Page 83 of Ruined Beta

“It’ll take a while for the guilt to fade, but it will.”

“Some wounds just take longer to heal,” I murmur.

He nods. “Now, you should lie down and rest, like your doctor told you to do.”

I pick up the shirt he brought me and slip it on over my underwear.

He’s a little taller than me, but he’s slim rather than bulky so the shirt isn’t oversized enough to cover much of my thighs. It’ll probably only cover half of my ass.

“Well, I guess I should follow doctor’s orders,” I tell him, feeling a little sad about going into Toshi’s room alone. I’ll probably cry more before I eventually fall asleep. I’m going to look like a mess in the morning.

He closes the first aid kit and puts it on the big wooden stand that the TV’s sitting on.

“I’d prefer it if you stayed in my room with me,” he murmurs, his gaze not quite meeting mine.

Did he just read my mind?

Or is this what it’s like to be with someone you’re destined to be mated to?

I honestly don’t think I even care.

He stands up and offers me his hand.

I take it, and I look up at him.

“Are you feeling anything right now?” I ask, curious.

“Yes,” he says, without a hint of hesitation.

He doesn’t elaborate on what that something is.

He just picks me up and carries me into his bedroom.

Chapter Forty-Five

E.A.

The need to keep her close is so strong that I can’t help wondering if this is why I couldn’t sleep before. I knew she was downstairs, safe with my pack brothers, but maybe that wasn’t enough.

When she showed me her body, and I saw the scars from her attack, it was jarring.

A spark of anger hit me like a freight train, fast and hard. Impossible to ignore.

Frank Palmer is dead.

The man who hurt her is rotting in the ground.

I can’t seek him out to make him pay for what he did.

I can only hope his eternal soul is being tortured thoroughly in hell where that monster belongs.

The anger faded slowly into something else. A much less tangible feeling filled me up as I cleaned and bandaged Leanne’s wound. Hard to grasp, and even harder to name.

By the time I’ve decided I don’t want to let her out of my sight, I know there’s a strong protective element to what I’m feeling. It’s similar to how I felt when I first started to bond with Echo.

The first flushes of love, or something more primal.

Whatever this is, I don’t want to fight the feeling.