Page 43 of Laurels and Liquor

I blink and go quiet for a long, tense moment. Understanding comes in waves, each more unsettling than the last.

“What… what do you remember of… the incident?” I ask hesitantly.

Mateo sighs harshly before running his hands through his hair and sitting up with his elbows resting on his knees. He’s looking at the floor, eyes wide and distant. I let him think, swallowing hard. Those four days in our suite at The Valencia still haunt my worst nightmares, no matter how hard I’ve tried to push them down. Watching my pack mates, if not in truth but in my heart, hurt each other over an omega and not be able to do anything to stop them or calm them down, all the while Seth had me trapped in that haze of need. Even now, my blood runs a little colder at the memory of their faces, so twisted with alpha rage, and unrecognizable as the men I’d grown to trust more than my own blood relatives.

“I remember getting out of the elevator, and everything smelling like sticky sweet cherries. And there are flashes. Throwing a vase or something across the room. Lucas cleaning my knuckles in the bathroom. But for the most part… I only remember feeling like I was drowning in rage and need, and I was only able to get my head above water to breathe for a minute or two at a time. The next solid memory I have is waking up on the living room floor, buck naked, with a headache and a busted lip.”

Mateo’s voice is flat, detached, and his soft brown eyes are shadowed with ghosts I know all too well.

“I remember it. Every moment. Every time he’d look at me and I wasn’t able to resist him, even when I really wanted to. I couldn’t get us out of there, couldn’t do anything—"

“Don’t do that to yourself, Lex. You are just as much of a victim in this as the rest of us,” Mateo interrupts.

I shake my head, fighting the lump in my throat. He doesn’t understand, will never understand. He doesn’t have to remember Lucas begging Seth to stop, to let us breathe and take a break. He doesn’t have to live with the memory of what Seth did to us, all of us. Seth never touched my beta, but Lucas was violated just as much as any of us. And I should have been able to do something to stop it. I couldn’t protect them, and now I’m here, fighting back tears as Mateo stares at me, waiting for a response.

“It’s not your job to protect us all the time,” Mateo says, voice maddeningly gentle.

“Yes, it is. You chose me as your Prime Alpha, and it’s my job to take care of this pack,” I snap, looking out the window again.

“But if you’re busy protecting us, then who’s protecting you? Who’s making sure you don’t run yourself into the ground, trying to do everything?”

“I don’t need protecting,” I murmur, not looking at him.

“Bullshit! You’re a fucking human being, Alexandra, and you deserve to be protected and loved as much as anyone else,” Mateo shouts.

His sudden anger makes me jump, but I don’t look at him. I’m hanging on by a thread, though I blame the drugs for that. I know my place, know my role in this pack. I stand in front of my chosen family, and I’ll do that no matter what it costs me personally. They deserve the best I can give them.

“I can handle myself. I always have,” I finish, setting my shoulders.

“I thought we were past this, but here the fuck we are again,” Mateo drawls sardonically.

“Past what?” I ask with a tired sigh.

“You shutting us out. No more secrets, no more hiding, no more lone wolf bullshit,” Mateo explains pointedly.

My head snaps back to look at him, but immediately I wish I hadn’t. His soft brown eyes aren’t angry, but disappointed, and that cuts me to my core. I want to look away again as the burning starts in the backs of my eyes, but the challenge in the set of his brow stops me. I swallow and take a deep breath. It’s all too easy to push down my emotions, tucking them away where they can’t escape and be used against me.

“I’m not shutting you out—”

“Like hell, you’re not. I say one thing that hits a little too close to home, and you’re suddenly the Ice Queen again,” Mateo volleys, cutting across me.

I roll my eyes, anger surging up to replace the tightness in my chest. I can handle anger, can turn it into something useful.

“Why do you suddenly care? It’s not like you’re around all that often to do any protecting yourself,” I snipe.

“That’s not true,” Mateo retorts weakly, breaking eye contact and shifting in his seat, like he wants to stand, but decides at the last minute to remain seated.

I roll my eyes again, not that he can see. “Before Lydia came along, we were lucky to see your face once a week. You were too busy doing whatever the fuck you wanted while I had to handle the hard work at home.”

“I wasn’t doing whatever I wanted. I was out with clients, doing tours, doing myfucking job, all the while having to fight off the amateur paparazzi and the gossip rags. Not to mention the monster himself,” Mateo shoots back, hands clenching and releasing where they hang between his knees.

I turn my body to face him more fully, straightening my spine. “But when it came down to it, you chose to fuck off rather than come home and be with your pack.”

“Like you’re one to talk. You buried yourself so far into the Wickland House project, and then Bristol Point, and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves!”

Mateo is on his feet now, pacing away and giving me his back. My primal mind roars at the dismissal in the gesture, and I growl deep in my chest. He doesn’t turn at the challenge, running his hands through his hair. The flex of his muscles under his shirt draws my eyes, but I push the flash of feeling aside, letting it join the rest of the emotions in the back of my mind.

“I was doing my job, the same as you,” I snarl, lifting my chin defiantly.

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