Page 27 of Tiger Born

Misty frowned.

She went to her follower list and did a search for his name there, and again, nothing.

She inhaled sharply and leaned back against the couch as she realized what he’d done.

He’d unfollowed and blocked her. That or he had deactivated his account entirely.

The pain in her chest was something she’d never felt before. The claw marks on her arm throbbed in rhythm with her pulse, and it was the first time she’d really felt the ache of them. She looked at the bandage, and there was a blood stain there in the shape of the marks.

They were bleeding again.

Tears stung her eyes as she made her way to the bathroom to clean it and replace the bandages.

She’d been such a stupid girl.

“Really think about what you’ve done,” she told herself in the mirror. “You were traumatized by that Cat attack five years ago, and you took one of them to your uncle’s home, saved him, slept with him, let him mark you, and now you’re crying when he didn’t want you.”

Angrily, she wiped the tears on her cheeks.

“And now you will have to heal the scars all over again!” She dragged air into her lungs on a sob. “You stupid girl.”

Losing her mind, she threw the new bandages onto the counter and marched into the living room to pick up her phone. She opened the text to Chris. She’d left him on read when he’d told her she looked good yesterday. A dark part of her wanted to hurt Dame, but this wouldn’t even hurt him. He wouldn’t know. But it would hurt Chris’s girlfriend, and that didn’t feel right. Even if she was the woman who broke them up, Misty would be no better than her if she started conversations with Chris now.

So, instead, she took a screenshot of the message and sent it to Miranda, the nurse he was dating now. She had most of the nurses’ numbers for emergencies or for meetups outside of work. They’d even been cool for a while before Chris did what Chris did.

I’m sorry to send you this, but I would’ve appreciated it if you had done this for me. I’m not responding to him. I want nothing to do with any of this. Send.

And then she blocked Chris and set the phone down. It did make her feel a little better, even if it did piss off his girlfriend. Misty knew sometimes the messenger got shot, but right now, she didn’t really care. She’d done the right thing and given her a heads up that her boyfriend’s attention was wandering in Misty’s direction. She’d done that instead of pulling Chris’s attention onto her just to feel better after Dame’s rejection.

Miranda’s response was quick, and simple. This is the second one I’ve been sent. Thank you.

Good enough for Misty. She wasn’t surprised that Chris was talking to multiple people. She didn’t need to know how that woman was handling it. Misty didn’t need to know if she was going to leave him or stay with him through the disrespect. Whether Chris was single or not, Misty would never, ever give him another chance to hurt her again.

She sat up straighter at the realization that the bond to him had been completely severed. She had no remaining feelings, or questions. She didn’t care about what-ifs. Sometime in the last day, she had just accepted him for what he was, and her heart had moved on without her realizing it.

Huh.

Okay, so bright side: even if Dame ditching her hurt like hellfire, at least he’d moved her heart on from Chris and his games. And there was value in that. So…okay. It wasn’t all for nothing.

She sat there clinging to that bright side, waiting for the aching in her chest to feel better, but it didn’t.

All right, maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow would be the day.

Tomorrow she would make fun plans and stay busy, and the ache would definitely go away.

Chapter Eight

Dame had to bring her the damn food.

He’d tried to throw away the stuffed salmon dinner three times now, but here he stood, with the fifty-dollar meal dangling over the trash bin at his house, and he couldn’t get his dang fingers to release the plastic bag.

He tried as hard as he could, but his fingers wouldn’t open.

He growled a curse and walked it into his house for the third time. He would try again in an hour.

Only when he tried to set it on the counter, his legs took him toward the front door and straight out to his truck, all the while with him yelling, “Stop, stop, stop, stop!”