جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 40

I wish I couldn’t see the reddish tinges of a soul in pain, because I know it’s my fault that she’s hurting. I could reach out and heal her, but the tension in her back and neck warns me that she wouldn’t thank me for it.An already awkward moment having been made a thousand times worse, I try to think of a safe topic that won’t hurt her any more than the thought of me and Mack being together.“Yes, it’s quiet. Peaceful.” I lean on the wall beside her, abandoning my intention to go sink into one of the white plastic loungers nearer the forest. It would feel—and most likely look—as if I were running away.Since Mack is so sure Faith is only in need of a friend and a place to stay for a few days, perhaps I can be that friend. Maybe this can be the start of me being more positive, and less eager to always think the worst will happen.“If you want to call it that,” Faith mutters beneath her breath.With no idea of how to respond to what sounded like criticism, I choose to ignore it and in

Now that the shock of coming face to face with a Raleigh has worn off, his feelings about an alpha who’s happy to cook breakfast for everyone while dressed in sweats as rumpled as mine are rising to the surface.He only has to look in Mack’s direction for me to note the derision in his eyes. He doesn’t view Mack as a worthy alpha; that much is clear. At the moment he’s acting distant, but if Mack keeps defending me, soon it’ll turn into anger, and with his enforcer in the room, I know what will happen if my father’s mood turns: Another alpha challenge and one Mack is unlikely to survive.Briefly, I peek over at Adela, who is undoubtedly the only one looking at ease in the room. If things come to it, she’ll use her gift to stamp out the aggression before it can explode, but I’d rather it didn’t come to that. I’d rather we all got through this breakfast as fast as humanly possible, and my father walked out of the front door and didn’t come back again. But that won’t happen.My father w

When I swing around to find out why he’s stopped, I discover his face is utterly blank. I take a step back from him because, while his face may be devoid of expression, I glimpse fury burning in his eyes.I get nervous, because even though he’s never lifted a hand toward me, he doesn’t have to. I’m alone in the forest with him and his enforcer, who not only knows where all the bodies of the Boone pack’s enemies have been buried, but he’s also the one who did the burying.“It has been over a year since we were face to face,” he begins, in a deceptively soft voice.I feel my body tensing, because even though this is my father speaking, no shifter wants to be face- to-face with an enraged alpha. Even if that enraged shifter is family.“So perhaps you’ve forgotten how to speak to your father. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that I am not only the man who helped give you life but stood between you and the attempts made to carry you away in the middle of the night.”I frown because this is new. “W

That’s when it hits me that I’m going to have to tell Mack what his fated mate tried to do. How I’m going to do that without it seeming like I’m jealous and looking for a reason to get rid of her, I have no idea.But she came here with a recent trauma. Maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe she’s running from someone trying to hurt her, and whoever tried to kill me with a tree mistook me for her.It seems plausible. More plausible than Faith trying to kill me for what I did to her.“Why the hell didn’t you just hit them with your dangerous curse-like gift?” I mutter beneath my breath as I brush the dirt from my sweatpants.“Then you’d have had all the evidence in the world to show Mack,” I continue as I head for home, because the thought of staying in the forest any longer is suddenly no longer appealing.Now, all the sounds I found restful moments before just put me on edge. Every twig snapping or scuttling animal has me jerking my head to peer through the brush with a racing heart.All

A moment passes in silence as if everyone’s picturing what that would look like. Or maybe they, just as I am, are thinking of the Raleigh pack and how quickly the aggression spread without Connall there to exert his control to stop it.Why would he leave? He had to have known what would happen if he walked away from a pack as aggressive as the Raleighs were. Was it grief for his dead mate that made him not care anymore?Connall breaks the silence. “Well, whatever this training guiding thing is doesn’t sound the least bit interesting to me. Certainly not as interesting as that other thing Aerin can do.”Now I know someone told him about what I did to Faith, and one swift glance around the table reveals Penny ducking her head. But not before I glimpse her flushed cheeks and the guilt in her eyes.I should’ve known it’d be her. No one likes to gossip the way Penny does.I clear my throat. “It was an accident. I didn’t—"Connall interrupts me. “I’m sorry I missed it. Who’d have thought