Chapter 3

Atticus seized my wrist, his grip so tight it felt like he was trying to crush my bones.

The trembling in his fingers was more suffocating than the fury radiating from his body.

He wouldn't let me look away. His bloodshot eyes locked onto mine, his throat working, his voice scraped raw.

"Look at me, Alice. Answer me. Is what she said true?"

Dead silence. The pack members who had been watching the spectacle held their breath, not daring to make a sound.

Christine collapsed against the sofa, white as a sheet, and crawled toward Atticus, grabbing for his sleeve, tears streaming down her face.

"Alpha, I didn't mean it. I just loved you too much. I didn't want her dragging you down. Her pack was nothing but a burden on you..."

"Get away from me!"

Atticus's voice cracked like a whip. The savagery in his eyes was enough to tear Christine apart.

It was a viciousness he had never shown anyone before, and it shattered the mask of innocence she wore.

His gaze returned to me. The ice and hatred were gone. All that remained was panic, helplessness, and a tentative, almost fearful caution.

"Back then, you really did come to find me? She really kept you from me?"

I lifted my eyes at last and looked at him directly.

The man in front of me was the one I had once loved with everything I had, the one I'd wanted to spend my life with.

He was also the one lifeline I'd grasped on the night my pack was massacred, and the one who had pushed me into the abyss.

After seven years of holding everything in, a crack finally split the surface.

What seeped through was not wounded grievance, but a coldness that reached the bone.

"Yes."

My voice was steady, without the faintest ripple.

"Seven years ago, the Red Wolf Pack attacked without warning. In a single night, blood ran like a river.

"Every elder, every pup, none of them survived. I held my brother, barely alive, and fought my way out. I ran for three days and three nights to reach your gates. I knelt there the entire night."

His grip on my wrist tightened. His pupils contracted sharply, and the blood from his palm dripped down between our clasped hands and pooled on the floor.

"I begged the guards to send word. I begged them to let me see you, just once. All I needed was for you to save my brother, to lend me a place to shelter what was left of my people.

"But all I got was the message Christine brought."

I watched the anguish churning in his eyes. A bleak smile touched my lips, one without a trace of warmth.

"She told me you were sick of me. That I was your burden. That my pack's destruction was its own fault. She said you wanted me gone and told me never to show my face again.

"I knelt outside those gates and watched you and Christine standing side by side on the high platform. You didn't look my way. Not once.

"After that, I had nowhere left to turn. Rogues attacked my brother and left him permanently unable to shift. He's been crippled ever since, kept alive only by herbs."

With every sentence, another shade of color drained from Atticus's face.

His whole body shook violently. His eyes burned red, and tears finally broke free, landing on the back of my hand, scalding.

The obsession Atticus had carried for seven years and the betrayal he had hated for just as long had both been built on a lie.

He had hated the wrong person and lost a lifetime with her.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

Atticus released my wrist and staggered back several steps before his knees hit the floor.

He begged forgiveness in broken, incoherent fragments, his voice choked with tears and thick with despair.

"I didn't know. I swear I didn't know. I never said any of those things. I never once wanted you gone. Alice, I was wrong. I'm so sorry, to you, to your people..."

He tried to crawl toward me, to reach for me, but couldn't bring himself to touch me. He could only clench his fists and let the remorse devour him.

"I'll save your brother. I'll help you rebuild your pack. I'll give you anything, whatever it takes to make it right. Just please... don't look at me like that..."

I watched him kneel there, humbled and broken with guilt, and felt nothing. No satisfaction, no relief. Only a vast, empty wasteland.

Make it right?

I stepped back slowly, putting distance between us, my eyes hollow.

"Atticus, my pack is gone. My people are dead. My brother is crippled for life. He'll never be a whole wolf again.

"You want to make this right. Tell me, with what?"