“You did what!” I shrieked, sitting up and looking down at him in horror. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“The band on my wrist,” he continued, holding up his right arm. “That’s where they shackled me. A year of my life. A fucking year. I was in survival mode; there was no way out even if I came up with the money.”

“You fought?”

He rose up on his elbows and looked at me with tortured eyes. “I survived.”

“But no one walks out of the pits alive. I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“You’re right, and it would have been a matter of time before my luck ran out. That’s why the chain on my arm is broken. One of the guards got a little too drunk, stood a little too close to the bars, and that’s all she wrote. I opened all the cages, but some of them didn’t go. Can you believe that? They were gone—mentally,” he said, tapping his head.

I hadn’t realized I was covering my mouth with my hand. “How did you live?”

“What I did to survive I’ll never wash off my conscience. The tats? They started as a way to separate myself from Ben for good. But some of them are hiding scars. Sometimes they’d throw us into the pit in human form against an animal to toughen us up. Sometimes they whipped us. After I escaped, I went back to get my revenge, but they’d already packed up and moved. I never got my due justice.”

“You’re kidding me. Please tell me this is a joke.” Tears welled in my eyes. My God, what this man must have gone through, and all for his brother!

“Nope,” he said, easing onto his back. “So maybe you get a little tense around people because you think they’ll find out what you are and see you as a threat, but I’m the real deal. I’m the Shifter that gives people waking nightmares. I killed to eat, breathe, and live another day. There’s no glory in that, even if it was survival. I was undefeated, and they pitted me against some of the baddest fighters out there.”

“Panthers?”

His voice cracked. “Yeah, panthers. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been a cat person. Throw a man into a pit against a panther and it changes his perspective on things. I fought them in human and wolf form. Maybe you see me as a reticent man, but when you’ve stared into the soul of a panther who is dying in your arms and drawing their last breath, something inside you shuts off.” He threw his arm over his eyes and went quiet.

“You have to tell Austin.”

“I can’t,” he whispered.

My eyes sharpened and I pushed his leg. “You have to. Ben will weaken the pack, and if he gets out of control again—”

“I can’t!” he roared, leaning up on his elbows. “He’s my twin. He’s the other half of me. Betraying him would be like killing myself. No matter what’s happened between us, I still love him.”