Lindley padded around the corner of his den, returning from his patrol. One of the others would pick up where he left off to keep tabs on the territory.
Bones cracked in the night, followed by the soft whisper of energy. Lindley pushed off the ground and bounded up his steps to disappear inside. He emerged a second later with jeans covering his lower half. “What are you doing up?” he called, voice muffled by the shirt he yanked over his head.
Sage flashed her brother a tiny smile in greeting. “Couldn’t sleep. Nightmares.”
Pity flashed in his eyes and she groaned when he dropped off his back porch. “Go to bed, Lin,” she ordered, but he ignored her completely.
“I will when you do.” He gave her an obnoxious shrug as he plunked himself down on her bottom step. He planted his back against the railing the same as she’d done, facing the opposite way so he could look at her. “Or you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Mostly how nice it was to be the only child,” she tried to tease, but her heart wasn’t in it.
She stopped herself from dragging her fingers across her neck. Months had passed since she’d worn the collar, but she swore she could still feel the cold metal itching against her skin. A little lower, if she dared dip her fingers, she knew she’d find the ugly scar branded into her flesh.
She’d been treated like a possession her entire life. Her father wanted the perfect pride princess to tie his pride with powerful allies. She just never expected to be sold to a man old enough to be her father, and cruel enough to want war between humans and supernaturals. He’d given her that brand, the crooked, overlapping Js a sign of how she’d struggled every time he wanted to punish her, and a warning of what she faced if she ever defied him.
Jasper and her father were out there, just waiting for the moment to strike. She felt it in her very bones. Something was coming. For her, or the pride, she didn’t know. She wanted to be brave and not back down from whatever it was, but she knew she was a coward at heart.
She was too broken. Too lost. There wasn’t any forgetting the hurts she’d suffered. There wasn’t any moving past it. She still felt the silver collar around her neck and her lioness wouldn’t set her paws to the earth no matter how much Sage willed it. She wasn’t living, and she was tired of existing.
“I can’t do this anymore, Lin.”
Lies, something whispered deep in her head. Sage brushed the thought aside and closed her eyes. A faint, white smudge appeared on the back of her lids, like she’d stared at a bright light for too long, but she knew who it was even without her lioness slinking through her head.
“What are you talking about?”
“This. Everything.” Sage gestured to the empty air. “Living. I can’t keep pretending like I’m getting better.”
“No,” he said firmly, then gave a hard shake of his head. Sadness welled in his scent. “I won’t hear another word.”
“It’s not your choice,” she insisted. Sage dragged down a steadying breath. Quieter, letting the defeat and anguish enter her voice, she repeated, “It’s not your choice.”
“Why? Why now?”
“I took Lilah away from safety. We’d be dead now if Seth hadn’t tracked us down in time.”
She wished she’d gotten a taste of the clarity Lilah found on their road trip. Guilt and failure wrapped tightly around her throat. Accidentally bitten and made into a lioness by the man fated to be her mate wasn’t exactly an easy pill to swallow, especially after she’d been hurt by shifters before. But where Lilah came away with a lioness and a mate, she still felt scraped raw.
Sage huffed an unhappy laugh. Maybe she had found clarity, she just hadn’t been willing to accept the answer.
If anything, it was clearer than ever. She didn’t have a place in a world with savage lions, nor did she want to keep carrying weights wrapped around her neck. She didn’t want to run at the first flash of temper, but she didn’t want to feel forced to stay in one place, either. The pesky scar marking her as someone’s property was a promise that he’d try to collect. Maybe not tomorrow, or the next month, but the threat was well and truly alive.
Her mother had been claimed by a mad, vicious alpha. Roland let Lindley take the blame for her death, but he’d been the one to do the deed. She’d been a strong woman. Proud. Ready to go to the mat for her cubs even if it meant facing her mate’s wrath. And in the end, he killed her for it.
She didn’t have her mother’s strength. Jasper already broke her.
Grief for her lost future welled up from the pit of her stomach. She reached for her inner cat, then reached again. Fur slipped through her fingers and a low growl vibrated in her middle, but there was nothing else. No comfort. No companionship. She was cut off from one whole side of herself when she needed her the most.
“I froze,” she added. Skies above, her skin still crawled with the feel of the bear’s eyes on them. There’d been nothing but hate in them. He’d blamed Lilah for ripping his clan apart, but she didn’t doubt for a second that anyone stepping into that clearing would have met the same fate. He’d needed to ground his anger somewhere, they just happened to be the most convenient targets. “When someone needed me the most, I couldn’t do anything but cower.”
Lindley grimaced. “So because you couldn’t be the hero—”
“It has nothing to do with being a hero. I’d settle for a mediocre life at this point, but I’m not getting
