Thorne tilts his head to the side. Dark eyes move over me while I put space between us. “What are you? A spy?” he asks and my mouth falls open with an audible sound.
“What did you just say to me?”
“Are. You. A. Spy?”
I see red when he slows his words down like he’s speaking to a naughty pup that he’s caught breaking the rules. “A spy? You think I’m a spy?”
He levels a stony stare my way. “You are from Frostclaw. I think I’ve got reason enough to suspect you of being a spy. I’m the Enforcer of this pack and I’ll not let someone like you ruin this community.”
A bitter laugh sounds in my throat. “Someone like me?” I ask and point at myself. My hand shakes when I do but I pay it no mind. “You mean someone like me that was ripped from my home? Someone like me who’s mother was murdered by the pack that raised me? You think I would do them the kindness and loyalty of spying for them?”
“Cordelia,” Ronan says, his voice soft. Gentle. He’s trying to smooth things over by soothing me but I keep talking. For so long I’ve kept what happened to me inside. I pretended it didn’t hurt, that it hadn’t scarred me in ways that I’ll never recover from.
“Every day in that pack was hell. It was an eternity. A prison sentence. I was beaten and isolated. I was stolen from and forced to eat scraps to survive. No one spoke to me but the Elder that raised me,” I say, refusing to give Keiran a place in this story. Not tonight. He’s not what defines me or how I got here. “I had no friends.Not one.All the other orphans joined the pack properly, they wanted nothing to do with who we were and that meant turning their backs on me because hey, someone has to be last, right? There’s no rank if there isn’t someone to step on.” Shit rolls downhill and in Frostclaw the last stop was me.
“I came here to save my Elder’s place. The woman that gave me a home as best she could. I saved her from being banished.” I look between Ronan and then Thorne. “I left out of love for her and she sent me here as an act of love for me. She said I would be safe here. That this was my home, this was my pack, and she’s right. It is.” I take a deep breath and drop my hands at my side. My shaking hands tremble so much that I twist them in my skirt to try and stop it. “So when you ask me if I’m a spy it really makes me wonder if she was right about me being safe.”
Silence falls around us. Its weight is heavy. No one moves a muscle and I can hear my own breath. My heart pounds in my ears. I’m embarrassed. I said too much, I know I did but sowhat? I’m embarrassed for unloading like that but there’s a limit to what everyone can carry and Thorne’s accusation was the last stone I could hold. It all came crashing down but it feels good too. It can’t get any worse than this, can it? Losing my shit in front of the Alpha when I’m hoping to make a case for letting me stay in the pack really isn’t the impression I wanted to give him but if Maud was right about me being safe then I mean to do it in a place where I’m not biting my tongue and swallowing my hurts.
I almost died in silence. I’ll live out loud now even if it’s not here.
Luna. It feels like the force of a mountain is bearing down on me. Like if I moved I’d turn right into the silence made solid. I look Ronan’s way. The Alpha looks pensive, almost thoughtful about what I just said. He thinks I’m nuts, doesn't he? Clyde’s eyes hold pity, the man feels sorry for me. I look to Thorne.
I expect to see nothing. Stony stoicism, or for there to be a wall between us just like it’s been since after we left the meadow but it’s not that way. There’s something I don’t understand in his eyes. They almost go soft when he meets my gaze. Holy hells, why does he have such beautiful dark eyes?
Another moment of silence goes by with me trapped under the full weight of Thorne’s stare before I decide it’ll be me that breaks the silence. I’m not going to survive another minute like this, not even with my newfound commitment to standing up for myself. I’m not sure what to say but someone has to say something, and I’ll figure it out like I always do, except before I can speak, someone else does.
“I’m sorry, Cordelia,” Thorne apologizes.
Holy hells, am I dead? Did I die suddenly and everyone is standing over my body trying to figure out what caused my heart to stop? They have to be. It’s the only explanation for an Alpha apologizing to me.
“I was wrong, “ the Enforcer continues. “Can you forgive me?”
Yup. I’m so totally dead right now.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
THORNE
Ifucked up bad but I’m alpha enough to know when I’ve fucked up and that means I have no problems saying I’m sorry and admitting when I’m wrong. Tonight I was dead ass wrong about Cordelia.
“Yes, I-” she stops short and then nods, “I forgive you. T-thank you.” She sounds so unsure with the last part of it that I want to punch myself in the damn face.
A spy.I accused her of being a spy. I don’t know where the words came from or why I let them come so easily but I’m seeing an emerging trend of me not thinking and acting around the omega. I shake my head at myself. I need to lock that shit down. Now.
“Thank you. I won’t misplace your trust again.”
I mean it. Forgiveness and trust are big in Bloodstone Pack. We rebuilt Red River after the fires with trust. We reclaimed what was ours through recognizing when we were wrong, when the smart play was atoning sincerely. Our pack wasn’t always like this. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I’m too young to remember much of it from before the Blood Moon Days, but the old-timers talk. Before the fires, Ronan’s brother and he led our pack. It was crueler then, harsher but that’s the way of mostpacks. After Wayne left and became an Ashford to found the Frostclaw pack we evolved.
It was that or cease to exist.
I wager Ronan’s brother thought we would die out, scattering to the winds so he could swoop in and claim what he swore was meant to be his. That didn’t happen. We hung on, changed with the times and became a pack meant for safety. In a world of chaos, of the strong forcing their will on others, we became the shield.
Shame weighs on me for my behavior with Cordelia. I’m lucky the omega deigned to forgive me. I will do better.
Clyde clears his throat. “Should we sit for dinner? I know the staff are ready for us and if the feast they’ve prepared goes cold we’ll hear about it for the next two moon runs.”
