Page 48 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

I peer into his eyes, and I see that he means to kill every last one of them.

“Shay…”

Before I can speak, he lowers his head and kisses me lightly on the lips. “This is what you meant when you said you killed your pack? You blame yourself for what these men did?”

Only his hands stop me from turning my face away. “It was my fault.”

A crease breaks his smooth brow. “How?”

But I don’t say.

He’s made his mind up that I’m not to blame, and I know I am. Nothing he can say will ever change that.

His frown deepens. “Lexa, it wasn’t your fault.”

“You treat me like I’m perfect. Like I do nothing wrong, but that’s not true.”

Despite my words, one corner of his lips turns up in a half-smile. “You say that like it’s a flaw. Like I’m the one doing something wrong.”

“You are.”

“I’m not. You want to know how I can be so sure?”

“How?”

He leans closer. “Because I’m alpha, and alphas are always right.”

“No, they’re not.”

“They are.”

“They’re…” It hits me what he’s doing. “You’re trying to distract me.”

His expression is far too innocent. All wide-eyed charm. “Am I?”

I tell myself to stay firm, to not give in, but my lips twitch. “Yes. You are.”

He darts a glance at the smile that I’m trying, and mostly failing to hide. “And I can tell that it’s working.”

“No, it’s not.” The urge to smile grows. Now I’m biting my lip to hide my need.

“It isn’t?” he murmurs, as he strokes one hand down the side of my face and across my shoulder. “Then maybe it’s time I brought out the big guns.”

“What are the—” A laugh blows out of me when his fingers find the part of my side that I’m most ticklish.

In seconds, he reduces me to tears as I fight off his attack, all the while laughing so hard that I must be scaring away all the birds in a fifty-mile radius.

When I’ve laughed so much that my insides hurt, Shay finally stops and I brush the tears from my cheeks.

He gazes down at me with a smile tugging his lips, his eyes sober. “To those men, you’re valuable because of what you can give them.” His fingers brush a tear I missed from my cheek. “But to me, you are my heart. You give me a peace I’ve never known, even before my father dragged me out of the kitchen and told me I would spend the rest of my life alone and burdened with more responsibility than I ever wanted. Your value is you.Allof you. Never forget that.”

Everything in me softens. I feel it happen.

“I think I must be the luckiest girl in the world,” I murmur. “To have you.”

“Does this mean there won’t be any more escape attempts?”

I shake my head. “No. My place is with you.”

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