There was beauty to Camellia that she didn’t see in herself at all. Whitney had told her how useless she was. The one person she believed in, the one person she’d dared to love as family, had betrayed her. That made her feel as though she was nothing. A throwaway, just as Whitney had told her she was. Jonas knew better. Camellia was . . . extraordinary. A miracle.
He had no idea how he’d gotten lucky enough to have any chance with her at all, but he was determined to proceed carefully, choosing his way as if walking through a minefield, because he knew her value. He wasn’t going to chance losing her. He’d given her the opportunity to walk away from him twice. He’d done that for her. There had been a part of him that was well aware of how she might be treated when they arrived at the compound. He didn’t want that for her. She’d stayed. She’d chosen him. That meant he needed to always give her his best.
“Jonas,” Camellia murmured his name softly. Almost a groan. “Stop. I’m not that wonderful. See me. The real me. Don’t put me on a pedestal. I need to be a real person to you, not some saint I can’t possibly live up to.”
Her fingers worked magic in his scalp and in his mind, helping to push the night’s work to a distance. Interrogations were brutal, especially with someone like Crawley. He’d been arrogant, determined to resist. So certain he was better than they were. Smarter. They couldn’t possibly break him.
First, Jeff could get into anyone’s head. That was just ugly right there. Jonas could physically break anyone, and that was as vicious as it got. Then there was Gator with his sound that cut through a body and turned insides to mush, literally. Put all three together and Crawley told them everything he knew. None of it had been good, but they knew what they were facing. Jonas was going to have to live with what they’d done to try to save their families, and it wouldn’t sit easy with him.
“I don’t want a saint, Camellia. I’m so far from a saint it’s not funny. A saint wouldn’t be able to be in the same room with me.”
They’d had this discussion before. He knew it was important to her, or she wouldn’t keep bringing it up. He wasn’t going to dismiss her concerns, even though he knew they weren’t valid. He did see her. The problem was she didn’t see herself the way she really was. That was true of so many people. Perhaps even him. He tried to turn the spotlight on himself and be realistic, but it was always possible he missed the mark.
“Look what’s in my mind. See me, Jonas. I don’t want to have to tell you. Not tonight when the night is so beautiful.”
Her voice shook just a little, but her fingers were steady, never wavering. She didn’t need to make her confession aloud to him. He saw, in her mind, what she considered her worst shame. She shared it with him. She didn’t want him to come to her, to accept her as a partner, without realizing she held grudges and she could be ruthless.
Jonas wanted to smile. Ruthless. His little Camellia thought herself ruthless. She could be when she needed to, and that was a good thing. She would defend their children. Their home. Herself. She wasn’t afraid to go after an enemy. She wouldn’t wince or argue when he did what needed to be done. She would go into battle with him and create the best illusions and never falter when he killed inside those illusions. So yeah, he supposed that she could call herself ruthless if she wanted. Those things might earn her that title in someone’s book. Not his. But someone’s.
He searched further to see what she was really trying to show him about herself, although he was certain he already knew. This confession was about Marigold. About betrayal.
Camellia had been exhausted after staying up all night—running, jogging, running more—to get the prisoner to the compound. Then she’d healed Kaden. That had taken more hours. She had nothing left and desperately needed sleep. Instead of taking care of her own needs, she’d gone straight to Lily, a woman she really didn’t know and shouldn’t have cared about. But she had cared. She cared enough to sit with her and let her talk.
She hadn’t condemned Lily for her actions as most people would have. Lily had brought the GhostWalkers to the brink of a war. She had placed her marriage in jeopardy. She’d risked her son. There was that ugly word: “betrayal.” Camellia knew all about it, and yet she had sat with Lily on the floor in a hallway and listened to her side of things and tried to comfort her.
“Jonas.” Camellia wailed his name and tugged his hair.
He had a lot of hair, so she got a fistful. She didn’t hurt him though. She was too conscious that his head was pounding—that sharp spikes had been jammed deep into his brain, and his blood roared and thundered in his ears. She’d been pulling those spikes out one by one with her firm massage.
He laughed softly because Camellia was a badass when it was necessary, but she wasn’t at all what she thought she was. “I’m getting there, honey. Give me a chance. I can’t help it if you do mostly good things.”
He casually caught her fist, pried her fingers open and brought her hand to his mouth. He’d planned on just kissing her knuckles, but he was very oral. He was leopard. Wolf. A lot of other things that demanded he pull each one of her fingers into his mouth and use his tongue to commit the shape and texture of her delicate digits to his memory. The pads of her fingers, the shape of each finger, her thumb, her knuckles. Skin like satin. Where were the calluses she should have? He felt strength in her hands each time she touched him, yet right at that moment, her fingers felt so fine and fragile, as if he could snap each bone in two with one quick bite of his teeth.
Reluctantly, he went back to his first idea and planted a kiss on each knuckle before returning her hand to her. Her fingers settled back on his scalp, pressing deep. Moving to his temples, down to the nape of his neck, following the worst of the knots.
“You’re making my head feel better. Thank you, Camellia. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” No one had done that for him before. He couldn’t remember feeling as if he had a home once he’d lost his parents.
“Keep looking, Jonas. You need to see me.”
It was there, when she was sitting on the floor with Lily, talking with her about Ryland and realizing there was such a huge break in trust. Lily had her reasons. She was hurt over something Ryland said to her. Lily wanted to be a mother, not a scientist. In her mind, she somehow made the excuse that her decision made sense and was okay when it wasn’t. Still, Jonas saw into Camellia. She wanted Ryland to forgive Lily. She felt everything that had come before in their relationship should count for more than one bad choice.
His Camellia was soft inside when she thought she was hard. She had tried to develop a hard shell around that softness to protect herself because the hurt of betrayal had been horrific. She didn’t want to go through that kind of emotional pain ever again. She didn’t see that she was protecting herself, she only saw that she didn’t want to look at Marigold. She didn’t want to go see her.