Chapter 62
Chapter 62
When we got home, the house felt different somehow, heavier with unspoken truths, charged with secrets about to be shared.
So instead of heading upstairs to our separate rooms like we usually did, Tristan and I gravitated toward the living room.
Tristan settled onto one end of the sectional couch his long frame folding with that fluid grace he’d always possessed. I took the opposite end, tucking my legs beneath me and wrapping my arms around my knees like armor against whatever was coming.
The silence stretched between us, not uncomfortable exactly, but weighted with anticipation. I could feel him gathering his thoughts, choosing his words carefully the way he always did when something truly mattered to him.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I waited, because deep down I knew what this conversation.
would be about.
The questions that had been eating at me since I’d learned about Jess, since I’d knelt beside her grave
and felt the crushing weight of everything I hadn’t known about the man sitting across from me.
Tonight had changed something fundamental between us. He’d shown me his most private places – the cemetery where he grieved, the hilltop where he found peace, the underground world where he courted death for the simple pleasure of proving he could cheat it.
These weren’t things you shared with just anyone. These were gifts given only to people who mattered, people you trusted with the deepest parts of yourself.
Was he falling for me? The thought sent heat racing through my veins followed immediately by a chill of fear. The way he’d protected me from the guy earlier at the racing center, the careful distance he maintained even while letting me into his world it all pointed to a man struggling with feelings he wasn’t sure he should have. But I knew I was being delusional.
“I know you’ve been meaning to ask me questions, ” he said finally, his voice low and rough in the quiet
room.
Our gaze locked, and I felt that familiar electric current that always seemed to arc between us when we really looked at each other. His gaze was steady but guarded, like he was bracing himself for whatever I might want to know.
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Chapter 62
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The questions had been multiplying in my mind like crops after rain. When had he met her? Had she been his Luna, the woman who stood beside him as he fed the pack? Had they had a proper mating
ceremony with all the ancient rituals and celebrations? Had he loved her the way every woman dreams of
being loved – completely, desperately, without reservation?
That last question would die with me. Some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud.
“What happened to her?” I asked, starting with the one that felt safest, the one that focused on facts
rather than feelings.
I wanted to know how they’d met, whether he’d looked at her the way he sometimes looked at me like I was something precious and fragile that might disappear if he blinked. But I couldn’t ask that. Some
doors were better left unopened.
Tristan’s expression softened, and I watched him slip back into memory like a man returning to a
familiar room.
“I met Jess when I was coming back from racing one night,” he began, his voice taking on that storyteller quality he’d always had when something truly captured his imagination. “She stepped right in front of my bike, arms spread wide, trying to make me stop p>
A smile appeared across his lips, fond and painful all at once. “I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person was that fearless. Who sees a motorcycle coming at that late hour and thinks, ‘I’ll just stand here and make it stop with the power of my will p>
I found myself leaning forward despite my resolve to keep distance between us. There was something mesmerizing about watching him remember her, like seeing someone carefully unwrap a Christmas
present.
“I helped her fix her car, just a minor issue with the battery connections. The next day, I was shocked to see her at our family house. She’d come to visit Sarah p>
My eyebrows shot up in confusion. “What was Sarah doing at your family house p>
“Wait,” Tristan paused, studying my face. “You didn’t know p>
“Know what p>
“Sarah is my distant cousin. She came after my parents died to help with the ‘transition, but you’d already left by then. She met Orion and refused to go back home.” The information hit me like a physical blow, rewriting everything I thought I understood about the people in my brother’s life.
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Sarah was Tristan’s family. Jess had been her best end. I’d been living in a carefully constructed bubble of ignorance, missing crucial pieces of the puzzle that was my own life.
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I absorbed this news like someone watching a move where all the plot twists suddenly made sense. The way Sarah had looked at me with such knowing eyes, the familiarity in her manner, it all clicked into
place now.
“When I saw Jess at the house, I acted cold toward her, you know the way I also do” I nodded my head already picturing the brooding Tristan, a smile appeared on my face.
“But she didn’t let that discourage her. She chased me everywhere until I fell hard for her.“He continued, his hands running through his hair, just like he always does when he’s frustrated.
“After we lost our parents, I couldn’t handle the grief. I felt completely alone and started acting like it. I avoided Orion, stayed out at clubs until dawn, got into fights with strangers just to feel something other
than the emptiness p>
My chest tightened with guilt and regret. While I’d been in London trying to forget my family existed, he’d been here drowning in the same grief.
“I needed to do something that would hurt as much as I was hurting inside. I got tattoos, started racing, picked fights I couldn’t win, even though I won them with bruises. Anything to make the outside match what I felt inside p>
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Sara Lili
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.