He goes completely still.
“You want forgiveness?” I say. “Earn it.”
His eyes are on me, and there’s a war happening behind them. I can see it.
He opens his mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Then he turns and walks away. Out the front door and into the dark, without another word. The door doesn’t slam. He just pulls it closed behind him. Which somehow feels worse than if he’d broken it off its hinges.
The others come back in after a few minutes. I don’t know if they were listening, but from their faces, I’d guess they heard enough.
Nobody asks what happened. Archer just picks up the cards and starts dealing again. Elias drops onto the couch beside me, bumping my shoulder with his. Silas takes his spot on my other side, close enough that his warmth is there if I want it.
We play cards. But part of me keeps drifting to the closed front door. To the quiet way Darius pulled it shut behind him. To the look on his face when I threw his own words back at him.
He hadn’t argued. Hadn’t defended himself. Hadn’t tried to pin me down or command me into silence. He just stood there and took it. And then he left.
That’s not how the alphas I’ve known behave. The ones I grew up with would have hit me for talking to them like that. The alpha who killed Sophie would have crushed my throat for less.
Darius just left.
Later that evening, when everyone’s gone to bed and the cabin is dark and quiet, I stand by the window and look out at the compound.
He’s there. Sitting on a fallen log at the edge of the treeline. Alone. Just sitting in the cold, staring at nothing. His shoulders curved forward in a way I’ve never seen from him. And I think about what Cassia said. About the boy who killed a man at sixteen to save a girl. About the boy who executed those who betrayed the pack and exiled the rest. About the weight he’s been carrying ever since.
I’m not ready to forgive him. But watching him sit there alone in the dark, I realize something. I don’t want him to suffer either.
I stand at the window for a long time. Then I go to bed, pull the covers up, and close my eyes. I don’t go out to him. But the fact that I wanted to is enough to keep me awake for hours.
28
Mo
The last couple of days have been surprisingly tolerable.
Tonight, I’m elbow-deep in a bowl of raw ground beef and questioning every decision that led me to this moment.
The alphas are teaching me to cook—or trying to. I’m not making it easy for them. The carrots are fighting back, the knife is no ally of mine, and the ground beef feels like something I should be apologizing to rather than eating.
Cooking together has become a thing. Archer runs the kitchen the way he runs everything else: with complete authority and zero patience for bullshit. Elias chops onions beside me and cries about it, loudly and theatrically, wiping his eyes on his sleeve while insisting he’s not actually crying. Silas works across the counter, quietly dicing vegetables with a skill that shouldn’t be possible from hands that big.
And Darius is still gone.
He’s been gone for a week now. Disappeared into the woods after the failed apology and hasn’t come back. When I asked the guys about it, Archer said he sometimes goes off alone, but never for this long. And never without showing up for meals. Elias tried to play it off as “alone time.” Silas didn’t react at all, which told me more than the other two combined.
I should be relieved. Instead, I find myself somewhere in between. Happier than I’ve been in years, but with a small, stubborn part of me that keeps wondering where he is and whether he’s eating and whether he’s sitting on that same fallen log staring at nothing.
Elias leans in behind me, reaching around to guide my hands through the seasoning. His chest presses against my back, his chin nearly on my shoulder, and his sensual scent of orange and sandalwood lingers in my nose.
“Like this,” he says, his voice close to my ear. “You want to work the spices in evenly.”
Every thought I have about ground beef evaporates. His hands cover mine, guiding them through the meat, and the heat of him burns straight through my shirt. My fingers stop working.
I can’t remember what spices are.
I can’t remember what food is.