Page 39 of Running on Empty

“Mum told me to wait. She said you were almost eighteen. She said I didn’t need to do anything, that you’d be free of them soon. And I did.” His grip on the knife tightened and he forced me to push it down harder, the skin flushing red. “I waited and I waited, listening to you screaming and crying and…”

His hands jerked free, going up into the air in an attitude of surrender, before he dropped them down on the bed.

“You had to be free. Free of them, free of us, free of everything. I knew that.Heknew that.”

“He?” I asked. “Ash?”

“My wolf.” Ronan said that far too quickly for me to believe his words, but I pressed on, having bigger fish to fry. He sat up then, his body feeling like it loomed over mine. “I didn’t do it to bring you to me. I failed at that, anyway.” He shook his head slowly. “Ash, Mum, the dads, they all… knew what I was like. They thought you’d tamed me because I behaved so much better now I knew who my mate was.” He blinked, the green in his eyes fading. “But they felt like they had trusted me too much, that they had been tricked into thinking my nature was just a phase I had been going through. It was an illusion I was happy for them to live under, until then.”

He met my gaze head on, a criminal about to face the noose. I could tie it around his neck and choke the life out of him with it, or use it as a leash to bring him to heel.

“But then I came home and not long afterwards the police turned up to tell you they were dead and while Mum didn’t put two and two together, Ash did.” He put the knife back into my hand and pointed it at him, holding it firm when I wavered. “He asked me if I killed your mum and her boyfriend andheanswered.”

“Your wolf,” I prompted, not believing that for a second.

“Ash knew the truth. He damn near killed me when he found out. I’d just announced I’d done something that would hurt you.”

But it hadn’t, not really. I sometimes wondered if something was broken in me. People told me the tears might not come when we put Mum in the ground, but they would when I was ready.

Evidently I was never ready.

It was a shameful secret, but one I found more people shared than society in general expected. Some parents just beat all capacity for love out of you until there’s no anger, no sadness, no nothing left behind. Just an empty place where they were and even then, that place gets filled with other things.

I didn’t grieve my mother because I didn’t really have one to mourn.

“And he couldn’t allow for that,” Ronan said.

As if on cue, there was a thud at his door, the handle twisted, but it didn’t open, the door obviously having been locked.

“Ronan! Are you in there with Stevie? We talked about this!”

I was up and off the bed in seconds, knife still in hand, but where I went, Ronan followed. I padded barefoot across the carpet, then opened the door to find the two other brothers standing there.

“What did you talk about?” I demanded. “What decisions did you make for my benefit?”

“He’s not safe,” Ash said. “I know you think he is—”

“Has he ever hurt me?” Ash blinked at my question, but then I shifted my focus to Jax. “Has he ever talked about hurting me?”

“Never, Stevie, but—” Jax started to say.

“But what if he does?” Ash went very still, his eyes boring into mine. “The only thing that keeps that… other side of Ronan back, is some skewed moral code. He’ll burn the world down for you, Stevie.”

“I will.” Ronan’s voice was a feline purr as he slid a hand around me, his mouth on my neck. “All for you.”

“But what happens if he all of a sudden decides you’re the enemy?”

Ronan’s grip on my hip tightened to the point of pain and I felt his fangs against my skin, behind those plush lips. But I didn’t pull away or step towards Ash, something the other alpha dearly hoped I would, I now realised. He wanted me to choose him, to make all of the decisions he’d made thus far the right ones, to validate his choice to keep me and Ronan far away from each other.

But I wouldn’t.

I held the knife Ronan had given me in my palm and when I looked down at it, so did they. Jax made a sound of concern, Ash growled something, but I stepped back, into the darkness, into Ronan’s arms.

They went around me, his hands shifting, trying to trace every inch of my form with all the longing he’d held back for so long and I knew then something that Ash didn’t. The lore was that for every omega there was the perfect alpha pack and while I knew of instances that disproved that theory, right now I was sure mine wasn’t one of them. Ronan could’ve hurt me a hundred times over, but he didn’t.

And Ash did.

“Nothing Ronan could do would make me hurt more than your decision to keep us apart,” I said, proud of how strong my voice was, of a truth being finally said. “You kept all of us in a holding pattern, close to me, because you knew both Jax and Ronan would rebel if you didn’t, but never close enough to actually tell me what was going on. Because you were waiting until it was safe.”

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