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All I can think about is if that were Nora… But I cut that sympathetic line of thought off, because of Cevon, it actually could be.
You know, ignoring the baby part of things. This pack, pride, whatever, is not ready for a child.
But Cevon? He chose wrong.
Voss shrugs, the only one really unaffected, and just says, “I get it.”
“You get it?” I ask before shaking my head. Of course, he gets it. He’s already told us how he’d react if it were Nora—and it’s the exact same way that Cevon is acting.
“I do, yeah. I absolutely feel how he feels.” Looking at Atticus now, he says, “I don’t think it’s as big a dead end as you do, though. I think we can reason with him.”
“You think we can reason with him ?” Atticus says, raising an eyebrow.
Devoss nods. “Your brother wants the hunters demolished. He wants them dead. He wants those who harmed his mate to be killed. And then he wants to be done with this world.”
“How would you know that?” Fin asks, seeming sceptical.
“Because I told you all that’s exactly what I’d do. I feel it, the darkness within him, I get it. We have different pasts, but our stories are very similar.”
“But what do you mean by that?” Micah asks, a tinge of hurt to his words. “You have similar pasts? You have a dead mate?”
“Of course not, you fucking idiot. Nora is literally perfection, and I was lucky enough to get her. Do you really think I’d get her as my second chance?” Voss asks, rolling his eyes.
“So how are your pasts similar?” Micah asks, not backing down at the absolute deranged look on the fox’s face.
“My parents were murdered in front of me when I was eight. My mom was pregnant, and they tortured her. So, yeah, I get it. I get the hatred, I get the rage. Hell, it caused me to go and murder everyone involved in their deaths. I have no regrets.”
We all fall silent, some of us in understanding, some of us in shock. But we all have the same thing in common—what the fuck do we reply to that?
“Well,” Fin says, breaking the silence. “Am I the only one here that hasn’t murdered somebody?”
Micah raises his hand, but he’s the only one with a clean slate. The griffin’s clean hands surprise me, though.
A man of his stature? I see that as a weakness.
“Great,” Fin says, sarcastically. “A hot tub filled with murderous men. My future is so fucking bright.”
“If fire is the way you want your life to end, I know a guy,” Voss says, patting Fin’s shoulder in what seems to be a genuine offer. Fin blanches, and I hide my smirk.
Changing the subject, Atticus says, “I tried to call Cevon on Wednesday. We talked, briefly, where he brought me up to speed and then said I deserted him.” Atticus clenches his wine glass even tighter, not having taken a drink from it since Nora left, and sighs. “And then blocked my number. I wouldn’t put it past the little shit to only keep it open for that deliberate snubbing.”
I agree. Cev…on used to be my favourite of the lion brothers. We were close, and had a good relationship.
Oh who the fuck am I kidding? He was the reason I got out of my toxic household, he gave me stability and support as I worked through my shit.
Until he met his mate—Lainey—and then everything changed. He accused me of agreeing with Atticus, and he severed our friendship and ran away in the middle of the night.
He wasn’t wrong to call me out on my shit, but he was wrong to cut me off entirely.
“He basically told me he wants nothing to do with me, and that I turned my back on him, and he’s not going to forgive me,” Atticus says, and his tone drops as does the temperature here.
“Well, shit,” I say. It’s not hard to understand why though.
“And to find all this out right before delivering David’s note to Nora…” he trails off, shaking his head. “We’ve talked things out, and she gave me a good few smacks.”
“She hit you?” Orson asks with a grin.
“No,” Atticus says, laughing. “She gave them figuratively. I know things that happened with her aren’t my fault, even if my lion and I are still struggling to hear that.”
