Page 72 of The Alpha's Broken Oath

“Hello, you've reached Winter's voicemail. I can't pick up your call right now, but in case it's an emergency, text me!”

She doesn't pick up.

That same daunting voicemail of hers has slowly become a broken record I can't shake from my system.

I’m halfway through the second glass, contemplating getting a third, when the buzzing of the doorbell pulls me from my catatonic state.

It must be Martin. The only person crazy enough to come to my apartment while I'm feeling this murderous would be him.

My glass in hand, my feet tiredly move to the door. The joke's on me, though, because when I open the door, the last person I expect to see is the five-foot-two woman with tears twinning her eyes, standing on the other side of the door.

At first, I thought that my missing her, coupled with the alcohol in my veins, was messing with my mind and that I might be imagining her.

Yet all thoughts about her being a hallucination are completely erased when she walks inside my home, jabbing an accusing finger in my chest.

“It wasn't you. Tell me it wasn't… that you would never— you would never do that. That you didn't do that.”

Pain and disbelief bleed into her voice, her bloodshot eyes and puffy nose telling me she's been crying for hours.

“Winter.”

Any attempts of trying to pacify her and explain the Crystal situation are shot down when a stream of tears rolls down her cheeks, cutting me deeper than those voicemails.

“That night, the day of the fire, tell me you didn't kill them. You weren't involved in the fire that took my parents, right? You would never hurt people who did nothing to you, right? Tell me you weren't involved.” Her voice is as brittle as thin ice, her words hitting harder than a freight train.

My muscles tense, the pain that’s cutting her right now is the same pain sluicing through me like a serrated blade against my flesh.

Questions about how I should answer her and where she got the idea that I would kill her family churn my mind, but at the end of the night, the truth hangs between us like a match about to light aflame and detonate everything in its wake.

This is what I wanted to avoid when her family died. That look…the one that sears on my skin as she stares at me like the biggest monster, she’s had the cruel fate of meeting? I never wanted that.

Holding the glass in my hand tighter, I can almost feel it wanting to break from the pressure. I take one step towards Winter. Words I never thought of ever saying to her eat away at my tongue like I just drank a gallon of acid.

“Winter, if you could just calm down, I'll explain everything, baby.”

She takes a step away from me like I've just scalded her skin and ruined everything she thought and knew about me.

“Oh, Goddess. Jake was right.”

Jake? Her brother?

“You killed them! You fucking monster, you took them away from me, didn’t you? You fucked me in the woods like I was a trophy you’d won while my parents were… in our house, getting devoured by the fire that you’d sent people to cause. And all for what? Because you couldn’t have me the way you wanted?”

The cat’s out of the bag, sure.

But her facts aren’t right, and I can’t stand by and bite down her accusations like they aren’t piercing my chest.

Placing the glass on the floor, careful not to spook her more than she already is, I take a step toward her.

“Don’t come any closer. Don’t come near me. Jake was right. He was right from the very beginning, and I fell for your trap over and over again, failing to realize that you are not the man I thought you were. My parents were good to you, Deacon. They welcomed you into our home. They treated you like you were their son. And Jake? He was your best friend!”

“I never wanted to hurt them, Winter. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Their deaths hit me just as hard that night. The guilt of knowing they died because of me has been weighing me down for years. I haven’t forgiven myself for that till now.

“You took them away from me!”

My fists clenched, the need to wipe her tears roaring stronger than everything inside me, I spill the truth I've kept for years to protect her.

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