by Olivia Arran
“Then why?”
When he didn’t answer, I smacked him in the chest. “Damn you, tell me! How am I to believe you and trust you if you don’t tell me why you lied?”
“Lied? You’re one to talk about lying, aren’t you?” This time there was no misunderstanding the sarcasm that dripped from his voice.
He knew about Maisie.
Chapter Seventeen
Angel
As she stared at me, the anger faded from her eyes. She let out a ragged breath. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—”
“Tell me what exactly?”
Her next words were barely audible, a soft breath carried on the wind. “Maisie.”
This was it. She was actually going to admit what she’d done. Hell, I hadn’t planned on pushing for answers quite so soon, not with everything going on, but I was pissed. She’d basically accused me of plotting to steal her pack, when in truth I was doing everything I could to save it.
A pack was the last thing I fucking wanted.
And now? There was no going back. And I didn’t want to. “And?” I needed to hear the confirmation from her lips.
“She’s yours.”
Elation crashed through me. To hear her say it out loud…
“Why?” I croaked the word out, begging her to explain, to make me understand how she could have done this to me. To us.
“I didn’t plan it,” she started, her voice an earnest plea. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant for a while. And I’d already left, told you the lie, and burned my bridges. Do you really think that you’d have believed me if I had come back and found you?”
I leaned closer, not giving her chance to escape. “I’d have listened.”
“I’d already told you I had a mate and a child. I’d made my decision.”
I shook my head, a low curse coloring the air. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why did you run away? If you’d have stayed then none of this would’ve happened.”
She threw her hands up in the air, her fiery hair flying as she shook her head in denial. “Don’t you think I know that? You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me. You haven’t given me the chance to try and understand, and I want to.” Wanted to more than anything in the world.
She blinked at me, her vivid green eyes glossy. “You should hate me. Why are you being so reasonable?”
Would she accept I didn’t have a fucking clue, for an answer? I considered her question, really thought about it. All I knew was I wanted to forgive her, because if I couldn’t then we didn’t have a future together. And I wanted a future with her. “Because I’m having a hard time believing that you really wanted this to happen. Deep down I think you know you made a mistake, and I want to know why. I want you to make me understand.”
A picture of dejection, she slid down the tree until she was sitting on the ground, her arms curling around her legs as she dragged them into her chest.
Taking a seat next to her, I nudged her with my shoulder. “Just tell me, Chloe.”
“My mom was the alpha of Moonridge, did you know that? It wasn’t my dad. My mom led the pack.” She laughed, a hollow sound that hurt my ears. “But that was before I was born. Growing up, people would tell me stories about how tough and fair my mom was as a leader. How powerful and decisive she was. That she was kind and generous and quick to defend those weaker than her.” Her head fell forward, a curtain of hair hiding her face from view.
“It sounds like she was a wonderful woman.” I reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, stroking a finger down her cheek.
She unconsciously leaned into my hand, her lashes spiky with tears. “You’d think. But that wasn’t the woman I knew.” She stared at her hands as if seeing them for the first time, turning them over, then back again. “I have her hands, you know? I don’t look anything like her, but I have her hands.”
Her loss hit me square in the chest, a wrenching feeling akin to being shot. I forced the next question out, hating to ask but needing to know. Somehow this was all connected and if I was going to fix this… “What happened?”
“I don’t know. By the time I was old enough to understand what was happening around me my dad was the alpha and my mother… well, she kept to herself. I was a daddy’s girl. I followed him around everywhere, putting him up on a pedestal and wishing I could be like him.” Red stained her cheeks, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself. “I was ashamed of my mom. I thought she was weak and I didn’t want to be like her. I hated the fact that all she did was stay at home and tend the house and look after me. She didn’t talk much, didn’t go anywhere or laugh or smile or do anything! She wasn’t sad—she was vacant. Not really there. And she didn’t have any ambition. It made me so angry that she didn’t want to make anything more of herself. And then when I found out what she’d been like before, I hated her even more.” Her hands curled into fists, the knuckles turning white as she squeezed. “The woman they talked about, where was she? That was the woman I wanted to know. I wanted to talk to her, not the sad shell of a woman who passed every day looking like she wished it were her last.”
She thumped a fist against her leg as a raw, feral sound broke from her.
I grabbed her hand and gently uncurled her fingers, sliding mine through hers. I wanted to pull her to me, to tell her everything would be okay, but I needed to hear this. And she needed to tell me, whether she realized it or not.
I gave her hand a quick squeeze, silently willing her to continue.
Her hand tightened around mine and she closed her eyes, as if to block out everything but the memories. “She died. I hated her and she died on me. I can never say I’m sorry or make it right. I have to live with it. I know I was just a kid and I didn’t know any better, but she knew how I felt. She had to have! I didn’t even try to hide it. It was plain to see on my face.” She sounded fragile, like she could shatter at any moment. “And then I found her journals and in them she spoke of how she’d felt herself slipping away, how she couldn’t compete with my dad. That it felt like he was taking over and smothering her. That it was just easier to give up than to fight it.”
