Lowlander Silverback(39)

“Kirk, you didn’t have to go rogue for me.”

“It wasn’t for you, man. It was for me. I want my pride intact at the end. Besides, Fiona has no use for me anymore. She won’t give me a family group, and I suck at murdering people for her. I just wanted to warn you it isn’t over with her yet.”

Kong slammed his fist onto the railing and ran his hands through his sleep-mussed hair. “I don’t get it. Why this obsession with me? It can’t just be the birthmark. Why can’t she just let me go?”

“Don’t you see? It is the birthmark. Every generation sired by the silverback with the mark of the Kong has gone down in our history books as the strongest. The smartest. The ones who made a difference in our survival. It isn’t you. It’s your genetics she needs.”

“Needs?”

“Kong, the family group she’s put together for you? She’s in it. She’s the head female.”

Shock slammed into him, stealing his breath away. No. “Fiona wants to breed?” She was forty and still capable, but she’d only ever shown interest in ruling the gorilla shifters.

“Yeah, man. But she won’t bear offspring for just anyone. She wants you to father her get. She wants her offspring in the history books.”

A hundred things snapped into place. Fiona searching tirelessly for him after his mother had stolen him away. Her putting so much effort into breaking him when he was a blackback. Her obsession with the contract and not allowing him to taint his seed. It wasn’t for the betterment of a family group. It was because he was being groomed to be her claim.

His stomach curdled with a gritty, nauseous feeling as he sank onto the cedar floorboards, his back against the railing. “Holy shit,” he murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. If this was true, she would never give up, and Layla would never be safe.

Kirk swallowed audibly over the line. “Anyway. I just wanted to give you a heads up. I actually like Layla for you. Can you tell her…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Can you tell her I’m sorry about Mac?”

Mac’s death wasn’t Kirk’s fault, but he got it. He’d been blaming himself for the better part of a week now, too. “Yeah. I will.”

“I’ll be at the sawmill if you need me,” Kirk said. “For backup or whatever. My days are numbered, so for the rest of them, I’m good with making up for what I’ve had to push you into all these years. I’d better go. We have a few orders to fill today.”

“All right, man. Kirk?” Kong asked before he could hang up.

“Yeah?”

“It’s okay. What you had to do? It’s okay.”

Kirk was quiet for a long time before he said, “It’s not, but thanks for saying that. Goodbye, Kong.”

The line went dead, and Kong rested his head back against the railing and stared at Layla’s bedroom window.

He’d thought this was over, but the scars on his body were just the warm-up.

Layla wasn’t any safer now than she had been before he’d challenged Rhett and the others.

****

When Layla woke up, Kong was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her. She slid her hand up the uneven skin of his back, over the bumps and ridges of the scars she had now memorized with her touch. Over the long, dark shape of the birthmark that had almost come between them.

“Good morning,” she murmured sleepily.

He looked over his shoulder with a ready smile, but his eyes were green.

“What’s wrong?”

“I want to take you on a date.”

She ducked her face and hid her flattered smile as butterflies fluttered away in her stomach. “Where?”

“Willa told me about this bait shop she sells worms to. She said the owner just expanded and added a barbeque joint onto it for the tourists who fish up here. It’s only half an hour away, so we wouldn’t have to make another drive all the way into Saratoga for me to take you out.”

She angled her face and frowned. “Why are your eyes glowing?”

His smile faded slowly, and he shook his head. “No reason.” But his voice sounded off, hollow, as if he didn’t believe in the words enough to put force behind them.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, I’ll go on a date with you. Silly monkey,” she said through a giggle, “you’ll talk about starting a family with me, no problem, but you get nervous asking me out?” She bit her lip against the smile that cracked her face wide open. Then she jumped up and climbed on his back like a koala bear. Wrapping her legs around his middle, she said, “Take me to the shower, silly monkey. I want to get pretty for our date.”