make me feel any better.
The air between us shifted, and I felt his breath on my forehead as he leaned down. “Arik,” he said, almost a whisper. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
I didn’t quite have the energy to laugh; it came out more of a heave of my chest and a sigh. “Sure.”
“You don’t.” He gave me a gentle shake. “Earlier today I told you that you always have a choice. What you said to Nate…you were out of line there. You know you were, right? You shouldn’t have said that shit to him. I’d think you’d have some sympathy if anyone would.”
That hit home, but I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Yeah, maybe in a different universe I wouldn’t have needed every weapon I could possibly put in my arsenal to survive. In that one I’d have been out of line for hitting Nate, with his admittedly fucked-up past, exactly where it hurt. But I didn’t regret it. I only regretted that it hadn’t worked.
And maybe I also regretted that I’d made Matthew hate me even more by saying it. He might be trying a different tactic with me now, softness rather than aggression, but his expression as he’d gazed down at me after I taunted Nate was going to stay in my head for a long time. I doubted he was feeling much kinder now that I’d attacked both of them and tried to escape. His loyalty was to Nate, and it made me ache somewhere deep inside. Matthew was capable of that kind of loyalty, of that kind of affection and understanding — why couldn’t he extend a little bit of that to me?
Right, because I’d put him under a love spell and betrayed him.
Matthew sighed again, a deep one this time, and waited. When it was clear my mouth was shut, he went on with, “Look, I’m not saying you were right, but…maybe I was wrong. Partly. A little bit.”
An alpha admitting when he was wrong, even if it was the most half-assed admission I’d ever heard? I cracked an eye open and peeked at him. He’d bent down so close to me that our faces were almost touching. And he was just — looking at me, his gaze steady. Like he had nothing better to do than see me. Like I was worth looking at, and not just the parts of me that he might want to fuck.
That shook me down to the very core. The only parts of me safe to reveal were right there on the surface. The rest of it…the rest of it couldn’t be examined, brought out into the daylight. It wasn’t safe. He wasn’t safe. I couldn’t let him be something safe, not if I wanted to get out of this intact and as self-sufficient as I had to be to survive.
“You’re going to need to be more specific, asshole,” I managed. “You were wrong about a lot of things today.”
The corners of his lips turned down, and he sighed. “What you said to Nate was unfair. He didn’t have a choice. Or at least — all of his choices were bad, and possibly even suicidal. And it made me think about our conversation from before. I think I was unfair to you, too.”
My shoulders relaxed back against the wall; I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding myself with that much tension. With the easing of it came a sudden welling-up of anger. I shouldn’t care what Matthew thought of me. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me, least of all some overbearing alpha dickhead with delusions of grandeur because he was in charge of a raggedy-ass pack out in the wilds of buttfuck nowhere, and because he was an alpha with a knot.
Fuck that. My spell was messing with me, that was all, and I wasn’t going to let it. I lifted my hands, shoving them against his chest to get him off me. He didn’t so much as budge, and my anger only grew, tightening my chest and rising up to choke me.
“Yeah, you were,” I said. “You were unfair. But what difference does it make? It’s not going to change anything. You’re not going to let me go, right? So why the fuck should I care that you’ve decided you want to absolve yourself of being a dick by admitting it?”
A dark-red flush spread across his cheeks. “I’m trying to apologize to you! Fuck, I —” He broke off, and his gaze skittered away