeping you in line.”

Jasmin flinched.

He said softly, “Tell me.”

She bit her lip. She was at the edge of the cliff again, and it was just as scary as the other times.

“You don’t know what it was like, to be a female in the jaguar world,” she said. “My brother got everything—new clothes, a shiny bicycle, a skateboard, his own TV and computer. I got nothing, only clothes my mother made from fabric she bought with what she managed to save out of the housekeeping money.”

Her voice grew even raspier. “My father gave her a couple of hundred dollars every week for groceries, household supplies, clothes, and anything I needed. If he was late giving it to her and she had to ask for it, he used to take the money out of his wallet and hold it over his head, so she’d have to jump to try to reach it. Then he’d laugh and say that’s what happened to greedy little girls. As if she was using it to get her nails done and buy fucking bonbons.”

Brody tried to keep his breathing even, but he wanted to jump off the futon, find that motherfucker and rip him a new jaguar asshole.

“And then he’d drop it on the floor and she’d have to scurry around to pick it up. Sometimes he’d do it outside and she’d have to rush around trying to gather up the bills before the wind blew them away.”

Jasmin was staring off into the distance, as if she’d traveled back in time.

“Sometimes, if she did things he didn’t like, he’d make her sleep on the floor in the laundry room. Like a dog.” Jasmin felt the bitterness in her heart like a knife. “And if I objected, or complained, or tried to stand up for her or myself, I got locked in a closet until I ‘came to my senses’ and ‘behaved like a proper girl.’”

Brody was on his feet, pacing back and forth, his hands clenching into fists.

“That was wrong,” he said. “He wasn’t just an asshole, he was a fucking monster. You don’t treat your family like that. You don’t treat your woman like that, even if you don’t love her. Even if it’s an arranged mating. And you sure as hell don’t treat someone who loves you like that.”

“It broke her,” Jasmin said. “Constant criticism, constant begging, and she believed it when he said it was her fault. She loved him. Even after all that, she loved him! She lived for the times he was nice to her, the times when he would pull her into the bedroom and make love to her, and I’d hear them laughing.

“And she’d be happy for like a day, and then he’d find something else she did wrong, and cut the legs out from under her again.”