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“Us?I thought ‘us’ was in this room.”
He glares. “Not this bullshit again.”
Suddenly, Orson pushes away from the desk and interjects. “Look, she came back for you, but it was too late.”
Dammit, Orson.I appreciate his desire to help, but he may have just dug me a bigger hole. Max raises his eyebrows at me. “So youdoknow what happened?”
Orson has the good sense to look guilty. He glances from me to his bare feet. “A little.”
“And I’m guessing you do, too?” Max asks me, his words biting.
I hold his gaze, daring him to keep accusing me of murdering those people. “A little.”
“Did you fight it?” Braxton is staring at me, probably remembering how I almost let my brother kill me last time, before I let him go,, but he doesn’t say so.
“I tried,” I admit, not liking the way this conversation is goingat all.
“Why didn’t you use your powers like last time?” Braxton asks with genuine curiosity. “Last time you were winning…”
He doesn’t mention I was winning until I chose to stop, and for that, I’m thankful. I’m already in enough hot water. I don’t need Max learning about yet another poor choice I made. It might be enough to completely destroy the tentative trust we’ve built between us.
I huff, scrambling to think of what to say, then blurt out a partial truth, “Because even feeding on all three of you wasn’t enough!”
Not for the silver magic that doesn’t call me to the darkness. If I had used the other kind of magic, I shiver. I think I could have killed my brother. I could feel it inside of me, calling me, coaxing me, and that scared the shit out of me. But I really thought I had time to keep trying. I just… couldn’t risk trying with my men’s lives on the line.
Maybe that makes me selfish. Or stupid. I don’t know.
“The three of us?” Braxton asks, his voice so cold it’s filled with ice.
Fuck.
This revelation, that I fed on Orson, lands harder than the first, given the looks of shock and horror on Max and Braxton’s faces. My mind goes to when I fed on both of them. When I fucked them. Is that what they’re picturing?
My wolf grows upset inside of me for reasons I don’t understand. She’s not afraid, but she’s disturbed, and shit like this doesn’t usually bother her.
In a soft voice, Max asks, “You fed on Orson?”
“You drank from the nerd?” Braxton paraphrases.
Is that what they’re really upset about? After everything I did? After fighting my brother? After saving them? Hell, I took a risk, and it ended in a bunch of dead people, all of whom would be alive right now if not for my decision to spare my brother. Isn’t that enough for me to handle?
“Fucking deal with it!” I tell them. “I will do anything in my power to save my pack.Anything.”
I realize when I say it I mean them, too, despite how much they’re pissing me off right now. Everything I’m doing is for the chance to save just a few of the people I love. Simon. The town. My neighbors. Luka, the schoolteacher who always gave me candies when I got the right answers. Mrs. Granger, who made the best cookies and always shared them with anyone who visited her. Hell, even creepy Greg, who freaked the fuck out when my brother started dating his ex. All of these people are the people I grew up with. Every memory I ever had was with them. So if I have to feed on every man in the state to save them, I will, and these two aren’t about to tell me what to do.
“Good to know,” Braxton finally says, his voice clipped.
Then, after a brief pause, Max asks, “Was feeding on him like feeding on us?”
I open my mouth to reply, but words fail me at the worst possible moment. Feeding on him was… similar to feeding on them, but that had so many implications that would be bad right now. Implications that would no doubt get these testosterone-fueled shifters even more angry.
The thing is, it’s not like I believe feeding on just anyone would be like feeding on them. I fed on people throughout my teen and adult years. It was a need that I filled, never sexual the way it has been with these three men. There’s just something different about Orson, something I don’t want to look at too carefully right now, that truth would not go over well now.
Max turns and angrily throws open the door, but I pull him back, my heart in my throat. “Max, c’mon, it’s not like you three are the only ones I’ve ever fed on. This doesn’t have to be a big deal”
He turns around. “There wereothers?”
I stammer a moment before answering, “But they weren’t like feeding on you three.”Fuck, I can’t get this right, can I?
