“Pop taught me.”

They’d left Abel in an alley.

But they’d kept Cain.

Instantly, Delilah slid to his front, doing it keeping herself plastered to him along the way. When she got there, she put her hands to his abs and started pushing at him gently.

She did this speaking.

“Lucien, can you see to it Cain and Teona are made comfortable? Abel and I have to have a chat.”

“Of course,” Lucien agreed.

“We’ll be back,” she went on, but seeing as he didn’t take his eyes from his brother, he only assumed she was speaking to Cain and his woman.

She kept pushing.

He didn’t budge.

“Baby, in the hall,” she urged softly.

“You knew our parents?” Abel asked his brother.

She pushed harder and was louder when she said, “Please, Abel honey, in the hall.” He opened his mouth to say something else to his brother, but Delilah fisted her hands in his shirt and her voice was ragged when she begged, “Please.”

It was her tone that got to him. He tore his eyes from his brother and looked down at his mate and saw it immediately.

This wasn’t about her pushing him to do something she wanted him to do when he wasn’t ready to do it.

This was something else.

She was suffering.

For him.

Therefore, without hesitation, he clamped an arm around her and pulled her into the hall and down to living room five. There, he walked them in and shut the door.

The instant he did, she wrapped her arms around him, pressed close, and held on tight.

“Just hold on,” she whispered into his chest.

He folded his arms around her, dropped his mouth to the top of her head, and did as told.

It took a while, but the feel of her, the smell of her, what he knew she wished desperately to give to him penetrated, and the numbness, which had invaded in order to control the fury, slid away to a stillness that he knew was fighting the fury.

“I love you,” she whispered, and the stillness became warmth that wasn’t the blaze of anger but a soothing balm so beautiful, in centuries, he’d never experienced anything like it.

He knew she loved him. She’d mostly said it.

But not straight out.

Not like that.

But she wasn’t done.