Page 148 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha
“Getoff!” She clawed at my arm. It hurt, but the scratches weren’t deep; they’d heal without a scar before I met with the Elders.
She tried to buck me off, but I held fast. If she really wanted to, she could throw me to the trees or claw through skin and muscle down to my arms, but she didn’t do either of those things. Instead, she yelled and scratched and jerked around, but because she didn’t want to really injure me; that was as far as her attempts went.
After a little while of this, the fight left her. She stumbled until her shoulder hit one of the trees, and her body shook. “Bryn, please…” she said through a warbling voice. “Please.”
I slowly let her go. When my feet hit the ground, I took a step back, tears filling my own eyes. “I—I’m sorry, Tavi. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that, but I couldn’t think of anything?—”
Tavi turned to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. She held me tightly and buried her face in my shoulder. She let out these long, heartbreaking sobs, her tears soaking into the shoulder of my shirt. I held her back just as fiercely, gripping handfuls of her shirt, letting her cry as long and as hard as she wanted.
When her body-quaking sobs finally subsided, she stepped back, wiping her face with her sleeves. The left side of my shirt was damp with tears, but that didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was making sure that she was okay.
“Screw whatever I thought before,” I said, rage quickly replacing my sorrow. “If those assholes are still fucking with you, I’ll send all of the men who helped Troy down in the cells with him. I don’t care what the pack has to say or who it is?—”
“No!” She shook her head, spraying tears. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Because you’ll hurt your image!” she cried. “You’re already on thin enough ice as it is, and…and anyway, it won’t make me feel better, Bryn. If you do that, whatever you hoped to accomplish at the meeting with the council will fail, and…and these Kings will hate you even more, and I-I won’t have that o-on my conscience!”
It’s worth all of that if I can make your hurt go away!But I bit back what I wanted to tell her. I wasn’t thinking; it wasn’t my place to make her feel any responsibility or guilt or whatever. I couldn’t put that on her shoulders.
“Tavi,” I began, my voice a bit raspy, “what did they do to you?”
She shook her head, still wiping tears. “I’m not—not ready to s-say,” she said through hiccups. “It wasawful, but I justcan’t.”
I nodded. “I won’t ask you anything more about it. I want to be here for you, I want to lend an ear when you need it, but I will never, ever make you talk about whatever it was.” I clenched my hands when they trembled. “I’m sorry I said all that stuff about imprisoning those men. I just?—”
“No, no, it’s okay.” She lowered her sleeves and looked at me. “It makes me a little happy to know that you would risk so much just for me.”
She gave a smile, and even though her eyes were still filled with tears, a tiny bit of the light had returned to her eyes. She wasn’t the old Tavi, and maybe whatever happened to her would prevent her from turning back into the endlessly cheerful woman I had always known her to be. But I still loved her dearly, and any sign of improvement, any sign that she was clawing her way back to some kind of “normal” or at least “stable” was more than enough for me.
“Is that weird to say?” she asked when I didn’t respond.
“N-no, not at all!” I rushed to assure her. “It’s just nice to see you smile.”
She let out a brief laugh. “Thanks, Bryn.”
“Anytime, Tavi.” I reached for her hand, and she let me take it. I squeezed it gently. “I hope this doesn’t come off as insensitive, but I’m even more sure now that I want you as my beta.”
She frowned. “What? Why?”
“Because even when you were dealing with the worst of your emotions and you were trying to get me to let you go, you didn’t hurt me. And even a minute ago, when you were crying and I was saying all that dumb stuff, you didn’t want me to imprison Troy’s closest people. You were thinking of what was best for me even when you were hurting.” I squeezed her hand again. “Can’t you see? You are the best choice for my beta, Tavi. I trust you more than I trust myself.”
She bit her lip. With her cheeks still red from crying and her face totally free of makeup, the vulnerability in her face as she looked at me made me want to start crying all over again.
“Even now?” she asked.
“Yes. Even now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Tavi, I ampositive.” I beamed at her, willing her to see just how deeply I meant that. I knew she wanted the position as much as I knew that Night loved me, but self-doubt was holding her back from saying yes.
She deliberated for a few moments more, and then she nodded. “It’s only for a few weeks, right?”
“Right!”
“Okay, then…okay. I can do it. But at the first sign that I’m shirking my duties, I want you to replace me or get Frankie or Violet or?—”
