Chapter 6

Ivy stayed away from Kade for the rest of the day.

She walked the gardens twice. She ate lunch alone in her room. She told herself she wasn't hiding, and she knew that was a lie the whole time she was thinking it.

By evening, she was tired of her own company. She went down to the kitchen instead, hoping for tea and no conversation. She got the tea. She did not get the quiet.

Kade was already there.

He sat at the small table by the window, not the big dining room, just him and a mug of coffee gone cold in his hands. He looked up when she came in and didn't say anything at first. That was new. He always had something to say.

"I can go," Ivy said.

"You don't have to."

She stood in the doorway a moment, then sat down across from him anyway. Some part of her still wanted to hear what he had to say, even after this morning. Even angry.

"I've been thinking about what you told me," she said. "About the mate flag. About knowing, before I ever signed anything."

"I figured."

"I'm still angry."

"You should be." He turned the mug in his hands, slow, like it helped him think. "I've run this pack alone for a long time, Ivy. I make choices for people without asking them first. It's how I stayed alive this long. It's a bad habit when it comes to you, and I know that now, but I don't know how to just turn it off."

"That's not really an apology."

"No," he said. "It isn't. I don't think I know how to give you a real one yet. I've never had to."

Ivy almost smiled at that, which annoyed her more than anything else he'd said all day.

"Tell me something true," she said. "Something you haven't told me yet. No more waiting for the perfect moment."

Kade was quiet for a second. Then he set the mug down.

"My parents died in this house," he said. "Not far from where you're sleeping. There was a fight for the alpha seat, and they lost it, and I was the one who found them after. I was sixteen. I became alpha three days later, because the pack needed someone standing, and I was the only one left standing."

Ivy hadn't expected that. The anger in her chest made room for something else, something softer, before she could stop it.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I don't tell people that story. Elena knows. Damon knows, because he was there. Nobody else." He looked at her, and for once his face didn't have any walls up at all. "I'm telling you because you asked for something true, and that's the truest thing I have."

"Why me?"

"I don't fully know," Kade said. "Maybe the bond. Maybe just you. I stopped trying to separate the two a few days ago."

Something warm moved through Ivy's chest, the same warm ache from the clearing, quieter now but still there, still real. She wanted to be angry. She was still angry. But the anger had a harder time holding its shape with him looking at her like that.

"I'm not ready to forgive you," she said. "I need you to know that."

"I'm not asking you to. Not yet." A small, tired smile. "I just wanted you to know the whole truth, even the parts that don't help my case."

Ivy's phone rang.

She almost let it go to voicemail. Almost. Then she saw the name on the screen — her mother's home aide — and her stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"Hello?"

"Ivy, it's Carla." The aide's voice was fast, tight, the kind of fast that meant bad news trying to get out before it lost its nerve. "I don't want to scare you. Your mom had a hard afternoon. Her breathing got bad, worse than usual, and we called the ambulance. She's at the hospital now. She's stable, but the doctor wants to talk to you as soon as you can call back."

The room tilted a little. Ivy stood up without deciding to.

"Is she okay? Carla, is she—"

"She's stable," Carla said again, softer this time. "But I think you should come, if you can. Soon."

Ivy hung up and looked at Kade, who was already on his feet, already reading her face before she'd said a single word about what had happened.

"It's my mom," Ivy said. "I need to go home. Right now."

"Then we go right now," Kade said, and for the first time since she'd walked into that clinic four days ago, there was no hesitation in his voice at all.

Behind him, in the hallway, Elena stood frozen in the doorway with her hand still raised where she'd been about to knock. She'd clearly heard every word.

"You can't leave," Elena said. "Not tonight. Not with the moon three days out and half the pack expecting—"

"Watch me," Kade said, and walked straight past her, already reaching for his coat, already pulling out his phone to call for the car.

Elena's eyes found Ivy's over his shoulder, and for the first time since Ivy had arrived at this house, the cold mask slipped just enough to show something underneath it. It looked, for half a second, almost like fear.

"You have no idea what you're about to walk into," Elena said, quiet, only for Ivy to hear. "Neither of you do."