“I just stared at the sun, that's all.”
Kai rolled his eyes and laughed. “The sun is behind you, jackass.”
Zayden’s nose didn’t ache but crinkled as he laughed. “Yes, but this moment made you shine like the sun. You blinded me, Kai.”
“So, what now? We kiss?”
“I think that’s how it works. You know, kiss and make up.”
“Funny, because I don’t remember Dr. Burdough saying that. Although with all the homework she gives, I could have missed it.” Kai groaned and fell back into the sand, his arms behind his head. Zayden joined him. “You know, I really was going to leave and try it alone. I had it all planned. Buy a bachelor pad in the city, launch my solo career, take over theworld and settle down on my own with a nice girl I wouldn’t have to share. And best of all, I was never going to have to see your stupid face again.”
Zayden’s heart sank deep inside him, and the taste in his mouth became bitter and cold. “I know,” he choked. “I had been working with Maddox to figure out how to smoothly disband so that your career wouldn’t be impacted negatively.”
“I—what?Seriously?”
“You’re a great artist, Kai. I wanted to see you succeed.”
“Even though I hated you?”
“That didn’t matter,” Zayden whispered. “I fucked everything up. You wanting to leave the pack was well earned, but you’re still my brother. All of you. So even if I had to watch you all succeed from afar, I was prepared to do so and support behind the scenes. That was my plan. To continue doing everything in my power to make sure all of you got the lives you deserved, even if it meant without me.”
The moment the pack decided they’d try for one more year, Zayden set up three different trust funds. Although his boys were financially secure on their own, he wanted to ensure that if anything happened or needed to be done, Zayden could do it for them. Even in secret. Every paycheck Zayden received each month since then; more than half went to them.
Maddox was in on it, too. Despite being their manager, Maddox had also become Zayden’s friend and confidante. When everything came to a head, Zayden had wandered over to his home and, after a few drinks, Maddox had asked him what he wanted. The only things that mattered to him were Felix, Kai, and Jude. The need to protect his pack was deeply embedded in him, and his alpha was not going to give up on taking care of them that easily. Maddox pitied Zayden, but he also helped him with planning how to take care of his boys after they were no longer his.
When he turned his head, Kai was looking at him with wide, guilty eyes, glassed over. “Don’t cry. It’ll ruin what’s left of your bad boy image.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“What was there to say? I had failed.”
“No. You gave up.” Kai’s eyes narrowed; his voice tinged with that still unforgiving resentment. “I wanted you to say something. I wanted you to fight for me.”
Zayden scoffed. “Now you sound like a scorned ex-wife.”
Kai smiled, but the words hung in the air. “I was scorned,” he said finally. “I wanted you to grovel. I wanted you to beg and try like your life depended on it.”
“But you were walking away—”
“Because you walked out of our pack first! For fucks sake…” Kai rubbed his hands over his face and mumbled a few profanities under his breath. “You left first. I felt it. I felt you pull away before Juliana, and then it kept getting worse, and then you weregone. I didn’t even recognize you anymore, so I thought…fuck. I thought if all of us threatened to leave, maybe it’d wake you up. I didn’t want to leave at first. But when the deal was first brought up, and I was watching you, you didn’t even react. You just accepted it. Why? Why did you stop caring?”
Why did we stop caring?
Was it really before Juliana that Zayden began to break?
He remembered being at Kai’s mom’s funeral, all of them dressed in black, the only ones bothered enough to gather around her grave to say goodbye. That was two years ago, and—
Zayden frowned.
He remembered their faces. All of them, lost in their grief, Kai almost lost to his, and the only way to pull them out of it was a promise; amate.
Dr. Burdough had asked what made a pack as young as theirs so desperate to find their omega that the desperation almost ruined them all. At first, Zayden didn’t have a good answer, but now it was all starting to make sense. A mate was a thread to life, a reminder they had so much more to work towards, to look forward to. Promising that connection was how Zayden was able to protect them all from their grief, depression, and spiraling emotions. But when he was unable to fulfill that promise, everything began slipping into darkness, and it was taking him with it.
Zayden didn’t stop caring. He was consumed by it, and he allowed it to eat him alive.
“To protect myself,” he finally answered, pressing his palm over his aching chest and pushing hard. “To protect you. Them. That’s all I’ve ever wanted as lead alpha, and when I felt myself failing the very thing I was born to do, I thought maybe you’d all be safer without me.”
Silence stretched between them, and Zayden became uncertain if his words held any comfort or any meaning.
