Page 19 of Tides of Fate

She’d let him rage. Let him curse. Then, when he burned himself out, she’d asked again.Why?

It had been like a light switching on.

Jamie was angry because he was Luca’s alpha. Because he loved him beyond reason. Because hehadn’t been thereto protect him. And because Luca still carried scars from the things Jamie hadn’t stopped.

Jamie carried the guilt of so many things—the list would be a mile long, single-spaced, no margins.

And at the very top of that list? Phoenix Rena.

It hadn’t been hard to make the leap to Nix. Jamie had beensupposedto save him. Heshouldhave taken him with him when he left. He shouldn’t have believed his parents’ lies.

He should havelooked for him.

But he hadn’t. Not once.

The pendant had worked against them. Fine.But Jamie hadn’t even tried.He should have known that agony he was feeling wasn’t grief but Nix’s pain.

He can’t breathe.

The weight of his guilt presses down, crushing his ribs, squeezing his lungs. Black spots bloom in his vision because he’s going to fail again.

Nix is going to die.

The thought slams into him, cold and certain. The pain suddenly unbearable, clawing up his throat, choking him.

“Hey, Jamie. Hey. You’re all right. Here, let’s pull in there. Come on, babe, I cannot drive this thing. Or anything, for that matter.”

In a moment of clarity, Jamie spots the empty Church of The Goddess Divine parking lot on his right, and without a second thought, turns in—the front of the car bumping onto the green lawn. He throws the Genesis into park and stumbles out of the driver’s seat, lungs burning.

Jamie can hear his mate’s flustered voice calling behind him, “Jamie! Fuck—shit—dammit! Keys…Nix…doors. Wait up!”

Jamie barely registers it. He’s already moving across the lawn, the weight of his panic too big for the car, too big for his chest.

By the time Nix catches up, Jamie is standing by a small grove of willow trees that hang down over a decorative pond, and he has the urge to throw himself into the turquoise waters—just to feel something other than his fear.

Because that seems like all he’s really felt today: first at Ruthie’s, then when they’d arrived back home to find Grayson lying unconscious on the path from the art house, and then again when no one could find Nix and Leo.

The fear had been too much, and with Jamie’s wolf howling, he had tornthrough the house looking for his omega. Gideon’s sharp slap had brought him back to himself—the pain had gotten the wolf under control, but not the pernicious fear.

Jamie once again feels that fear pushing his wolf to the forefront.

“Jamie. What are you doing? Are you sick?”

Nix comes up behind him and throws his thin arms around his waist, rubbing his nose into the back of Jamie’s shirt. It keeps him here, but it’s a struggle.

Why is everything such a struggle?

“I’m fucking petrified. Not mad or sick or pissed off. I am terrified and I can’t get it to stop. Oh, Goddess, I want it to stop.”

He breaks away, dislodging Nix’s arms when he feels his mate squeeze harder in comfort—a comfort that Jamie doesn’t deserve.

Luca was right. He’d been a shit pack alpha, weak and motivated by fear, willing to do unspeakable things just to get his way. He didn’t deserve them, any of them—but most especially his Nix.

A magical, beautiful creature who was currently standing with his hands on his narrow hips, glaring.

Had he said that all out loud? Shit.

It makes him want to hide with the shame of it all, but he can’t leave his omega out here in the open, unprotected. He has so much to make up for—he can at least do that.

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