Her eyes were watering as he came up to her, and she tried to smile, but didn’t get far with that. “I’m fine, really, I’m…”

He sat down next to her—collapsed, was more like it—and took her cool hands. She still had her Burberry wool coat on, and her hair was tangled at the ends, as if she had been out in the wind.

Butch shook his head, his heart going trip-time on him. “Marissa, you gotta talk to me. You’re scaring the ever-loving shit out of your man.”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say anything else, but she leaned into him, allowing his body to support her weight—and that was an explanation in and of itself: Whatever it was, he wasn’t at fault.

Butch closed his eyes and held her, rubbing her back. “What’s going on.”

The story came out in fits and starts: a young female … lawn of Safe Place … brutalized … Havers operated … died anyway … no name, no information, no family.

God, he hated that his precious shellan had to be exposed to all that ugliness. Oh, and P.S., fuck her brother for real.

“And now I don’t know what to do for her.” Marissa let out a shuddering breath. “I just … I feel like I didn’t do enough when she was alive to save her and now she’s gone … and I know she was a stranger, but that doesn’t matter.”

Butch stayed quiet because he wanted to give his mate every chance to keep going—and as he waited, he thought, Shit, he knew that feeling of untethered accountability. Back when he’d been working homicide for the CPD, he’d felt the same way about every victim in his case load. Amazing how strangers could become a sort of kin.

“It’s just so unfair to her. The whole thing.” Marissa turned away to her purse, took out a Kleenex, and blew her nose. “And I didn’t want to say anything to you because I know you’re really busy—”

“Wrong,” he cut in. “There is nothing more important than you.”

“Still…”

He tilted her face toward him. “Nothing.”

As she teared up again, he brushed her cheeks clear. “How can you doubt that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not thinking right.” She pressed the tissue wad to her nose. “And I came here because this is where you always go.”

Okay, that warmed the crap out of his heart. “Has it helped?”

She smiled a little. “Well, it brought us together, didn’t it.”

Arranging her into his side, he put his arm around her and stared up the rows of glowing wood to the magnificent altar with its golden cross and its twenty-foot-tall statue of Jesus on the crucifix. Thanks to external security lights, stained glass glowed in the great arched windows that stretched up to the Gothic flying buttresses high above. And the chapels that honored saints flickered with votive candles lit by midnight visitors, the marble statues representing the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist, and the archangels Gabriel and Michael offering grace to whomever needed it.

He didn’t want his mate to suffer, but he was so damned relieved she was turning to him. As a bonded male, his first instinct was always to protect his shellan, and that withdrawal thing of hers, even though it had lasted for only a day, had been a kind of amputation.

“AndIdidn’twanttotellyoubecauseofyoursister.”

“What?” he murmured, kissing the top of her head.

“Your sister…”

Butch stiffened, he couldn’t help it. But then, any mention of that slice of his past was enough to make him feel like someone had juiced him with a car battery.

“It’s okay,” he said.

Marissa straightened. “I didn’t want to upset you. I mean, you never speak of … well, what happened to her.”

He looked down at his female’s hands. They were twisting and turning in her lap, trading off the tissue that was now a ball.

“You don’t have to worry about me.” He moved her hair back over her shoulder, stroking the fine, smooth strands. “That’s the last thing you need to do.”

“May I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

When she didn’t immediately come back at him with something, he moved his face into her line of vision. “What?”

“Why don’t you ever talk about your life before you met me? I mean, I know some details … but you never speak about any of it.”

“You’re my life now.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you getting at?”

She glanced over at him and shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I think I’m babbling.”

Her purse let out a bing! and she pulled the thing over into her lap. As she took out her phone, he studied her from a distance even though she was right next to him.

“It’s a text from Havers,” she said. “The remains are ready to be picked up.”

Butch got to his feet. “I’m going with you.”

Marissa stared up at him. “Are you sure you have time?”

All he could do was shake his head at that one. “Come on. I’ll drive you across the river. We still have a good hour of darkness left.”

As Craeg sat in a relatively comfortable chair with a padded back and padded arms, everything hurt so badly he might as well have taken a load off on a set of fireplace pokers. Part of it was his own fault. After he’d been brought in from the field on a stretcher, he’d refused the OTC pain meds he’d been offered following his physical exam. He had, however, taken advantage of the food, the bathroom, and the drinks.