Chapter 34
Everett
Her words hit me harder than I expected. There’s just something about the way she says it—simple, honest, no agenda behind it—that strips me down fast.
Before I can think twice about it, I scoot my chair back from the desk and pull Harper into my lap, wrapping my arms around her and holding on tight.
She makes a little noise of surprise, but she doesn’t pull away, instead settling into my arms after a second or two.
I bury my face in her hair, breathing in her now familiar scent like I need it. And maybe I do. Maybe I need the scent of her, the feel of her body against mine to keep me from unraveling right here in my own office.
“Are you okay?” she murmurs, her hands settled on my shoulders gently.
I nod, not sure how to explain how I feel right now. None of it is bad. It’s just—heavy. Unexpected.
When I have more of a grasp on my own mind, I take a breath. “Before my mother passed away, she used to say that my father was just passionate. That he just had an intense personality. That was why he was exacting and hard edged andwhy he and everyone else had to do things his way or suffer the consequences.”
Harper snorts and then winces. “Sorry. Not to speak ill of the dead, but… that sounds like an excuse to not make your dad behave better. It sounds like she enabled him. He wasn’t the reason she died, right?”
I shake my head. “No. She died of an illness, and it was before he was his worst anyway. All the corruption and abuses of power happened after she died, so she never really saw what all that ‘intensity’ led to.”
“Ah. I guess in some ways that’s better for her. She could keep her ideas of him intact and never had to face the fact that he was a monster.”
“Yes,” I agree. “That was just something the rest of us had to deal with.”
I don’t talk about this kind of thing a lot anymore. Everyone who was around when my father was in charge knows how it went down. They were all there and most of them suffered in some way from his attitudes about power. It always feels better to keep moving forward, not to dredge up the past and my worries surrounding it.
But here with Harper, it feels safe to do it. To think and talk about the facets of the past that still weigh on me so heavily.
“Sometimes,” I say, swallowing hard and forcing the words out. “I feel like I have the same thing deep inside me.”
“What? What thing?”
“The same hard edge. The same intensity. The bone deep need for control. That same constant pull toward being the one in charge. And I worry that the more I give in to it, the harder it will be to hold back. I worry that one day I’ll wake up and realize I’ve turned into him, even while trying so hard not to.”
Harper pulls back suddenly, but it’s only so she can look down at me. Her eyes lock with mine, and there’s a burning intensity in them that I can’t look away from.
“That’s not the same,” she says. “Maybe the base of who you are is someone who likes control and likes to take the lead, and maybe you can be a little intense. But you have to see that it’s built on something different. You don’t dominate to punish people or belittle them. Do you think Cash and Lincoln would have stuck around with you if they thought you were like that?”
“I… don’t know.” I like to think that they’re good enough judges of character that if they saw me going down that path, they’d intervene or walk out and give me a wakeup call, but it’s hard to rely on that as my only proof that I’m not as bad as I think I am.
“Well, I know,” Harper continues. “Everett, all you want to do is protect people. You want to take care of them. You don’t use them or abuse their trust. Look at how you were when I was in my heat. Someone less good would have taken advantage the second I started begging. But you didn’t. You made sure I was sure, didn’t you?”
I nod because I can’t deny that. “I did.”
“Exactly. Because you didn’t want to hurt me. You didn’t want to be another Alpha just abusing their power over an Omega. Let me tell you something. I’ve known men like your father.” Her voice drops a little when she says it, and there’s a hesitation in her eyes, like she’s not sure she really wants to say it out loud.
But then she takes a breath and continues. “I haven’t talked a lot about my former pack because I don’t like remembering them. I don’t like thinking about how they treated me. But they loved the power they had because they were Alphas. The leader was all about control, and there was no care in it. He thought people were supposed to do what he told them to do,for no reason other than the fact that he was an Alpha. He—they treated me like I was disposable. They made me feel small and weak and unworthy of anything better, and I believed them. When they told me there wasn’t anyone else out there who would want me, I believed them because that’s how they made me feel. I was always walking on eggshells, trying not to set them off, and I thought that was normal. I thought that was just how it was if you wanted to be wanted by Alphas. And it wasn’t until they left me half marked and rejected that I realized how toxic it all was.” She snorts, half amused, half self-deprecating. “It’s ironic that I could see my sister was in a toxic relationship, but I didn’t realize I was in one myself until I got more distance.”
Just hearing her talk about these low lives makes fury simmer in my chest. I clench my jaw, holding on to Harper tighter, like I can do something to protect her from them retroactively. The thought of her being treated that was makes me want to fly into a rage and make the fuckers pay, but I breathe through it.
She’s here now. She’s with us, and we don’t treat her like that. Anyone else who wanted to try would have to go through me.
Harper pets my shoulder, like she can sense the direction of my thoughts, and maybe given how tight my jaw is, she can. “So believe me when I say I know you’re nothing like that, okay? Even when I feel you holding back, I know it’s because you’re trying so hard not to go too far, not to let the intensity spill out unchecked. Do you think your dad ever cared enough to do that? Do you think he was even aware that holding back was something he should do?”
“… no.”
She smiles. “No. So you’re already doing so, so much better than he was. And I meant what I said before. Maybe someday I wouldn’t mind seeing what it looks like when you do let go. Because I trust you and I know you won’t take it too far.”