Chapter 10
Kateri had never been so forward with any man in her life. She had no idea where the courage came from, but she wanted to soothe him in a way she'd never wanted to soothe anyone. No one should be so alone. So abandoned. So humiliated. Especially not a man who had spent eternity protecting others.
A man who had bled to keep her safe. No one had ever given so much to her, and he barely knew her. No wonder he'd gone after the world so ferociously. All it had ever done was kick him in the teeth. She couldn't get over the cruelty she'd witnessed.
For once in his life, he needed to feel appreciated and cared for by someone he'd reached out to.
She nipped at his chin as she unbuttoned his jeans and slid her hand inside to touch him.
Gasping, he caught her hand in his and pulled it back. His breathing ragged, he shook his head. "Don't."
She frowned at his actions. "What's wrong?"
The raw agony in his dark eyes made her ache for him. "I c-c-can't."
His rejection stung her hard. She'd more than felt the proof that he could. He was already hard and wet. What he meant was that he didn't want her.
Clenching her fist, she nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."
Ren scowled at the catch in her voice, at the embarrassed humiliation in her eyes. It was a feeling he knew all too well, and he hated himself for making her feel it now. But the last thing he wanted was to be her pity fuck. That was the only thing worse than being rejected and ridiculed.
Even knowing that he meant nothing to her, it would weaken him where she was concerned and turn him into a mindless toy for her to jerk around. It was what he hated most about himself. If anyone ever managed to show him an ounce of kindness, he was pathetically loyal to them over it.
I am a wretch....
Still, he didn't want her to feel bad. It'd been a kind offer. More than anyone else had ever given him. But he didn't mean anything to her and he knew it. She felt sorry for him and that was all. She didn't really want to sleep with him and he wasn't desperate enough to take advantage of her kind heart.
"It's not you, Kateri. It's not. The last time I slept with a woman, I almost ended the world. I've been twice adopted by evil and I know better than to tempt that part of me. I can't trust myself where you're concerned. If I let my guard down for even an instant, the darkness takes hold of me and I'm lost to it completely."
"I'm not asking for your soul, Ren. I'm only offering you comfort."
He laughed bitterly at his own frail stupidity. "And that is my weakness. Do not be nice to me."
Kateri stood there, staring at him in the dim light. He was serious about that. He honestly wanted her to hate him. And for what?
Fear of intimacy?
No, it wasn't that. She could feel it inside her. He was terrified of becoming her lapdog. Because in his mind, he was so desperate for any kindness at all, that once given, he would do anything to get more of it. Like a junkie wanting a fix.
Her heart broke for him. "Comfort is not a weakness."
"Yes, it is. In the wrong hands it's the cruelest weapon of all. And I don't want your kindness or your comfort. I don't need it."
But she knew better. He wanted to be held as much as she wanted to hold him. How sad that he couldn't trust her for the most basic human needs of all.
To be accepted and valued.
"Is there really no one you trust?"
"Only Buffalo."
An image of the handsome man in her visions flashed through her mind. "The friend you had as a boy who stood up for you? The one you used to sign with?"
His face went pale. "How do you know about that?"
She held her hands up to assure him that she wasn't intentionally prying into his past. "I've seen a lot of your life through visions. I never asked for them. I swear. They just come and go, in snippet pieces that I don't understand most of the time. But they've told me a lot about you. I even know that Ren is short for Renegade because you consider yourself a traitor to your family and people."
He stood in front of her, looking bereft of everything except self-loathing. "I don't consider myself a traitor. I am one. I have twice over betrayed everyone who trusted me. And I do mean everyone."
She didn't believe that for even a heartbeat. "Your father never trusted you."
"My brother did."
Kateri drew her brows together as she tried to picture what he described. Oddly enough, she'd never seen a single vision with his brother in it, other than the one when his brother had been ill as a child, and even then, his brother had been nothing more than a shapeless lump underneath bedcovers. She'd only seen allusions to his brother, but never his face or form.
But the one thing she had seen and that she could feel was that he did love his brother. Dearly. "I can't believe you'd betray him without cause."
His features hardened. "You don't know me, Kateri. What I'm capable of. I swore a sacred oath to protect my brother and for over a year I brutally tortured him."
A shiver went down her spine at what he said and from the look of hatred on his face. "Why?"
Shame filled his eyes as he stepped away from her.
As she suspected, he hadn't done it for pleasure. He'd been motivated to it by something or someone. "Tell me, Makah'Alay."
He turned back toward her faster than she could blink. Rage contorted his features as he curled his lip. "Don't call me that!" he snarled between clenched teeth. "Ever!"
His anger caught her off guard. She'd never seen any inclination in her visions that his real name bothered him. "Why?"
"It's not my name either." He returned to stand directly in front of her so that he dwarfed her with his height. His ravaged emotions were tangible as he glared down at her.
Yeah, okay, he was really fierce and scary. But she refused to cower. She would stand toe to toe with him no matter what, because that was what she'd been taught.
The Cherokee don't run. Sometimes they might want to. Sometimes they ought to. But the Cherokee don't ever run. Whatever the danger, you stood strong against it and faced it with everything inside you. That was her grandmother's greatest legacy and it was hardwired into her DNA.
"Do you know what Makah'Alay means?" His eyes flashed bright red in the darkness. But it came and went so fast that she wasn't sure if it happened or she imagined it.
She shook her head.
"It's the Keetoowah word for crow-demon. Since my mother didn't name me and I was returned to my father by a demon wet nurse, it was what they called me."
No one had given him a name?
"What of your grandmother?"