Unstoppable (Their Shifter Academy #6) - May Dawson Page 0,78

ever return to freedom.

Jensen and Maddie had all the hope in the world, and that was far better than a warm fire.

Or at least I was pretty sure that’s what Maddie would tell me. Hope doesn’t keep anyone from getting frostbite.

Rafe and I made our way deep into the woods before he whirled to face me. All the fury he’d contained was written across his face now.

“Calm down,” I said, before he could unleash. “It’s no worse than you did to her.”

I knew it would enrage him, and I said it anyway.

He stared at me in shock. Before he could gather himself, I added, “I’m not going to let you scold me for doing something I didn’t want to do. Maddie and I saw no other way out. She chose that.”

“I don’t care,” he enunciated carefully. “You don’t hurt her. You know she’ll do anything to protect other people—”

“Yes,” I said. “And I love that about her. I’m not trying to change her.”

Rafe glowered at me, as if my calm tone just annoyed him more. “Don’t you hate yourself for what you did to her?”

“Just because you hate yourself for whipping her when you had no choice, Rafe, don’t think I’ve got the same set of weaknesses.”

I wouldn’t waste my time regretting things that were unavoidable. That conviction solidified as I took in Rafe’s furious face, the way his hands knotted loosely into fists. He wanted to use those fists on me but he was struggling to keep control.

I should probably back off before that control broke entirely. Or should I? Perhaps it was better if he had his chance to vent his feelings now outside of camp. It must be difficult for him. Wolves ran hot.

“What is wrong with you, Silas?” Rafe demanded.

Probably being raised by a strategizing psychopath who saw us all as pieces on a chessboard, while we saw her as Mom.

Wasn’t that why Isabelle was so desperate to keep Keen alive longer, to watch over her? Keen was all the mother any of us had ever had, for all her imperfections. She’d knit us mittens and sent us out to die, and we’d loved her for it.

Orphans are easy.

“Perspective,” I said crisply. “I have perspective, and you have feelings. And that’s why the team needs me, because you would protect Maddie right into a grave.”

Rafe didn’t telegraph his punches—he moved into them so quickly he was a blur, that there was no time to react—but I still knew that one was coming.

Even before he cold-cocked me across the jaw

I stumbled back. He’d probably be better off if he had the chance to burn off some energy, and since we’d left the warded walls, I could heal us both. No one ever had to know.

So I took a certain amount of pleasure into feinting right, then burying my fist in his gut.

Rafe and I closed up, tryng to beat the hell out of each other. It felt good to hurt someone, to release the energy.

I thought Rafe and I would make up when it was over, when the two of us were both spent and bloodied. We staggered in a circle around each other. Blood was streaming from both our knuckles. I’d built up callouses and I knew he had too, but we’d broken those callouses open anyway on each other’s faces.

“Feeling better?” I asked him.

“I didn’t have a choice when I hurt Maddie,” he said, as if he’d been obsessing over that memory even as he tried to bust my face.

Maybe Rafe was always obsessing over that memory.

“You always have a choice. You knew hurting her was the best option. Just like me.”

He shook his head. “The difference if, you know I didn’t want to. Because I hated myself after.”

“I’m not wasting my hate on myself when there’s a perfectly good Establishment for me to hate instead,” I told him. “The thing is, Rafe, you always try to protect her. And I always trust her. Which do you think means more to her?”

He stared at me with his eyes glittering, and I knew that arrow had struck deep. We both loved Maddie, but we loved her differently. Saw her differently.

Maybe she needed Rafe’s protectiveness sometimes. She needed my respect and confidence just as much, even if it hurt him to know it.

He dove at me, and the two of us closed up again. He managed to throw me over his shoulder, but when he tried to pin me, I rolled out of the way. I swept