Free WereCat Fever by Eliza March Page B

the step toward her, she stepped back.
    “Lacey. You didn’t think… Tell me you don’t think I had anything to do with his death.”
    She turned away, afraid he’d see the truth in her eyes. “You admitted the blackouts, told me about having blood on your hands. You disappeared. Within days, they found my father dead.” Mauled. “What do you expect me to think?”
    “I’d never…” Bryan’s expression filled with horror. “I loved your father. He was more father to me than Cauldwell ever was.”
    Her resolve wavered. “I didn’t believe you’d hurt him, but then, I never thought you would hurt me the way you did, either.”
    He reached out, but she shook her head and recoiled. If he touched her, she’d dissolve, splinter, crumble. “You don’t owe me any explanations. We were kids. I just…”
    No matter what, she believed his family always knew what happened to him because there were rumors of a falling out between the old man and Bryan the morning he left. Then nothing.
    “You just what?”
    “Nothing. Apparently, I didn’t know you as well as I thought.”
    “…just what?” he repeated.
    “I just wondered,” she said, finally finishing her sentence but not her thoughts. I just…thought you were dead. Died myself a little when you didn’t show up.
    Bryan heard the way she cut off her words and pulled back her emotions. The rest, his cat’s instincts heard with his mind even without her speaking.
    Not touching her as the pain gathered behind her eyes was the hardest thing he ever did…with the exception of leaving her in the first place. Pain radiated off her and through him—the old pain he caused when he’d left her and this new raw pain his presence caused.
    She wouldn’t admit how much he’d hurt her, but he suddenly understood. Being apart from her mate had hurt her as much as it had him. How would he ever make this up to her?
    “You have to know if there was a way to return for you, I would have.”
    “No. I didn’t know that. I was twenty, insecure…” Her eyes iced over and her quiet response stabbed right through him. “Your family was powerful. Your father and brother hated me because… I don’t know why. Maybe because I was the foreman’s daughter? Someone a Cauldwell slept with, not someone they married.”
    “Don’t say that.” Bryan never cared. “I didn’t pay attention to what my family thought. I asked you, didn’t I? I planned to marry—”
    “You didn’t come back!”
    Bryan’s heart clenched. She sounded broken. “I wanted to.”
    “What’s the real story, Bryan?”
    His mother died when he was five and his father remarried. After Tory was born, Bryan was treated like an outcast. His father left him alone as long as he didn’t do anything to embarrass the impeccable family name. Bryan never belonged.
    “Answer me, dammit. Was it amnesia? Just get out of prison or something?” Lacey leaned in and poked him in the chest for emphasis. “What keeps someone away for five years? Oh, yeah and let me add this…without a phone call, an email, or an effing card?” The finger dug in with each word, branding her fury on his chest.
    He wanted to fold her in his arms but the anger rippling off her warned him to stay put. “I promise I’ll explain.”
    Accepting and acclimating to who and what he was, then surviving in a world new to him had been a huge adjustment. He almost went mad when Hunter told him he had probably infected her the last time they were together. But when Hunter checked with Thomas, he said she was fine. So Bryan stayed away. In fact, he never intended to come back and put her through what he endured.
    “If I had a choice, it would have been forever.”
    Her gaze snapped to his and her eyes flashed with fire. “Don’t think you’re doing me any favors showing up now.” Her hands went to her hips and her anger overflowed, hitting him like a physical slap. “Go away, Bryan. I was doing just fine without you.”
    “Lacey, I