Claim the Bear by T. S. Joyce Page B

“You’re giving me permission to sleep with other women?”
    “I’m saying I’ll understand if you need…someone…more than me.”
    He shook his head and gripped her waist before lowering her down to the ground in front of him. “You’re one crazy kitty, you know that? And that sounds like a woman trap if I’ve ever heard one.”
    She frowned at his receding back. It wasn’t her intention to set a trap. She was being honest with what she was willing to sacrifice to see him happy. Her looks didn’t do it for him, she got that. She was trying to tell him she understood and that it was okay. Words had never been her strength though, so she shut the truck door as softly as possible and followed him up the porch stairs. She would just have to try again later, when she’d had time to think on how exactly to word it.
    He flipped the light switch inside, and recessed lighting lit up a homey interior. Light upper walls contrasted with dark painted lower walls, separated by tasteful wainscoting. Each trinket and decoration fit perfectly. For a bachelor, he was exceedingly tidy. In fact, this place was cleaner than the pride’s house.
    “Will this bedroom do?” he asked, leading her to a door off the open living room.
    It was small, comfortable looking and perfect. A bed, dresser and even a bedside table with a lamp decorated the room. The urge to cry all over again at the gift he was offering her was overwhelming.
    “Hey,” he said, worry creasing his brows as he gripped her shoulders. “What’s wrong? If it’s too small, you can have mine.”
    “No, it’s not that. It’s just right.” She sniffled pathetically. “I’ve been sleeping on a couch for the last year. I lived in the pride house, but they made my room into a nursery and gave me a loveseat to sleep on.”
    “What?” The corners of his eyes crinkled with disgust. “Breshia, did everyone treat you like Thomas did?”
    “It was their right. It is the natural way of things.” She wiped warm tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her ranger uniform. “I wasn’t born right.”
    “Listen to me real carefully. I don’t want you talking like that anymore, do you hear me? It’s not true. You’re fine. What they said to you was on them, not on you. And I’ll be damned—” His phone chirped a few notes and he pulled it from his pocket and glared at the screen. “Bron is going to be to his place in half an hour. If you need to change your clothes, you’d better get on it. He’ll be a monster if we’re late. Bathroom is down the hall, by my room.”
    “Okay, she murmured, then scooted past him.
    She didn’t turn around, because she could feel him watching her, and he deserved to see her stronger than this. Inside, she was falling apart with the sharp change in direction her life had taken, but she could see the effect her tears had on him—on his animal. It woke him up, and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out if it was in a good way or bad.
    With the door locked, she removed her clothes carefully and dared a look at her back for the first time since Thomas had marked her. A sob wrenched from her throat and she sank into the corner in horror. The claw marks were bad, and deep, and even with her shifter healing would scar silver and remain, marring her skin until the day she died. For the rest of her life, she’d bear the evidence of what had happened today. Biting her lip hard, she wept as quietly as she could for all the wrong that had been done. For the pride’s hatred and view on her lack of worth. For Thomas. For the end of her species because of her failure to reproduce with her own kind. For Dillon, who’d tethered himself to someone so damaged and weak. The tragedy was too much.
    And then, like she hadn’t locked the door at all, Dillon was here, pulling her into his lap. She buried her face in his tattered shirt and shook with the pain of her journey to ruin. She didn’t deserve for him to be so nice, but here he was,