Page 21 of The Alpha’s Chosen Mate

I stop myself before I say what I’m thinking. Because what I’m thinking won’t help her mindset, even though her situation isn’t her fault. But Emily finishes the thought for me.

“And delay my first shift more?”

I grimace. It sounds worse when she says it than it did in my head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault my former alpha was a prick.”

Prick is a nicer word than the one I’d use to describe him.

We stretch in relative silence, interrupted only by my quiet corrections and gentle coaching. Emily withdraws into herself once again, and I hate it. The smiles, the laughs, the teasing—they have all been gone for too long.

It’s times like this when I wish I were more like Brad. He’d know what to say or do to get her to laugh.

We’re in the grass, me holding her feet as she does her second rep of sit-ups, when she speaks again. “Why did he do it?”

I wait until the round is done before I acknowledge her question. “Why did Justin block your wolf?”

“Yeah.” She breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth as she rests between sets—like I taught her—thinking through her next words. “What did he gain from blocking our wolves and telling us we were weak? I’ve been thinking about it since I left the hospital and… I just don’t understand why someone would do that.”

Of course she doesn’t understand how his mind worked. She’s too sweet, too kind, too gentle and innocent to comprehend the level of depravity it takes to use people the way he used his pack members.

“Some people will do anything to feel powerful. They don’t care who they hurt or what they have to do, as long as they’re at the top.”

She hugs her knees to her chest like a shield. “That’s a terrible mindset to have and a terrible way to lead.”

“I agree.”

Her brows pinch together. “I told myself it doesn’t matter, but I can’t stop wondering why he went to Silver Ridge instead of coming here?”

“No one in your pack knew where you went after you left your first class.” I had pondered why she didn’t ask that after she woke up in the hospital. I’d chalked it up to her being too overwhelmed. “Dad and I think his plan was to question every pack to find you, but Alpha Julian intentionally provoked him into attacking so he’d have an excuse for getting rid of him.” I purse my lips together, ignoring the clenching in my gut when I speak about the alpha of Silver Ridge. “I don’t agree with Alpha Julian’s methods, but—”

“I’m glad Justin is dead,” Emily whispers, eyes locked on the ground. “Does that make me as evil as him?”

“Only if it makes me evil too. Because I’m also glad he’s dead.”

Her gaze remains trained on the grass, distant and haunted, and I risk ruining the moment by putting my hand on her knee. “I hope you don’t think we’d ever treat you the way he did.”

“Part of me doesn’t know what to think. I’ve only ever known one truth, and now I’m told that truth is actually a lie? A mindset like that doesn’t switch overnight.”

“I know.” I squeeze her kneecap, reassuring her with my touch as well as my words. “And I promise I will do whatever it takes to prove to you that what you knew in Lupine River is not the way the majority of packs think and not the way they treat their members.”