Page 20 of Alpha's Bullied Mate
“Why are we going back to Oak Hill?” Dakota asked, deflecting. “How do you even have a place here?”
“Because that’s my home,” I snapped. “Got a problem with it?”
It took me a minute of her silence, one precious minute that had me curious enough due to my earlier wonders aboutDakota’s life, to pull up my usual chair, straddle it backward, and face her, to realize that shedidhave a problem with it.
“Truth or dare,” I offered quietly.
“Dare,” she mumbled, knowing she’d given something away she hadn’t intended to. Something that hit hard about herself. What had happened to her after high school?
“I dare you to touch me,” I said.
Dakota flinched. “Don’t youeven—”
“Not like that,” I answered, making my voice dull. “I’m not into making a woman touch me sexually, thanks. I can get laid enough without forcing anyone.”
Dakota’s disgust deepened. I merely grinned at her. I raised my hand, palm out. “Take my hand.”
“Why?”
“Because I dared you to. Would you like to pick the truth instead?”
“You’re a piece of—”
“I never said I was good,” I told her, then nodded at my hand. “Go on.”
Gingerly, she slid her fingers over my palm with her free hand, and slid them up to press against mine. Finger to finger, palm to palm, I held our hands up. There was something both igniting about Dakota that raged a storm in me and also had that whipping storm quieten to a gentle purr. I tapped my fingertips against her, one by one, and watched the confusion on her face.
“My hands built trust,” I told her. “It had to be earned. To be fought for, claimed, and protected. I will not share my whole story with you, not if truths are used as bargaining chips. Share with me, I’ll share with you. But know this, Dakota: I’m notgood, I’m not always honest, but I know what loyalty looks like. I know when men are not loyal. And I wouldfightto honor myself in that way. Think of me what you like but Fenrys isn’t much of a saint, either.”
“Tell me why,” she pleaded. “What has he done so wrong?”
All I could make myself reveal in that moment came out in a tight voice. “He was quiet when he could have been louder. He had influence and sway and misused it to ruin lives. Him and his father.”
“Ruin lives? He killed—”
“Not every life is ruined by death,” I said. “Sometimes being kept alive to remember the betrayals hurt more than the possibility of permanent mercy.” It was horrifically morbid, I knew, but some days, hearing my father’s angry yells through the wall, the devastation of our life being uprooted, the destruction of him being ousted from the pack he’d trusted his whole life… it had kept me awake. I’d wished for sleep every night, hating everything when it didn’t come.
Fenrys’s and his father’s betrayal had turned me into something hardened by anger, someone with a skewed outlook on the world. Someone who didn’t trust easily anymore, afraid to be abandoned or have the rug pulled from underneath what I thought was sure footing. I was never meant to be an alpha. Likely, I would have been on a similar rank to Conall had I stayed in Fenrys’s pack.
But now I was alpha, and that power tasted divine. It tasted likeaction. While my father had not chosen to do anything about the betrayal that forced us to Oak Hill, I still intended to make Fenrys pay. I couldn’t get back at his father, but I could make Fenrys suffer like I had.
Dakota only said. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” I said.
“Will you ever apologize for how you treated me in high school?”
And sat there, wearing the sweatpants and pullover I’d given her, her eyes dark from tiredness and her hair lanky from a lack of washing; I thought maybe I would. Not yet. But I would. So I was honest, and I nodded.
“What do I have to give to earn that?” she asked bitterly.
“Nothing,” I said. “That comes with time.”
“Time,” she scoffed. “If anybody needed time, it was me.”
“And how long has it been?”
Her glare settled on me, cutting deeply, delicious. “Not long enough.”
