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My eyes are broken and I’m not sure my soul is up to the challenge ahead. I’m really honestly fucking not. “But what if I can’t, Willow?” I ask softly. “What if I’m just like them? What if I’m the kind of man that power corrupts, no matter how hard I try to fight it?”
“Eat your snack cake,” she says. “It’s scientifically proven that men who eat pink snack cakes are incapable of becoming evil Alpha bully warlords.”
My lips try to lift, but the fear rampaging through me won’t tolerate a smile right now. “I’m serious. The council could remove me as Alpha, but they won’t. They’ve never recalled a pack leader, not in thousands of years of North Star history. There are basically no checks on my power except those I impose on myself.”
“Then we revise pack law to put more meaningful checks and balances in place,” she says, lifting her snack cake. “But first we have to make sure there’s still a pack around to reform. Which means figuring out if Cam has warped the memories of our people, too, or if we still have a chance to root him out before his cancer grows. Now seriously, eat your cake. I want to watch you eat something pink. I’m easily amused.”
I take the soft, almost sickeningly-sweet-smelling confection and pop it into my mouth in one bite, then chew soberly, holding her gaze until I swallow. “How was that? All you imagined and more?”
Her lips twitch. “Not quite, but pretty good. Next time I’ll bring you a pink cupcake with a unicorn horn on it covered in sprinkles and make it so big you won’t be able to eat it in one bite. That will be even better.” She nods and takes a bite of her cake, only to pull a face and immediately set the thing back down on the square of cardboard in front of her. “Oh. God. That’s awful. It tastes like poison.”
The thought spurs something in me. “We could try poison. Not enough to kill Cam, but enough to knock him out long enough to get him locked in a cell with something covering his mouth so he can’t confuse anyone else. But…”
She arches a brow as she reaches for her water bottle. “But?”
“But you’d have to do it. Not only will he be less suspicious of you than me, but Bane said something when I was in the pit. About you and Kelley probably being immune to the Forgetting Gift because your mother has it.”
Willow shakes her head. “But I wasn’t, remember? My mom did make me forget, until…”
I wince again, wondering if I’ll ever be able to do enough good for this woman to make up for all the pain I’ve inflicted.
Fuck, I hope so. I’m certainly going to try.
“But it wasn’t easy, right?” I ask. “You said she had to work with you for a long time to make the memory disappear.”
Her lips press together as she nods. “Yes. Several months. At least. I know I had nightmares for a long time. I kept getting in trouble at school for falling asleep in class because I wasn’t sleeping well at night.”
Misery flashes through my chest, and I want to travel back in time and comfort that little girl so much it shocks me. I’ve never had feelings like this about a lover before.
But with Willow…
I reach under the table to rest a hand on her knee. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
She cocks her head and lifts a shoulder. “It’s actually okay. Truly. If given the option, I wouldn’t have chosen to remember, but…I’m glad I did. It’s part of my life and what shaped me into the person I am. And I always felt like there was something at the bottom of my mind, you know? Something lurking in the dark that I spent so much time and energy avoiding.” She shakes her head. “And avoiding it gave it power. Now that the truth is out, it’s not as scary as I imagined and I’m stronger than I thought. And both of those things are good.”
“They’re very good.” I give her leg a gentle squeeze. “And I think that supports my theory, too. You never fully forgot the attack, and it took so long for your mother to suppress the memory… It makes me think that if you were only exposed to Cam’s Forgetting Gift for a short amount of time it wouldn’t have an effect on you.”
Willow nibbles her bottom lip. “It’s at least worth a shot. Assuming he hasn’t already convinced everyone in the tower that we’re evil and they should shoot us on sight the second we walk through the door.”
“We’ll do some scouting first. I’ll discreetly make contact with some of my most trusted people and see what I can sort out.” I rub the back of my aching neck. “Though probably not my father or Hermione.”
“In a coup type situation, Cam would go to work on them first,” Willow agrees.
“Exactly. But there are others, people who will probably slip past Cam’s radar, but who are loyal to the bone and will do what I ask without question.”
She takes another drink of water, smiling as she swallows. “See? You’re not all bad. You wouldn’t have people who loved you like that if you were a big bad Alpha bully all the time.”
Her words make me wince and shame rise inside me again. “You don’t have to try to make me feel better, Willow. You don’t have to comfort me. I hurt you. If anyone needs to be comforting and lifting someone up, it’s me.”
Willow nods, her expression sobering. “Maybe. But my heart doesn’t work that way, Maxim. You were brutally tortured, and you still look like a flick of my fingers could shatter you into a thousand pieces.”
“I’m fine,” I insist through a tight jaw.
“You’ve had tears in your eyes on and off pretty much constantly since the second you woke up on that table,” she says, not backing down. “And I know you well enough to know that’s not normal for you. You are hurting and damaged, and I don’t kick people when they’re down.” She covers my hand with hers under the table as she adds in a softer voice, “And I don’t want to kick you anyway. I don’t want to hate you or resent you or resist you. I just want to let go and trust that it’s safe to finish falling in love with you, and that you won’t hurt me again.”
The tears she called me out on stream down my cheeks as I promise, “Never. I swear on my father’s life. On Diana’s life. On the memory of my mother.” I pull in a ragged breath. “Who would have loved you, by the way. Your heart and your humor and your bravery. She would have been…a big fan.”
Willow sniffs, tears streaming down her face, too. “Then let’s do this, okay? Let’s take that big scary jump. Together. Let’s trust each other and be there for each other. Because I think Maggie was right about that, too—if we stick together, we can have peace. Not just for us, but for our people.”