I fought back a frown as I considered her words. “What did she mean?”
Her next words were blurted out in a torrent of defense. “My dad is a good man. He didn’t mean to do it, I know that. But somehow he smothered her by trying to protect her and he ended up controlling her, and in doing so she must have lost the ability to think for herself, to want to do things for herself. She lost the fight—it died inside her.”
From what I knew of David I was struggling to imagine it, but I had heard of rare matings that ended with the couple hating each other. “What did he say when you asked him about it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never asked him. I just know that the love between them died. At the end of my mom’s journals she wrote about resenting my dad. She didn’t rejoice in the mating bond, she likened it to chains that bound and controlled her. Her final entry begged me to not follow in her footsteps, to be true to myself and to fight to become the woman that she knew I could be. To have everything that she had lost.”
Her words struck a chill through me. “Her final entry?”
“She killed herself. Nobody else knows what she did, just me and dad, but she chose to stop living. Don’t you see? She’d chosen to die rather than live as the woman she’d become.”
I could feel myself getting angry, rage at a woman long gone from this world boiling inside of me. And I thought my childhood had been bad. At least I hadn’t known my father before he’d fucked off and left me. I chose my next words carefully. “And you thought the same would happen to us? Is this the reason you left and why you lied to me?”
“But don’t you see? It would have been like history repeating itself! At first I left because I was scared. You were everything I’d ever been warned about. An alpha, all strong and cocky and confident. You overwhelmed me. So I lied to you so you’d hate me. And th
en I found out I was pregnant with Maisie, and I knew I couldn’t change my mind, no matter how much I was regretting it.”
“You regretted it?”
She waved away my question, a determined look lighting her eyes. “My mom left me because she couldn’t bear it. Her life was too terrible to stick around, even for her own child. I wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to Maisie.”
I swallowed back the low growl that threatened to escape, fighting for calm. “So let’s see if I’ve got this right. You chose not to be with me, and to hide the fact that I had a daughter, because you were scared that one day you’d kill yourself.” I held up a hand, forestalling any outburst. “You’re still scared that I will smother you and stifle you and bind you into a mating that you’ll eventually not want. Have I got that right?”
“Um—”
My voice was low and controlled, all emotion locked down tight. “So you judged me and decided our fate without ever giving us the chance. Without ever getting to know me. You destroyed my life because you were scared of something that might not even happen?”
“But it might!”
“But you don’t know that!” It came out as a roar, but I had to get through to her. I was starting to think I’d never break through the wall she had built based purely on her mom’s tragedy. “I’m sorry that you lost your mom, I’m sorry that she was sick, and that she obviously had a hard life, but you’re not her. You’d never abandon Maisie, you’d never stop fighting back, and you’d never give up.”
“You—you think she was sick?”
“Do you really think I would smother you? That I could tell you what to do and you’d just do it? That I could break your spirit? I can’t bring myself to believe that your father deliberately did any of this, but what do I know? I wasn’t there. But neither were you. Chloe, you can’t decide our fate based on something we have no hope of understanding.”
A sob tore from her mouth, her chest hitching as she sucked in a deep breath. “I made a promise—”
“You promised to be miserable? You promised to give up the chance of finding love?”
“Love?”
I seized on the longing in her voice, bringing her hand up and holding against my chest, directly above my rapidly thudding heart. “Love. You gave it all up, you didn’t even question why, didn’t even fight for it.” I took a deep breath, hoping to God that what I was about to say was the right thing. That I didn’t push her further away. “Isn’t that what your mom did in the end?”
“No! That’s not... she didn’t—”
“You didn’t give me a chance. You used me and ran away. Lied to me and gave up on us. You took the easy road and gave up the fight without even trying.” I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “Do you have any idea what my life has been like? Knowing who you were, knowing you were out there and thinking I couldn’t have you?”
I’d spent the last five years thinking it was me, telling myself that I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, I’d drawn the short straw when it came to parents, so why the hell would fate be kind enough to give me my mate? I finally figured that I was being punished, that I must have done something terrible in the past. Otherwise, why would this life suck so much?
Her mouth opened, then closed again, a furrow creasing her brow. “I thought it had to be like this.”
I wanted to forgive her. But I hadn’t been expecting the pure fury that consumed me as the ghosts from my past merged with those of my present. I was sick of people taking away my right to choose—first my father when he didn’t stick around, then my mother as she dragged me from pillar to post, and now Chloe. “And there you go. You are the one making all the decisions. Decisions that affect both of us,” I growled, not letting her go. She needed to hear this, and I needed to say it. “No more. I demand a vote.”
She yanked away from me, spitting fire.
“Oh, and you won’t keep me from seeing my daughter,” I added.
She sprang to her feet, her spine stiffening. “Don’t threaten me.”
“You haven’t even begun to understand what I’m going to do,” I growled, rising up off the ground to face her. “If you think I’m going to let you run away again from what we could have, you’re kidding yourself.” Before the words even had the chance to sink in, I smashed my lips against hers.
