Pairing with the Protector Read online

  “Yeah, Whitney—just one song,” Sophie begged. She had on a t-shirt with a large black P painted on it and had used makeup to give herself a black eye. “I’m a black-eyed P, get it?” she’d said when Whitney asked. “Please,” she said again. “Please—just one song?”

  “Well…” Whitney sighed. She was used to being asked to sing at parties and she usually didn’t mind. But tonight she just wasn’t feeling it. Still, she hated to disappoint her friends. “All right,” she relented, taking the microphone back at last. “One song.”

  “Goody! And I get to pick it! I’m coming up with you—but not to sing,” Kat said hastily. “I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

  “Works for me.” Whitney was glad to have some support. “Come on.”

  The two of them went up on the small karaoke stage and Kat began flipping through the selections.

  Whitney sighed and looked down at the assembled crowd…and that was when she saw him.

  Golden eyes looked up at hers through the holes in a black mask and she felt a surge of emotion coming through their bond. Her heart throbbed and she forced herself to look away as she grabbed Kat’s arm.

  “Change of plans,” she whispered, barely able to get the words out. “I’m picking the song.”

  Rafe knew she had seen him. He had felt the surge of recognition through their bond. He wanted to go to her at once and tell her how sorry he was, but she was up on the small stage with Kat and he couldn’t interrupt her. All around him people were having fun, laughing and joking—all dressed in outlandish outfits, most of which meant nothing to him. But he only had eyes for Whitney as she raised the microphone and began to sing.

  “If I…should stay…I would only be in your way. So I’ll go…but I know I’ll think of you, every step of the way…”

  Rafe’s heart clenched. Gods, she was singing to him. Singing a farewell that made him ache inside.

  “Bittersweet memories…that is all I’m taking with me. So goodbye…please don’t cry. We both know I’m not what you need…

  But I will always love you! Oh, I will always love you!”

  The words made his eyes hot and his heart burn in his chest. Gods, he didn’t deserve her! But unworthy as he was, he couldn’t help himself.

  “Whitney,” he said hoarsely, coming up to take her hand as she finally descended the stage. “Can we talk?”

  Thirty-Eight

  “All right—here we are. What do you want to talk about?” Whitney was on her guard—afraid to hope for too much as they finally entered her suite. Had Rafe somehow learned that she was pregnant and now he had come to talk about the babies? But surely not—only Kat and Liv and Sophie and Commander Sylvan knew and they had all been sworn to the strictest secrecy. So then why had he come?

  “I wanted to tell you…to try…to try and explain,” he began. “About how…why I acted the way I did.”

  Whitney pulled her hand away at once.

  “Save it,” she said flatly. “I already heard your ‘it’s not you it’s me’ speech— once was enough for me.”

  “No, damn it!” Rafe burst out. “I came to tell you that I love you!” He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his wild black hair. “I love you…even though I know I don’t deserve you,” he ended, almost in a whisper.

  “You…you do?” Whitney tried not to get her hopes up. After all, she had already known that he loved her—but she also knew he didn’t want to love her either.

  “I didn’t want to love you because I was afraid,” Rafe admitted in a low, harsh voice. “I was afraid of losing you…of losing the woman I loved for the second time.”

  Whitney shook her head. “I’m sorry, Rafe—I don’t understand.”

  “Which is why I must explain.”

  “Please do.” Whitney sat on the couch and watched as the big Kindred started pacing in front of the fireplace, running his long fingers through his hair and looking down at her carpet as he spoke.

  “Over ten years ago now, I was bonded to another,” he said, his voice still low and filled with pain. “Her name was Tenda and I loved her more than my own life. We lived on Rageron, the home planet of my people, just on the edge of the Deep Blue.”

  “The huge jungle you told me about,” Whitney said.

  He nodded. “The same. The Deep Blue is full of predators but I had cleared the field around the back of our home and I did not think any would dare to come within our boundaries.” He took a deep breath. “In that, I was wrong.”

  “Oh,” Whitney murmured, but was afraid to say more. Clearly it was hard for Rafe to tell her this—he had a look on his face like a man choking up nails—but just as clearly he was determined to get through it.

  “One day when Tenda was heavy with our first born son, she strayed to the edge of our boundaries, gathering jinja blossoms. A xenox saw her—they are big feral felines with deep blue fur and fangs as long as my finger.”

  He demonstrated by hooking two fingers in the air and Whitney shuddered.

  “It carried her away,” Rafe said. “Before she could even scream—though I heard her screams well enough as I followed her.” He bowed his head, his broad shoulders hunched with the unbearable pain of loss. “I chased the beast and fought it—those are where the scars on my chest and abdomen came from. It nearly disemboweled me.”

  Whitney put a hand to her mouth.

  “Oh Rafe no—I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged, obviously trying to rein in his emotions, though she still felt them loud and clear through their bond.

  “I lived. Tenda did not. She and our unborn child died in the attack.” His hands clenched into fists. “The attack I was too slow to prevent. I couldn’t save them, Whitney. And I vowed to myself never to love a female again.”

  “I understand,” she whispered and she did. His feelings of love and longing for her, mixed up with feelings of regret were clear now. “You were afraid to love me because you didn’t want to lose me the way you lost her,” she murmured.

  Rafe nodded. “As I said, I was a coward not to tell you before. But somehow the words…would not come.”

  “I can understand why. Some things are too awful to talk about,” Whitney told him gently. “And if you don’t want to be together because that memory is too painful, well, I understand that too.”

  “No!” he said fiercely, looking up at her. “No, I want you, Whitney. And I love you. I just don’t deserve you.”

  “Yes, you do.” Whitney got up and went to him. Reaching up, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him down. “You protected me, Rafe—that whole time we were on that awful planet. You were willing to be killed if it would save my life—you stood by me the whole time. You do deserve me and both of us deserve happiness. So we deserve each other.”

  “Truly?” His golden eyes were hopeful. “Do you really feel that way, mon’dalla?”

  His use of the tender nickname which he hadn’t called her in so long seemed to melt Whitney’s heart…and heat up her blood at the same time.

  “Come over here on the couch with me and I’ll show you how I feel,” she murmured through their link.

  Rafe’s golden eyes grew half-lidded and he allowed her to lead him over to the broad, black leather couch which was warm from the heat of the fire burning in the grate. But when she would have sat beside him, he shook his head and drew her down into his lap, straddling him.

  “No, sit here with me, mon’dalla,” he murmured, reaching up to cup her cheek and bring her down for a kiss. “Let me show you how grateful I am that you have forgiven me.”

  Whitney could feel the hard bulge of his shaft through the tight black leather trousers he wore and she wiggled against it eagerly. Her hormones were surging and she suddenly felt almost as needy as she had after eating the special food or sniffing the tweedle weed.

  “Mmm…you have too many clothes on,” she accused him breathlessly as he kissed her and ran his big, warm hands up and down her sides.

  “I could say th