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“Shouldn’t you ask Stone that?”
“I don’t think this is just about what Stone wants anymore, even if he is the alpha.”
I scoffed. “You could try telling him that too, but it would go about as well as when you told him off in the woods.”
She fixed me with a sharp look. “Are you ever going to stop trying to float through life, Shaw? You have so much to offer the world. The pack.Amelia.”
Funny how that last one hit the hardest.
I flashed her a smile. “I don’t have much to offer anyone but a good time.”
She snorted. “You don’t have much to offer but bullshit. That’s bullshit, Shaw. They need you.”
She didn’t specify whotheywere, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
CHAPTER43
Amelia
I didmy best to stay out of Stone’s way, and he was certainly staying out of mine. I didn’t see him again that night. Karissa tried to talk to me, and I knew she wanted to smooth things over, but I couldn’t pretend.
Some things can’t be forgiven.
When I was getting ready for bed, there was a knock on the door. I glanced at Dylan as I walked to the door. Dylan was already asleep, laying like a starfish in the exact middle of the king-sized bed. Somehow I’d still end up hanging off the edge of that huge bed tonight.
I opened the door, steeling myself to face Stone’s stubborn face or Karissa’s cheerful chatter.
But it was Shaw, leaning in my doorway with a steaming mug and a plate of cookies. He offered them to me.
“You can set them on the balcony,” I whispered. That was where I liked to sit and read at night after Dylan was asleep, so my light wouldn’t bother him.
The view of the creek and the forest seemed magical in the evening. Sometimes fireflies flitted through the trees, little golden sparks of light winging over the grass, and the moon reflected off the burbling creek. When nature was so beautiful, it didn’t seem right that life was so messy.
He nodded and carried them to the balcony, and I slipped out behind him.
“The tea should help you sleep without nightmares,” he said.
“Oh, thank you.” Now that I knew how often Liam had been by my side in my dreams, for some reason when I thought of avoiding nightmares I imagined him standing there alone in the dreamworld. It seemed strangely like a betrayal.
His lips twisted bitterly. “Louisa can be good for something. She made a potion to help you relax.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle, which he stepped back and set on the dresser before he rejoined me.
I glanced down at the steaming mug. I didn’t want it, knowing it came from Louisa.
And Teresa… I didn’t know if I’d ever forgive her for the bored, dismissive sound of her voice when she told me not to fight back, as she helped push me into my nightmares. I felt tense around Teresa, but there was something about her that I admired, too. She seemed to walk so confidently through a man’s world, being so unapologetically herself but finding her own way. And she despised me.
I felt brittle and sad and it was all the worse because I’d felt happy for a little while. Safe.Having that wrenched away made me feel so alone.
Shaw looked at me as if he wanted to say something, but what was there to say? He couldn’t defend Stone.
He couldn’t promise me this was the last time Stone would hurt me, either. Not when Stone was convinced it was what he had to do as alpha.
I drew the curtain shut, then closed the French doors behind us. I wanted to be close enough if Dylan needed me, close enough to protect him.
But I needed someone myself tonight.
I just wasn’t sure if I would ever have anyone I could truly trust. Not here in the King pack.
“Liam’s going to stay wolfed out for a while, I guess,” Shaw said.
