Page 88 of Caretaker

But my heart was breaking.

Miriam didn’t answer, and I wasn’t surprised. “I’m taking a shower and then going to see her,” I told him.

“I’ll run you a bath. You don’t want to get that cast wet.”

“I don’t have time for a bath. Give me a plastic bag. I’ll manage. Fuck.” I bent forward, clutching my belly, and burst into fresh tears.

“You love the golem,” Angus said, tiredly. He stood, and I really looked at him for the first time since we’d gotten off Byrd Island.

He was dressed in a suit—tie and all. I understood. He was eager to reclaim his identity, his wealth, his power. He wanted things to go back to how they’d been before he’d been taken.

But I knew that beneath that suit was a burned, tortured body, and I closed my eyes in shame. Angus had been through the darkest hell. I should have been taking care of him, not the other way around.

I snagged his hand and he helped me stand. My legs were only a little wobbly, a little weak. “Angus. God, Angus.” I wrapped my arms around his waist, staring up into his face. “Do you not know that I love you, too?”

I needed him to be normal. To roar and laugh and say things that made me want to punch him. To order me around like the sexist bastard he was.

His stare sharpened and he drew in a sharp breath. He said nothing. Maybe he was afraid to. But there was doubt and vulnerability deep in his eyes, and I wanted only to make it go away.

“I love you,” I said. “I love you.”

It was the truest thing I’d ever said. I loved him.

I also loved Clayton.

And I fucking loved Shane.

Love for Rhys might come. I cared so much about him already.

I even felt something for Amias. Something I could not bear to call love, and probably never would. But it was something powerful. Something protective, possessive, fated. Maybe I couldn’t call it love, but whatever it was, it was undeniable.

They were mine. All of them. I knew with certainty that they were mine. And I was theirs. It didn’t have to make sense. It just was.

I was meant for this. Born for it.

“You’re mine,” I told Angus.

His hands tightened on my upper arms, his grip so hard it would leave bruises, but he wasn’t aware of that. “Trin,” he murmured.

I swallowed hard. “Do you care about me, Angus?” Maybe I was fishing, but I wanted to hear the words fall from his lips.

His eyes were shiny and damp. “Damn you.” His voice was so rusty I thought it would have hurt this throat. “I love you too fucking much.”

I swallowed another round of tears and something deep inside me began to ease.

His stare was sober and fierce, but sadness lurked in there, too. “You’ve had me since the first day you walked into my shop and looked at me with those big gray eyes of yours. From that very second. There’s something that pulls us together. You feel it.”

I nodded. Supernaturals never questioned the mysterious something. The world was full of magic. They didn’t doubt it. “I do.”

“And now,” he said, his voice so deep and dark I couldn’t help but shiver, “you’re finally…” He broke off, swallowed hard, then leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. “Finally.”

“Then why does it make you sad? I see it in your eyes.”

He didn’t answer for a long time, just stood with me, barely breathing.

“Angus,” I whispered. “Why?”

“Because someday you will be gone, and I will have to live in a world that no longer holds you.”