His face contorts in anguish. Eyes wide, he looks away, blinking rapidly. I’ve never seen an alpha cry, and I think this one wants to. It makes my own eyes burn, and I don’t know why.
“Does she know I’m your scent match?” I ask.
Lottie.CharlotteMeeks. Like my destroyed nest, she’s another fragment from a painful past I try never to think about. The nest represented something I wanted to kill. Charlotte—Lottie—their childhood friend, represents something even more painful.
Fear. They told me she means nothing to them. That she’s deathly sick and is like a sister to them, but a part of me isterrified to believe it because a betrayal like that goes beyond anything I could forgive. Even if it meant I died from bond sickness.
He nods. “It’s why she refused to run or try to escape. She thought you’d be the one who paid the price.”
When I think of how long she’s been trapped a hostage, for years, my heart hurts for her. “I wish I could help her.”
He reaches out to take my right hand, which I have resting on my knee, lifts it, and brushes a soft kiss across my knuckles. “Every time you open your mouth, you remind me of how unworthy I am of your love and forgiveness. We’ll figure out a way to get her out without risking you. But thanks for wanting to help, Juniper. Lottie would appreciate it as well.”
When a cool draught drifts from my poorly insulated windows, I pull my hand from his loose grasp and wrap my sheet tighter around myself, hiding my shiver.
A tiny frown forms between his brows. “You’d be more comfortable in bed than on the couch,” he says, his eyes flicking to it.
The one look reminds me of last night. Every touch and caress was exactly what I needed, and that scares me. I haven’t forgiven him, and I’m terrified biology will make me want him so badly that I’ll stop caring and keep falling into bed with him.
Alphas and omegas have a natural pull toward each other. But mates? Even when I hate them, a part of me still wants them. I’m scared that want will make me forget my anger.
I scoff. “So you can have more sex?”
“No.” He tucks a strand of blonde hair behind my ear, and I will never know why I don’t stop him. “I won’t lie to you. Last night was one of the best nights of my life, and of course I want to repeat it, but this couch is old and worn,” he says, provinghewas responsible for the new furniture that everyone in this apartment building is having delivered soon. He presses a gentlekiss on my forehead. “You’ll be more comfortable in bed with a comforter than a thin sheet.”
Suddenly, I want to cry. “I hate it when you’re nice to me.”
“Because you don’t believe I mean it?”
“Because Idobelieve it.” I swallow more tears. “I believe it so much, and I keep thinking that you could have been like this with me all this time, and you weren’t. And that hurts.”
The same stricken look passes across his face. “Do you want me to stop?”
There’s a slight wildness in my abrupt laugh. “Stopbeing nice to me?” I drag the back of my hand over my wet eyes and shake my head.
“Do you want me to go?” he asks, even quieter.
“Not yet.”
“Okay,” he says, and he gets up, confusing me until he walks over to my bed, picks up the comforter and returns to tuck it around me. He checks to make sure I’m fully wrapped and nods. “Better.”
As he sits back on the edge of the coffee table closest to me, I study him. Not covertly under my lashes the way I did before. Openly.
My gaze lingers on dirty-blond hair, tousled from when I ran my fingers through it. Pretty gray-blue eyes, like a summer storm. His strong, hard body. Even if he hadn’t been my scent match, he’d have caught my eye. With how he made me feel in bed, he’d havekeptmy attention.
“What is it?” he asks with a slight smile that says he knows what I’m thinking, and would like nothing more than for me to keep thinking it.
On the outside, he’s the handsome I like. Inside, he’s the sweet and gentle I love. But I’m taking a chance thatthisversion of Callum is the real deal, not a pretense created to win me back.“I don’t know if I can forgive when every time I look at you, I remember all the ways you hurt me.”
Baring my soul—my wounds—hurts. But I’m tired and sick of those hurts just beingmyhurts.Mywounds.Myfestering scabs that I endlessly pick open so they can never heal.
His smile fades. “Can we try making new memories with you, Juniper?” he says with the gentle honesty I’m slowly getting used to. “They won’t replace the bad ones, but Icangive you more than pain. We all can.”
I tilt my head, curious. “Like what?”
He shrugs. “Whatever you want to do. Something new.”
With my arms wrapped around my raised knees, I ask, “Why did you fix my apartment last?”
