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Miguel looked cool and collected on the outside, his lecturing of Ivo aside, but inside he must have been in full panic mode trying to figure out the best way to keep his mate and their cub out of harm’s way.
The guilt intensified, and Ivo swallowed hard, failing to rid his throat of the growing lump of emotion.
“Miguel,” he said quieter, and when the Alpha looked his way, he continued, “I’m sorry to have put them in danger. Everyone. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” Miguel said, running a hand through his thick, lustrous black-brown hair, the kind that drove all the girls wild when they’d been teens. “I know, Ivo.”
Hearing him say the words was like hearing them from a disappointed parent, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants, which he had taken from the bin of random clothing in the cave common area—for idiot shifters who shifted without thinking or left their clothes behind. Then, without another word, he made his way back to the mouth of the cave, head down and mind wandering in just about every direction.
Only everything came to a piercing halt when he faced the rest of the clan. Their conversations died completely. For a moment, everyone sat or stood in silence, Ivo included, watching one another, until Ivo cleared his throat and pressed onward to the mouth of the cave. Every time he tried to meet a gaze, he was denied when the shifter in question turned away. Espie. Copper. Taymond. All of them. They couldn’t meet his eyes, and he knew that if they did, all he’d see staring back was anger.
So he left in silence and carried on down the mountainside in a fog until finally all the guilt and rage and self-hatred consumed him. He disappeared into the forest, coated with a warm spring mist, and let his black bear run until he couldn’t feel anything anymore.
