Page 78 of Escalating Alpha

I was working on it.

“I cannot have sex with you while you look at me like a fuck buddy,” he told me after he helped me to my feet. “My therapist said it had to stop if we were to fix this, and I spun out because I’m unable to deny you and I want everything you would give me. He said if I don’t start telling you things, I won’t even have that piece of you.”

I slid my hand in his. “I’d like that. I don’t want that to be what we are either.” I swallowed down a lot of snarky shit that I wanted to say, but Dain was breaking and I knew how bad that could be. I remembered how people had pushed a lot to the side to save me when I was out of control like this.

Dain included.

People would probably judge me for giving him another chance or trying to work on it when he’d messed up so badly, but they weren’t me. I had to try. The love we’d had and the way he’d made me feel… I had to try.

But it was fair to say this was the last time. For this problem. This hurdle. I couldn’t keep going up the mountain of hoping he would hear me and be my partner only to be pushed off at the top again.

“I hear you,” he whispered. “I understand better.” He winced when I shot him a look. “I have not been this drunk in a very long time. I can’t really control my power.”

Or apparently, keep all the booze down when he hadn’t eaten all day. I was really glad one of the ancients realized what was going on and grabbed Dain away from me after we stepped outside. I winced at how badly he vomited. It was… Yeah, the painful kind.

And long-lasting.

Gross.

But also kinda damn funny. Dain was so poised and perfect always that—it was weird to see him like this. It took a few minutes, but then we were in the SUV and Dain surprised me by reaching for my hand.

“One of my first memories was my father telling me to harden myself because otherwise our family would die,” he said quietly. “That it was the role of the firstborn son to be hard to take over and keep the whole family safe or any deaths were their fault—my fault.”

“What brought it up?” I asked.

“I’d hugged my mother. Something happened—I can’t remember what, but I’d gone to my mother for comfort. She hugged me. My father was angry and I said he could hug her too since they loved each other. He dragged me off and told me that there was no love between them and—disgusting things. He talked of her like cattle.”

“And you a duty, not something he wanted,” I said sadly.

He flinched but then slowly looked at me. “I never thought about it that way. I always focused on how he treated my mother—stopped her from loving me. How he controlled her—I’ve become him.”

“You are not that asshole,” Sander said firmly. “You overcorrected, Dain. We all do it, man. Sera’s done it. Fuck, it’s just being people. You just need to accept you’re not perfect and clean out your damn ears. We’re not judging you when we point shit out. We’re just—haven’t we all been through enough? Take the help and do better. I do. I try to.”

What he said wasn’t wrong, but these twits needed to stop jumping in always. Loveable twits, but whatever. I squeezed Dain’s hand. “You’re not your father. We all have traits of our parents. From what you just told me, yours is thinking your path is the right one or the only way to be. You gotta adjust course sometimes.”

Dain ended up passing out once we got him in my apartment after eating something to soak up the booze. He woke me up hours later since I’d fallen asleep there looking over some stuff for the pack.

“You okay?” I asked, still half asleep.

“You didn’t leave,” he rasped.

“What?” I sat up straighter and rubbed my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“You stayed.”

“Yeah, it’s my apartment,” I hedged, not sure what was going on and definitely needing more sleep.

He chuckled and sat next to me, cupping my cheek. “You stayed with me. You’re not leaving me after what you saw.”

I saw in his eyes and felt through the bond how scared he was. How shocked and… He was all over the map.

Because no one had ever seen inside of Dain like that, and he had fully believed that no one could still love him if they had.

“Yeah, I stayed. I’m not going anywhere as long as you really try to fix this and we…” I let out a slow breath. “I stayed.”

What else was there really to say? I was an idiot for giving him another chance?

Probably.

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