A ragged sob tore from her throat, muffled by my lips, my mouth greedy and unyielding as I demanded she hear me. I ground my body against hers so she couldn’t ignore me, and had no chance of blocking me out as my soul screamed and my heart thundered out of control. I poured everything into the kiss. Gripping her jaw, I tore my lips away. “It’s time you realized that there are two of us in this relationship, and you don’t get to call all of the shots. Not anymore.”
Then I turned and stalked away.
Chapter Eighteen
Chloe
I couldn’t breathe or think as the walls around my heart crumbled, smashed to smithereens by the force that was Angel. I had told him everything, expecting—no, deserving—to see hate in his eyes. But there hadn’t been any. Sorrow? Yes. Pain, confusion, and anger? Definitely. But there had also been understanding.
I didn’t deserve it.
Before I knew it, I was running after him. The past mocked me as I grabbed his arm and pulled him around. I was forever chasing after him even though I meant to run away.
His shoulders were tense, his jaw gritted. He looked like a man on the edge.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I made my decision and I’m going to stand by it.” I blurted out the words, not having a clue where they came from. Was I scared? Hell, yes. But I didn’t know what of anymore. “You can’t expect me to change my mind in the space of minutes!” I blurted out, suddenly unsure.
He folded his arms over his chest as he stared me down. “It’s not up for negotiation.”
Who the hell does he think he is? I resisted the urge to stomp my foot in a childish rant. He couldn’t just come here and turn my life upside down. He didn’t have the right. Didn’t he know that I’ve been coping fine without him, that I’d worked hard to come to terms with being alone. I knew what I had to do with my life; I had it all planned out. Which reminded me… “You haven’t told me why you’re here.” I’d told him the truth, bared my soul, so the least he could do was return the favor.
Apparently, from the grimace tugging at his mouth he had come to the same conclusion. “Your father asked me to come.”
I hadn’t expected that for an answer! How did my dad know Angel? “Asked you? Why you?”
“I work for a security and protection agency. Freelance Undercover Resolutions, or F.U.R for short. We’re a small team of shifters. This was an assignment.”
“So, you don’t have a pack?”
He grinned for the first time in what seemed like ages, knocking the air straight out of me. “Kind of—my team.” His smile dimmed, shadows crowding his eyes. “After…you, I wasn’t fit to be in any sort of company. I was feral, a broken man. So I decided to put my training to good use.”
“Training?” It hit me for the first time that I knew absolutely nothing about this man. I’d met him years ago and we’d come together in a whirlwind of passion for one night. Not even one night. It had barely been an hour. I knew his name and that was it. “Can you…” Dammit, I didn’t know how to ask.
He cocked his head, his face softening. “Can I what? You can ask me anything, Chloe. You must know that by now.”
“Tell me about you. I want to know you.” My words tumbled out in a rush.
This time when his lips curled in a lazy smile of pure pleasure it just made me feel like an ass. A using, selfish ass. What kind of person was I to not know anything about the father of my child?
He indicated a flat patch of grass, and we both sat down, him gracefully while I collapsed in a funk of self-hate.
“There’s not much to tell,” he started, digging his fingers into the dirt and digging out long strands of grass. “I
used to be special forces, but that was long time ago. I’m originally from California, born and bred. Grew up by the ocean and I miss the salt in my fur and the long, lazy sunny days.” His eyes had taken on a faraway look, one filled with longing.
“What was your pack like? Your family?”
He chuckled, but it was a strained sound.
I’d hit a nerve. I thought about backtracking, but I really wanted to know. It couldn’t be any worse than my childhood. Could it?
The silence stretched between us.
Okay, moving on—
“We moved from pack to pack, never staying still, never putting down roots.”
I frowned, trying to envision Angel as a boy, complete with backpack as he waved goodbye to yet another home. He’d have been a male version of Maisie, with blond curls and cherub lips. The moving constantly was unusual, for sure, but not unheard of.
“I’d lived in six packs by the time I was five.”
“Six?” It came out on a gasp. That was more than a little unusual. “Why?”
He looked up from his hands, meeting my eyes before he looked away. “She was searching. Always searching.”
“For—”
He cut in, his voice rough. “So, you see. I don’t hold much stock in pack life. It’s not for me.”
“Wait! You can’t leave it like that! Who was she searching for?”
This time there was no escaping his gaze. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck, the funny feeling I wasn’t going to like his answer ringing in my head.
“My father. He got my mom pregnant and left. I never met him.”
Dizziness threatened to swallow me as I realized the implications. It made everything I had done one hundred times worse. “Angel, I didn’t mean—”
“You’d better not be about to say sorry…” he growled, but he was smiling again.
I returned his grin with one of my own. I didn’t deserve his forgiveness, but he was giving it to me anyway. A warmth swiftly spread through me, followed by the crushing realization that he wasn’t the man I’d thought him to be. He might be strong and aggressive and way too powerful for his own good, but he was also kind and honorable.
