to shove everyone away.
“You’re right,” she says, and for a split second, I think I’ve snapped the neck of her stubborn impulse, but then she crushes my hope beneath her heel. “I should’ve tried harder so I could leave and never fucking get involved with you.”
She says it evenly. Steadily. All heat gone from her voice. And that somehow makes it worse. Because in the blink of an eye, she’s gone from the red-hot fighter to the cold, distant stranger. She might as well rip my heart from my fucking chest.
When she opens her mouth again, she treats me like I’m an old bandage—ripping me right off in one quick swoop.
“Getting with you was a mistake.”
Rip.
“Are you really gonna spew this shit?”
“This...I shouldn’t have done this,” she repeats, motioning her brush between us. “You’re too possessive. I told you, Jericho, I’m not yours.”
“The fuck you aren’t,” I growl.
“I’m not,” she replies placidly. “I gave my heart away a long time ago, and it wasn’t to you.”
I flinch at the words she just lashed out, and it causes me to dole out my own. “Yeah, and you left him too. You really wanna make the same mistake twice?”
For a second, her dark eyes hook onto mine, and I see a flash of fiery anger, and I think, good. Let out that anger. Bring back the fire. Anything but this ice-cold indifference. But a second later, it’s gone again.
“Yep,” she says simply, instead of whatever reply had been running through her mind a second ago.
I plant my feet by her door and cross my arms. “Tell me, which part exactly are you regretting?”
“All of it.”
Fucking liar.
In three steps, I’m right in her space. She refuses to back up, a fact I counted on, so our bodies are flush together as she tilts up her head to meet me in the eye.
“So...what? You fuck me for a few weeks, and now you’re tossing me aside?”
“Don’t say it like it hurts your feelings,” she sneers. “I wasn’t using you for sex.”
“No?” I ask, my chest pressing up against her. Despite the fuck-off expression on her face, her body betrays her when her nipples pebble against me. “Because the way I see it, that’s exactly what you did. You needed a fuck buddy to let you get out some of your pent-up tension and to get your rocks off, so you used my pack as a temporary pit stop. And now that your past has caught up with you, you’re running, and leaving us here to deal with the ramifications alone while you act like I don’t matter.”
My tone is harsh, but inside, I’m fucking begging her to buckle.
Our dark eyes are locked, and without an inch of space between our bodies, every cell inside of me is screaming for her to tell me I’ve got it wrong. That she’s staying. That she’s not leaving this pack or me behind.
But instead, she guts my fucking heart.
“We fucked. So what?” she replies with bored disdain. “You would’ve gotten sick of me sooner rather than later. You should be thanking me. Now you can go back to fucking pretty females like Hannah. I’m just ending this early, and no one else besides you or Addie gives a fuck whether I stay or leave.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” I snap, pointing a finger into her face. “Reese cares. Alpha Hugo cares. The people you trained care. Hell, Freddie cares.”
Her eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and in an uncharacteristic move, her breath goes shaky. But she smoothes her face out again and turns away from me, breaking the connection as she tugs her hair up in a tight ponytail. “Well, everyone will get over it. Including you.”
A storm shadows my brow as I watch her. Thick disappointment feels like cloying humidity sticking in the back of my throat. “Fine, Jet. You want to play it this way? You want to shit on us before we even get a proper start? Wanna act like this pack doesn’t matter to you? Like I don’t matter? Fucking go for it,” I snarl, each word more severe than the last. “You’re a coward.”
“I am not a coward,” she retorts, her voice hitching up in volume to meet her spiking temper.
“You are,” I retort.
I see it in her eyes—she hates me in this moment. And if I wasn’t so goddamn in love with her, I might hate her too.
“Get out.”
I scoff with derision. “Yeah, push me away, Jet. Push everyone