Page 95 of Ravaged Wolf
I’m not scared. Trevor has momentarily lost it, but he’s still Trevor, my mate. He came after me, he fought for me, and he’s not leaving me behind. This is not the past. This is a different story.
He doesn’t put me down until we’re yards away from the others, deep in the woods, in a small glade thick with Virginia creeper.
“Stay right there,” he says when he sets me gently back on my feet. I’ve never heard him so stern. My stomach clenches.
He stalks off a few feet then wheels around. “What were you doing?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Why would you leave camp alone? If they’d gotten you in that van, I might never have known what happened to you. They could havehurtyou.” His voice is shredded.
“I’m sorry—”
He doesn’t let me finish. “Were you leaving me? Without even saying a word?”
No, stern isn’t the right word. He’s furious and struggling to hold it in, to keep it out of his voice and the bond, but he can’t. His bitterness rasps in his throat and claws at my chest.
“I wasn’t leaving you. I needed some space. I was just taking a walk.”
“Down the road back to Moon Lake?”
I shake my head, but that is what I was doing. I could have headed in any other direction. There are dozens of trails through our territory.
He huffs and paces, raking his fingers through his hair. “I know my family wasn’t making things easy, but you have to understand—”
I cut him off. “Idounderstand.”
“You don’t,” he snaps, and then, lowering his voice, he repeats. “You don’t. You don’t know how hard my father worked to get to the fifth floor of the Tower. And I’m not talking about bragging rights or some bullshit, but the fact that he made enough to feed his family. There are seven of us, and you know when the scavengers go hunt in the woods, sometimes they don’t come back.” He blows out a breath. “Or maybe you don’t know that. I’m not blaming you. I’m just telling you that you don’t understand what it was like for them.”
He stalks back to stand in front of me, flexing his hands like he wants to touch me, hold me, erase what he’s said andundo what he’s knocked off balance. He’s pissed—gutted—but underneath he loves me, and also, he doesn’t get to be mad at me.
He is always gentle, understanding, and protective because I’m the innocent victim, and he’s the penitent, forever proving that he’s not a monster. I see the struggle on his face now. He wants to erase what he said, but it’s out now. It’s in the air between us.
“Tell me then. I’m not breakable.”
“I don’t think you are.” He paces again, not far, just back and forth like an agitated wolf.
I fold my arms. “Wecanfight, you know.”
“No.” He levels me with a glare. “We can’t.”
“Tell me,” I growl.
He simmers for a long moment, his fists balled, staring into the distance, and then he says, “When we mated, Mom was ecstatic. Dad was worried. He knew how it was going to go over in your house.” Trevor’s mouth twists in an approximation of his usual rueful smile. “When I recognized you that first time at the salad bar, I ran home to tell them. Mom dragged out all her yarn, talking about all the things she was going to do with you. She’d always wanted a female pup. The next day, when I came home from school, she wanted to hear all about you, and I couldn’t tell her anything. I couldn’t tell her that you wouldn’t even look at me. Dad understood. He explained it to her.”
My heart is a stone in my throat. I press my hands to my chest like pressure will help the ache.
“She didn’t blame you. None of us did. We knew who your dad was. We understood what his likely reaction would be. But still, I was her pup, and she loved me. It hurt her that my mate wouldn’t speak to me. And then I hurt you and destroyed all of our lives.”
“She does blame me,” I say softly. “Of course she does. Ido, too.” I’m not looking for pity, and I don’t want to get out of this—it’s just true, and we have to be able to tell each other the truth by now.
“No,” he spits, his fisted hands clenching.
“Yes,” I answer simply. All of a sudden, I know why I went for a walk toward Moon Lake. I was heading back to my bedroom—to where I didn’t have to deal with anyone else’s pain and my life was only a tragedy instead of this messy, complicated, unpredictable thing that I have to fight like hell to make my own.
And, if I’m being really honest, I was mad that I made stew and cake and tried so hard and the fucking horrors of the past ruined everything yet again.
And maybe I wanted Trevor to follow me this time. Maybe I wantedhimto fix something. And it’s unfair, Iknowit’s unfair, but still, I say, “You never came for me.”
The words hit him. They detonate on his face as they rip through the bond. His pain and shame rise up my throat and choke me. Oh, no. I take it back. I step forward and reach out. He freezes, stricken.
I broke it. I broke us.
