Page 71 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

“I told him things I shouldn’t have,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears. “And because I did, I killed my pack.”

Shay doesn’t speak for several seconds, but as I watch, anger—no, rage grows until his body shakes with it.

“Lexa,” he growls.

I lower my gaze to his chest, because now that he knows what I’ve done, he won’t want me anymore. He won’t look at me and see the woman he loves. He’ll see someone who killed their pack, and who might one day do the same to his.

“Look at me,” he orders.

Why did I tell him? Why did I speak at all?

It takes more strength than I believed I possessed, but I do.

The rage hasn’t died. It’s only grown.

“You trusted someone who betrayed you. I’m not angry atyou.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I need to go back in time and make him suffer.”

I shake my head. “No. If I hadn’t—”

His eyes snap open. “If you hadn’t told him, he would have found some other reason—some other way to slip into your pack and destroy it.”

“No,” I whisper. “He wouldn’t need to—”

“You never asked me what I was doing near your pack. Do you want to know what brought me there?”

He’s right. “Yes.”

“We went for a run,” he murmurs, his eyes never leaving mine, “and when we reached the edge of pack land, I just kept going.”

I blink. “But your pack is hours from mine. You’re at the top of the mountain, and we were—”

“Near the bottom. But something called to me, and I couldn’t.” He shakes his head. “No, that isn’t right. I didn’twantto stop. It was you. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was you. And do you know something I noticed about your pack?”

Now it’s my turn to shake my head.

“You said Aron heard you singing, and that drew him to you.”

“Yes.”

“Your pack was as remote as mine. Wasn’t it?”

My thoughts return to my pack, something I’ve tried to avoid thinking about for months. It hurts too much. “I rarely saw anyone,” I say in a voice just shy of a whisper. “I think there were cabins that humans stayed in over the summer, but I hardly ever even heard them. It was always just us.”

Shay doesn’t look surprised by my answer. “So what were Aron and—I’m assuming here—his men doing there?”

I don’t have an answer for him.

“Because,” Shay continues, “the only trouble we’ve ever gotten when another pack has wandered close has never been by accident. It’s because they wanted something from us and knew it before they stepped one foot onto pack land.”

His words are so similar to my father’s that I have to close my eyes to stop more tears from forming.

“Lexa?”

“Dad said they must want something,” I whisper.

“He knew they were there?”

I nod. “He thought they might be trouble, because some enforcer said they’d spotted men in our forests, but they always stayed away.” Opening my eyes again, I meet his gaze head-on. “We were a friendly pack. If anyone needed help, we would have given it to them.”

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