Shameful by May Dawson
28
Rhett
I foundLegacy sitting on the steps of the mansion, looking out towards the forest. The wind blew her long dark hair around herface.
I sat down next to her. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Sometimes I feel like there’s someone watching me.” She propped her chin on her hand. “Sometimes I can almost convince myself it’s a ghost.”
“What happened back in your pack?” I asked. “Does this feeling of yours have something to do with the vampire you mentioned?”
She gave me a long look, and I thought she was going to remind me of how reluctant I’d been to tell her anything about what brought mehere.
“I hope you’re going to surprise me, Rhett,” shesaid.
It was obvious she expected to be disappointed, and that made me bristle. But all I said was, “Lay it onme.”
She told me about how she’d been attacked by a vampire, how she’d fought to survive—and how she’d almost alerted the human world to our existence. How no one believed her and she’d been ostracized from her pack. My hands knit into fists with anger as she told me the story.
She glanced down at my hands, then her gaze jerked up to my face. There was something wide-eyed and vulnerable there. As if what I thought mattered.
“I’m not mad at you,” I said hastily, relaxing my fingers, rubbing my palms across the knees of my jeans. “I’m mad at them. I’m sorry no one listened toyou.”
“Well, why would anyone?”
“No one listened to me either,” I said. “I thought I smelled vamps on pack territory. I tried to hunt themdown.”
“What happened?”
“Cyrus said it was another one of my lies, another scam of mine.” I tilted my head, thinking. “Seems kind of funny we both ended up exiled here for talking about vamps.”
“It does,” she said slowly.
I stared out at the forest. “If there are vamps targeting our pack, I don’t know why they’d come after you, evenhere.”
“I don’t know why either.”
“But I’d like it if you stayed close.”
The words felt too raw to say, even though there was a perfectly good reason to askher.
She pushed her hair behind her ear, looking up at me with an expression I couldn’t read until she smiled, just faintly. “I’d like thattoo.”
Something expanded in my chest. That smile of hers was magnetic.
West and I had been planning our escape. We were so close to being ready.
But I didn’t want to leaveher.
I also didn’t trust her, especially not while she had a link to Lucas.
So for now, we’d just stay close. Protecther.
And try not to fall forher.
Any harder.