Page 19 of The Enforcers: KANE

“I know,” she said. “But when you hooked up with Selina, and I saw how she was all that mattered to you—well, I didn’t know what to do except leave.”

Kane shook his head. “I wish you’d said something,” he said. “Maybe we could have—I don’t know. Worked it out, or something.” He gave a little huff of a laugh. “Wow, that’s lame. Like you would have wanted to hang around watching me with someone else.”

Yeah. Especially someone like Selina.

Kane was looking off into space—or maybe into the past. “I just knew I always felt better when you were around. Not so lost. Not so—broken.” He blew out a long sigh. “After you left, it got pretty dark.”

She watched him, not saying anything. She knew what he meant by dark. The Agency probably knew more than he did about what Selina’s gang had been up to. Thefts, robberies, scams. Even some contract killings and human/shifter trafficking. She wondered how deep in Kane had been. And how exactly he’d gotten out.

“So what happened with you and Selina?” she asked. She tried to keep her tone casual. Kane had no way of knowing she already knew a lot of it, and she wasn’t about to tell him. That would lead to too many questions about how she knew.

Kane’s face grew hard. “Selina is an evil psycho-bitch who deserves to have her heart torn out and fed to the vultures,” he said. “If she even has one, which I doubt.”

“Ooookay,” Rachelle said. She could hear the pain in his voice, feel it in his body, and unconsciously tried to deflect it. “I guess that didn’t work out then.”

Kane snorted.

“We were together maybe—six months,” Kane said. “Or nine—it’s kind of a blur. I know mating makes you crazy, but this was—almost like an out-of-body experience.”

Rachelle frowned. It sounded like—was it possible he didn’t know about Selina’s powers? That he didn’t know she’d been controlling him?

“That woman dragged everyone around her down into her personal snake pit.” He shook his head. “Anyway, one day she went too far. I left and never went back.” He looked up at Rachelle. “The person I was when I was with her? I never want to be that guy again.”

Wolf was growling again.

“I don’t really want to talk about that stuff,” he said. “I left it behind me, okay?”

She still felt his pain—fresh and raw. Not behind him at all, but this wasn’t the time or the place to call him out on that. “Okay,” she said.

“I left Seattle with another street kid—a wolf named Israel,” he said. “We survived on our own for a while. Eventually we went out in the wilderness and lived off the land. We were mostly wolf.”

Rachelle sucked in her breath. Wolf shifters who went feral sometimes never found their way back—they just stayed wolf until they died or were put down.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was rough. Finally, though, Jace and Rafe and Jesse found us.”

“No way,” Rachelle said. When they were together on the streets, all he’d talked about was finding his pack. He’d told her stories of the way it was before they were scattered, and talked about his friends: Jace, the alpha’s son, Rafe, the prankster, and Jesse, the smart one.

“You found your pack?” she said. “Kane, that’s wonderful! You must be so happy.”

He gave her a little half-grin. “Yeah. It’s been a rough road, trying to put together a territory. We almost didn’t make it.”

He glanced sideways at her and started buttoning his shirt. Rachelle had to resist the urge to run her hand up the taut muscles of his chest, touch him, feel the warmth of him.

No. Kissing him had been crazy enough. She couldn’t start something with him, and drag him into the Agency’s orbit.

But her hands paid no attention to her brain. They wrapped around his arm and hugged it to her. In an old-friend, friendly, just-a-friend way, of course.

“I’m happy for you,” she said.

He stiffened at her touch, and then slowly relaxed. The unwanted thought that had plagued her in the dressing room came back.

“So, your territory is nearby?” she said. “Do you—I mean, do you have a mate? There?”

Kane flinched again, and then gave a slight snort. “Not hardly,” he said. “I’m the pack Enforcer, so I’ve been pretty busy setting up security, recruiting other wolves—you know the drill. Plus we do contract Enforcement work, too. For the Council, and privately.”

Rachelle tried to make her questions casual. “So is that what you’re doing here?” she asked. “Working? Or is my dulcet voice so irresistible that you just keep coming back every night for that? Because I’m pretty sure Manny’s personality isn’t the draw.”

“Yeah, I’m working,” he said. “Special security work for the resort. It’s confidential, though, so I can’t tell you much about it.” He glanced sideways at her, then said, “But the visits to the lounge weren’t part of my job.”