Chapter 15
Robin’s body shook as her face contorted into one of complete terror. And all Shaw could do was sit and stare up into the heavens and hope like hell he could find the right words to make it all better.
“Shaw!” Robin screamed. “Uncuff me right now!”
“I can’t do that,” he finally said then got up and pulled his jeans back on. Pacing back and forth, he tried hard to think of what he should do now. “You’ll run if I let you go.”
“You’re damn right I will!” she couldn’t stop yelling. Her mind was reeling, going a dozen directions all at the same time. What did I just see? Could that thing be real? Did he slip me some kind of drug that induced the monster? No matter what the answers were, the only thing that mattered was she had to get out of his home. And right now. But he wasn’t letting her out of the cuffs. Robin was trapped.
Shaw came back, sitting by her side. Robin cried out as she pulled her body as far away from him as she possibly could, yanking the cuffs so hard they cut into her flesh. “Robin, stop,” he urged her and pulled her to where she wasn’t hurting herself. “Listen. I need to explain this to you.”
“No explanations will fix this, Shaw,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please, just let me go.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.” He kissed her forehead, and she jerked her head back. “Please, Robin. Just listen to me.”
“There’s not a thing you can say to make this better. You’re some kind of monster, and I’m not about to hang around until you decide to eat me.” She whimpered at the thought. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?” Her eyes pleaded with him.
Shaw chuckled. “Well, you are delicious.”
She shrieked and cried harder, sobbing with fear, “No!”
“I’m kidding.” He rubbed her shoulders, and she tried to jerk away from him, but only ended up hurting herself as she did. “Stop all that jerking around, baby. If you can calm down and we can talk rationally, then I’ll let you out of those cuffs. But I’m not about to do that until I can see you’re going to listen to me.”
Her heavy breasts heaved up and down as she tried to get control over herself by taking deep breaths. “Shaw, just let me go. I’ll never tell, I swear. If you ever cared for me, you’ll let me go.”
Shaw knew he was getting nowhere with her, so he decided to evoke her sympathy. “Robin, I can’t help what I am. My parents are both wolf-shifters. It’s not like I wanted to be this way. And I’m not nearly the monster I seem to be.”
Her whimpers ceased, and her eyes grew soft as she thought about him being born that way. But what could she do about any of that? She only needed him to let her go, and she’d leave him alone, and he could leave her alone.
“So you don’t eat babies or kill unsuspecting virgins?” she asked, being totally serious.
Shaw laughed and shook his head. “No, I don’t do either of those things. I eat what I kill. And I kill wild animals.”
“Have you ever killed a human?” she asked as her curiosity began to get the better of her. And she found her tears had stopped falling.
Shaw had killed a few humans in his time. They had it coming, but he knew she wouldn’t understand, so he lied, “No, never a human.”
“And those men you hang with,” she asked, “what are they?”
His jaw clenched as he knew he wasn’t supposed to divulge information like that. But Robin was meant to be his mate, and she’d know about all of them soon enough. He nodded his answer. “They’re like me, but not killers the way you’re thinking.”
She seemed like she was calming down now, and Shaw let one of her wrists out of the cuff. “Thank you. Now how about the other?”
He shook his head. “You’ve got a little way to go, and I have more to say.”
Her brows cocked up high. “More that might have me running?”
“It might.” He moved back as she pulled the blanket up to cover her nakedness. It killed him that she was shutting herself off. He could see it in her eyes. She was afraid of him now.
“Shaw, you and I can’t be together. You have to understand that. I’m sorry for your—for lack of a better word—affliction, but I can’t be with you.” She pulled her legs up, curling into as much of a ball as possible while still cuffed to the bed by one hand.
“Just because I’m a shifter, you can’t be with me?” he asked, trying to hit her with prejudice. He hoped that might soften her up some.
“Um, yeah,” she said as she stared at him. “Did that hurt when you changed like that?”
Shaking his head, he answered, “No. Like I said, I was born this way. The change is felt but more like pressure instead of pain.”
“Aren’t there female shifters like you?” she asked him as she pulled her knees up to her chin.
Shaw hated how she felt as if she had to protect herself from him. Only minutes earlier she had let him do anything he wanted to her. And now there she was curling herself into a ball to protect herself from him. Not that anything she did would keep him from getting to her if he really wanted to. Not that he’d force himself on her.
“There are.” He wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“Then why me, Shaw?” She looked at him with wide eyes that spoke to him, telling him she really did not understand.
“Do you not feel a thing for me, Robin?” he asked her as he moved back to sit on the edge of the bed. He stared into her green eyes and knew he’d seen sparks of feelings she had begun to develop for him.
“That doesn’t matter now.” She averted her eyes.
He took her by the chin and made her look at him again. “Robin, do you feel anything for me? Leave what I am out of it.”
“I was starting to really like you. But now…” she said.
He kissed her once, softly. “I’m still me. That’s only one part of me.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Don’t stop us now. Please.”
“Shaw, please understand why I can’t do this. You were a man, and then you were a wolf, snapping his long sharp teeth right in my face. I can’t be with you.” The tears began to flow again as her heart began to ache for the man and herself. “You have to let me go.”
The truth was she had loved being with him that day. She loved what they’d been doing. Her body had never felt so much pleasure. And she was sure no other man would ever make her feel the way Shaw had. But he’d also made her more afraid than she’d ever been as well. Like so afraid her heart nearly stopped.
“You’re cold,” he murmured then put his arms around her, holding her tightly. “It’s a lot to absorb, I know. But you will take all this in. Your brain will wrap around this fact, and you’ll come to accept it. I can’t let you go.”
Robin’s heart began beating hard, and she grew even more afraid. Was Shaw never going to let her go?
Did he have a plan that included keeping her locked away in his massive cabin in the middle of nowhere?
Had that always been his plan or did it only come to him once he turned into a wolf on top of her, in what appeared to have been an accident?
“Shaw, what do you mean by that?” she asked him with fear etching her voice.
“You see, Robin, I can’t let you go. My wolf wants you. That’s why he broke free for a moment. He’s wanted you since the moment we smelled your intoxicating scent.” He felt her body shiver as he held her.
Robin couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Shaw, you don’t expect me to have sex with that monster, do you?”
He shook his head. “Not the way you are now.”
She went silent. What the hell did he mean by that? A chill took over her body. Did he mean to do something to her? And what would it be?
Her brain couldn’t comprehend what he’d meant by that.
Shaw made sure to hold her nice and tight as he said the next words, “Robin, the wolf wants you and so do I. You’ve seen too much now to let you go, even if my wolf would allow that, which he wouldn’t.”
“Shaw, you’re scaring me even more. Please, just let me go. I’ll never say a word about this, about you or your friends. I swear that to you,” she begged him as her fear grew to monumental proportions. What’s he going to do to me?
“Baby, if things could be let go, then I’d gladly let them go. But they can’t. You’ll have to be changed by me or when the wolf takes me over during the full moon—which is only in a couple of weeks—he’ll find you, and he’ll bite you. That makes the risk of you dying during the changing process greater. Your risk of dying is lowered if I do the biting.” He hugged her and heard only one thing from her. A scream, then her body went limp in his arms as she fainted.