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“What the hell were you thinking?” he snapped even before the shift had faded, voice deep. “I told you to wait.”
I felt prickly. Snappish. “You’re not my Alpha.”
He took a step toward me, chest heaving. “I’m not trying to be. I’m your—” He shook his head angrily. “All I want is to keep you safe. You were out here by yourself, not knowing what the fuck was going on. That’s not what we do. That’s not how a pack works.”
I laughed in his face. “I can handle myself.”
“That’s not the point, Gordo. You shouldn’t need to. Not when you have me to—”
“I don’t have you. For anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “We’re pack. That counts for something. You don’t have to take on this shit alone.”
“Really?” I stepped forward, my chest bumping his. He didn’t move. He wasn’t intimidated. The air around us felt hot. “Because I had to take on this shit alone for years, and I still made it through. Where were you then, Mark?”
I saw the moment the words hit just as hard as I’d hoped they would. It was brief, but it looked like it hurt. It didn’t make me feel as good as I thought it would. “I did what I could,” he said quietly, face schooled to a blank mask. “When I could. You don’t know everything. What I did to keep you—” He shook his head. “You have a pack now. You’re not alone anymore. If you can’t trust me, at least trust them. You could have been hurt.”
“It’s not about trust.”
“It’s about something.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now. Not out here. Maybe not at all. “It doesn’t matter.”
Mark sighed. “Of course it doesn’t.”
We stood there in the dark, staring at each other, for far longer than we should have. There were things I wanted to say to him, furious things filled with rage. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his neck snapped. I wanted him to put his teeth against my throat and suck so hard, the mark would never fade. I wanted to walk away and leave him behind. I wanted to breathe in the scent of him, warm and alive and—
He was wincing, holding his arm across his chest. It was still healing, the skin still partially shredded and irritated, an awkward lump of bone jutting up.
“Idiot,” I muttered, reaching out and touching him gently. He growled at me, flinching as he tried to pull his arm back. “Knock it off, you dick. I’m helping you.”
I pulled some of the pain away.
It burned.
My head pounded harder.
There was no way I was going to escape this headache.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said quietly. “It’ll heal on its own.”
“You looked pathetic. And I don’t like hearing you bitch when you get hurt. You never shut up about it.”
“I don’t bitch.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re almost as bad as Carter.”
“That’s cold, Gordo. Carter’s terrible when it comes to pain.”
“Exactly.”
He laughed. It was such an odd sound to hear. After what we’d just been through. After everything we’d done. Here, in t
he dark, hearing him laugh reminded me of the way things once had been. And the way things could be if I just—
It took a moment for it to hit me. How close I was standing to him. How hot his skin felt under my fingers. How incredibly naked he was. I was used to the nudity of wolves, having been around it for most of my life. You couldn’t be in a pack and not be.
We weren’t with the pack now.
