He cut himself off with a curse and drank down half his bottle.
“Sage makes that emptiness easy to ignore, doesn’t she?” Lindley pressed ahead when he didn’t answer. “And some part of you is worried about letting her fill it up.”
Rhys slashed a look to the pride’s second. Fucker. Why couldn’t he be as bad at his job as he claimed? Right then, he’d gladly give his left nut for a mouthy, irritable, unobservant second who didn’t give a shit about letting everyone in the pride stew in their heads until they boiled over into a brawl for the ages.
Jaw tight, he ground out, “I’m not a good man, Lin. I can’t be another weight around her neck.”
“Something else you told me,” Lindley said quietly. “Life ain’t worth living without your mate. Don’t spit on the second chance you were given.”
Rhys picked at the label on his bottle. “Part of me feels like it’s a betrayal.”
“You can’t betray the dead. Not in this. All you can do is honor their memory and keep living.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he admitted.
“By making her smile. Giving her a reason to laugh.” Lindley swallowed down some of his drink, then canted his head. “You give her every last thing she wants. And I’m not talking about stuff, but I’m sure you already know that. She wants someone to hold her? That’s you. To listen to her while she rants about her day? You, again. To learn how to be her best self? You’re going to be there at her side every step of the way.”
“I am everything she shouldn’t want,” Rhys objected. “Too angry. Too violent. I’m no good for her.”
She’d grown so much from his first impression of a broken little bird, and it was by his hand that she shrank back again.
He wasn’t any better than the monsters who made her feel small.
“I told you already, no one is good enough for her. And she is the one who decides who she wants. If that’s the crazy fucker who’s been making big moon eyes at her for this last year, then so be it.” Lindley downed the last of his drink, then knocked his knuckles against the plywood bar top. “Come on. We’ll make a stop at a gas station on the way back. You should get some Almond Joys and then go talk to her. She doesn’t like leaving things overnight.”
Rhys pushed to his feet and followed the second out of the warehouse. Candy may have helped him over some minor shit like forgetting to take out the trash, but he’d pushed her away and avoided her for days. He couldn’t fix the fatal flaws running straight through his very being, nor could he expect her to just deal with them.
The alternative? Leaving her behind? That felt like cutting off his own leg.
He’d been through the pain of losing a mate. He’d barely survived.
But Sage?
Sage deserved every ounce of effort he had remaining.
And all the damn candy in the world.
Chapter 23
Sage jerked upright at the quick knock on her door. A glance at the clock put the time at close to midnight—and three days since she’d last spoken to Rhys.
Her heart ached. She was back to sleeping in fits and only when exhaustion forced her lids to close. Everything she forced down her throat tasted like ashes. Even her inner lioness gave over her usual back and forth between spitting anger and wary watchfulness to sink into a new, listless low.
Sage clamped down on the wash of pain that threatened to take her to her knees.
Another knock, and she forced herself to put her feet on the floor and stand. The momentum carried her forward and she cracked open her door.
Rhys stood on the other side. He brushed his hair away from his face, then shoved a blue and white box in her direction. One perforated end had been peeled back, but candy bars were packed together as tightly as the day a store employee set them on the shelf.
“What is this?” she asked, not lifting a hand to take the box.
“Lindley told me to get them for you.”
Sage huffed a laugh, then shook her head. “He’s fucking with you. I’ve never liked Almond Joys, even when we were cubs. Always been a Snickers girl.”
Something close to realization dawned on his face and he shot a glare down the line of dens. When he turned back, one corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk. “He’s definitely fucking with us, but it got me through the door and a laugh out of you, so maybe his plan worked.” When she didn’t answer, his face fell. “I know I fucked up. Can we talk? Please?”
Sage narrowed her eyes and tongued her teeth, but let the door swing wide open.
He took a seat on the couch, arms resting on his thighs and head hanging between his shoulders. Her lioness wanted her to cross the room and go to him, smooth back the mop of hair that hung over his eyes and tell him whatever put agitation in his scent would be just fine, but she hung back. Barely, but she stayed still.
He’d hurt her. Not in the same way as Jasper and her father, of course. He hadn’t unleashed his claws in the slightest. That he didn’t leave a physical mark didn’t make the pain any less real.
He’d made her think there was something between them and that he could help her finally put together her broken pieces. She’d let herself be seduced into believing there was a future that involved more than pain and fear. Most dangerously, he’d given her hope.
And when it finally came down to it, he shoved her away and left her alone. Stand with her? Only on his terms, not when she needed to
