Page 56 of Brutal Alpha Beast
“Danielle. We. Need. To. Talk.”
“I told you—I’m not ready.”
“Then you’re being selfish,” I growl. “The valley is dying. Our people—your people—are at risk. And I can’t focus on protecting them when you’re in my head, fucking with my memories and avoiding the truth.”
She glares at me, breathing hard. “Don’t conflate the two. I am protecting the valley. I’m doing everything I can. And Ihaven’t hurt you. I would never hurt you. You need to know that, even if you don’t understand the rest.”
“You haven’t hurt me?” I echo, my voice low and sharp. “You tore my mind apart. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”
She looks like I’ve slapped her.
For a second, all her fire drains away. Her shoulders slump. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
Then, her eyes are alight, her eyebrows arched. We’re back on the battlefield, shooting arrows. “You’re being impatient!”
She dodges past me and storms upstairs.
I scoff. Do I follow her? She’s making this difficult, but I have no choice.
I take the stairs two at a time.
She’s already in the guest room, pacing like a caged animal. Her hands rake through her hair, her chest rising and falling with shallow, rapid breaths.
“Danielle, you don’t get to do this,” I say as I step inside. “You don’t get to run away and expect me to just wait. You can’t storm out of every conversation like it’s a spell you can reverse later.”
She spins on me. “I told you, I’m not ready!”
“And I told you, I don’t care.”
“Wow,” she muses. “How compassionate.”
“Me?” I scoff. “I’m not the one who’s entered into a fake alliance just to spy on my ally and mess with their mind! Tell me, did the coven ever think about doing this properly, or was this Penelope’s plan all along?”
“What?”
Her breath catches.
“Oh, come on. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s obvious. I should have never trusted Penelope or any of youwitches.”
Danielle opens her mouth in shock. Her eyes are hurt, but she doesn’t show any indication of remorse.
“You can say whatever you want about me, but leave my coven out of this. This has nothing to do with them. This was my choice.”
I pause. She’s thrown me off guard with the way she looks me dead in the eyes, and the stillness in her voice.
It feels like the most truthful thing she’s said yet.
“That still doesn’t make sense,” I mutter, running a hand over my face in frustration.
“Think about it,” she says. “What would we be spying on you for? You don’t think that if we did anything, then that would completely destroy our alliance with Sawyer’s pack? Lacey and Sawyer are married! Besides, we have a common enemy; taking your pack down would serve zero purpose.”
A tense air filters between us.
Admittedly, everything she just said adds up.
When I entertained the theory that she might be a spy, I never imagined exactly what she would be spying for. To plot some general revenge on the shifters? That makes no sense, given the coven’s history with Sawyer.
And she’s right, if anything happens to our pack because of them, Sawyer would have our back first.
