Muriel stared back, searching his face. Her gaze dropped to the nerve ticking in his cheek, and then down to his clenched jaw. “I sense your anger at this gifting.” She acknowledged slowly. “But I don’t understand it. Doesn’t such a gift make questioning the enemy easier? Doesn’t it give you answers the enemy would withhold? Surely this is why the Shadow Warrior gifted you this talent.”
O’Neill scoffed. His eyes were glowing again, gleaming with green fire. “Easier? For a warrior, sure. During interrogations, sure. But that’s not how it first manifested. Instead, it manifested with you. As we were...as I touched you...I saw into your thoughts. And it became clear that I was not the one you were thinking of. I was not the one you wanted touching you.” His face hardened, his eyes turning grim. “You didn’t want me as your first lover. You wanted Wolf.”
He bit the name out like a curse.
Chapter twenty-one
Day 30
Shadow Mountain Base, Alaska
O’Neill watched emotions spin across her face. The wide eyes and gaping mouth of shock, followed by the narrow gaze and compressed lips of anger.
“That’s absurd.” A withering look descended on her face.
Anger radiated from her. Not just her face and burning eyes, but her stiff shoulders and clenched hands.
Her reaction unbalanced him. He’d expected shame, an apology, not outrage.
“And fuck you, too.” She bit the words out, her hands fisting at her side. “You were the only male I was thinking about. The only one I wanted.”
“You’re forgetting, I saw into your mind. I saw him in there.” O’Neill’s jaw hardened, his skin tightening beneath a surge of fresh anger. Why was he so worked up over a damn memory? This was an old wound, one he’d all but forgotten. “I saw who you were thinking about. It wasn’t me.”
“Then you misunderstood what you saw.” She snapped back. “You were the one I wanted. Not Wolf. Just you.”
She sounded so certain. He frowned, staring into her searing eyes, and found honesty. No doubt. Only certainty and honesty. A wave of confusion rolled through him. His gift had been newly fledged back then; could he have misunderstood seeing Wolf’s presence in her mind?
He unconsciously shook his head and took a step back. To see another male, in her mind, as his body moved over hers, could only mean one thing—yes? Anger spiked again, burning away the confusion.
He doubled down on the accusation, his voice hardening. “The mind doesn’t lie. I saw Wolf in your mind as I was screwing you. He was the one you were thinking of.”
But then, Wolf’s words of mere days ago echoed through his mind.
Muriel does not lie.
He’d even agreed with that assessment. The thought punctured the anger, allowing his certainty to leak away. Had he misunderstood? But why else would her old crush have occupied her mind?
“Did I say I wanted Wolf? Did I call his name?” Her eyes were icy, bristling with insulted fury.
“No. I only hear words if the memory centers around a conversation.” His admission came slow and reluctant.
“In other words, you never heard me say I wanted to be with Wolf?” Derision sharpened each word. “I can’t believe you bailed on me because you thought I wanted someone else.” She hesitated, and then continued more slowly, more softly. “I proved how much I wanted you that night. Proved it with my body and my soul. How could you not have seen that? How could you have doubted that?”
“Wolf was in your mind. I saw him.” But his protest felt weaker, less certain.
She stepped away from him, her arms wrapping around her abdomen. “Well Wolf wasn’t in my mind because I wanted to screw him. I was over my Wolf crush by the time you and I hooked up.” She shook her head and frowned. “If you did see him in my mind, like you claim, maybe it’s because I was thinking about how grateful I was to him.”
O’Neill scoffed. “Grateful? Who’s talking absurdity now?”
Instead of reacting to his sarcasm, her frown deepened. Her gaze glazed over, turning inward. She hesitated, her eyes flickering toward him. For a moment, shame touched her face. But then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“Yes. Grateful. It’s no secret I had an enormous crush on Wolf for most of high school. You know that. You used to mock me because of it. But what you don’t know is that six months before we started dating, I tried to seduce him. I climbed through the window into his bedroom, got myself naked and threw myself at him. He turned me down, wrapped me in his blanket, and said I would regret giving him my first time. And you know what? He was right. I would have regretted it. So yes, Iwasgrateful to him for turning my adolescent advances down, which gave me the chance to experience my first time with you.”
“I don’t believe you.” He couldn’t believe it because that would change everything. That would mean he was at fault. That he’dbetrayed her. That he’d been a cowardlyeseneeewho’d run away instead of confronting her with what he’d seen.
But then, she hadn’t believed him about hisheschrmalclaiming. She wouldn’t have believed him about his spirit gift either.
“It’s the truth.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “And I can prove it. Look into my mind right now. I’ll think back to that moment, and you can experience the memory with me.”
