Kirith made his way to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms that was lying on the floor. He sat down on the bed’s edge, a strange, deep pain settling into his chest.

Luna appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. She was still naked, yet he’d never so much as taken his shirt off.

He was so afraid to be close to her that he’d left a literal physical barrier between them.

“I know you said you’re sorry, but I’m not,” she told him, slipping into the room.

“There’s a robe on the back of the door,” Kirith grunted, gesturing towards the hook with his left hand as he avoided looking at her. But he watched when she’d turned around, his eyes locked on her lean form as she slipped the terrycloth garment over herself.

Fuck, she was beautiful.

Too beautiful to be with a beast.

When Luna had tied the belt at her waist, she strode over and sat down next to him. Silently, she put her arms around his waist and pressed her head into his muscular shoulder, holding him for a moment. But he didn’t reach for her, didn’t so much as touch her hand. He simply tightened under her touch, a giant marble statue unwilling to soften.

“Kirith,” she said, her voice vibrating through his arm. That sweet voice of hers just begged him to open his heart, didn’t it?

“What?”

“Tell me what happened to you that night.”

He wanted to. It was so damned hard to resist her. Hard to keep from pressing a hand to her cheek, kiss her forehead, ask her to keep holding him.

Hard to say no to his She-Wolf.

But say no he must, if only to protect her. She didn’t know what she was really asking of him.

“I don’t think you want to know,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. He turned to look down at her. “Listen, you should sleep in here tonight. I’ll take the guest room.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want you going anywhere until you tell me why you…” She cut herself off. Apparently she had as much trouble uttering the words as he did. “…why you burned your house to the ground that night.”

Kirith winced as the sentence stabbed at his gut. You burned your house to the ground. As if his house really mattered.

“Little Wolf,” he said softly. “You have no idea how ugly the truth really is, and I’m not sure I want to share it with you.”

“I was there. I saw it,” she said. “I watched everything happen. I know it was ugly. I could smell bodies burning, Kirith.”

The Dragon shifter shook his head. “No, you have no idea. If you think I simply torched my own house, then you really don’t understand,” he gritted through locked jaws, sitting down hard on the edge of the bed, his back muscles taut as he turned himself away from her. “If you’re asking me this question, it’s because you don’t know. You’re asking me to open up a wound in your own heart that may never heal, just as mine won’t.”

He felt her shuffling on the bed. No doubt she was moving closer to him. He could feel her hand in the air behind him, reaching for his back. But it seemed that she knew better than to touch just now. She probably knew that his Dragon was growing angry inside him.

Bad idea to poke a Dragon in such a state.

“If I don’t know, then you should tell me,” she said. “I want to know the truth.”

“You don’t want to know,” he growled. “You only think you do.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is!” he shouted, twisting his torso around so that he showed her his profile. Perhaps if she saw the pain in his face, she’d know better than to push him.

But she persisted. “You don’t understand, Kirith,” she said, her voice strained with sorrow. “I want to know everything about you. I want to understand you better.”

“Luna, it’s you who doesn’t understand. You say you want to know why I hate your Alpha. As much as you think you’re ready for it, you don’t want to know what that man truly is.”

“I don’t?” she asked. “That’s where you’re wrong. If Ripper did something awful, you should tell me. I’m in his Pack. So is my brother. God knows I want out, but it would help if you explained to me what I’m up against.”

The Dragon shifter shook his head, pressing his fists to his temples. The pretty little Wolf was so young. Oh, she didn’t think she was, of course; she thought herself a fully-fledged adult. But she hadn’t lived centuries as he had. Hadn’t seen the horrors he’d witnessed, the deaths, the torment.

Of course none of it had caused him suffering like what he’d endured that night. No, she had no idea what it felt like to suffer at the hands of another, and he didn’t want to be the one to let her in on the horror of it. “I’ve spent years hating myself,” he said. “I don’t want you to be filled with the same self-loathing.”

“Self-loathing? Why would I loathe myself? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

He stood up and turned to face her, his expression softening. “No, I suppose you haven’t. You were too young when it all happened,” he replied. “Too young to know what your Alpha was up to.”

“What do you mean, what my Alpha was up to?” she asked. He could see that she was trembling now. Frightened. Not of him, but of what he might say. Frightened that the last of her innocence would be lost. He should know; he was frightened of the same thing. He didn’t want to break her. She was too good, too kind. As much as she might think that life had been cruel to her, she didn’t know the half of it.

“Did you know of other Wolves near where you used to live?”

“In Warkshire…” she began, stopping herself before she’d uttered the forest’s full name.

“Warkshire Forest. It’s all right; you can say the name of the woods; it won’t break me. It’s not possible to break something that’s already been shattered. As for other Packs, were there any nearby that you knew of?”

“Yes,” she said. “There were a few Packs about. Silver—that’s my brother—and I used to hang about with them sometimes. There was one in particular—the Darby Pack—that Ripper didn’t like, though. He put a stop to our play when we got older. I’ve never been sure why he had a problem with them.”

“He didn’t,” said Kirith.

“What do you mean?”

“Your Alpha wanted to use them for his own means, and he knew that if you found out about his plans, you would leave, or worse.”

“Use them? What for?”

“To kill.”

“What are you even talking about?” Luna asked. “Are you saying that Ripper had your family killed?”

“Mine, and others,” Kirith replied, knowing that he’d already stepped across the threshold. “But yes, that’s what I’m saying.” It was the first time he’d ever uttered the words. The first time the truth had emerged from him, and it felt like a release.

For such a long time he’d shut himself away, holding in the pain of it. Struggling to keep it together. “You were right to think that my family was inside my house when I burned it to the ground, Luna,” he said. “But they were already dead.”