His Mate, His Enemy novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Not a Price
Wyatt woke at five and announced it to the whole lodge.
Lorcan was out of the bed and through the connecting door before I had my eyes open.
By the time I'd pulled on my sweater, he was walking the nursery with the baby against his shoulder.
He patted the small back in slow circles.
His hair stuck up on one side, and he looked ten years younger.
"Sorry," he said. "I'll get him down."
"Don't apologize for a baby."
"I'm apologizing for the noise."
"Lorcan." I leaned in the doorway. "I said something last night, and you haven't answered it."
He went on patting.
"You said I could stop earning."
"Yes."
"If I stop," he said carefully, "what's left?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean you came back across that line for the truth. You stayed at Ironwood for the protection. And you took me to bed last night because I held a man down while he was cut open."
"That isn't why."
"Isn't it?" His eyes came up to mine, raw. "I keep thinking there's a number. That if I do enough, one more dock, one more night on the road, one more thing nobody asked for, one day you'll look at me and it'll be paid."
I'd never heard him say it out loud.
His fear went down the thread with the words, and it hit me so hard my stomach turned.
"That's what the card was," I said.
He flinched.
"You couldn't trust the Moon to give you what you wanted, so you built it. And now you don't trust me to give it, so you're building that too. One favor at a time."
"Cori."
"Listen to me." I came into the room and stopped beside him.
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