Her gaze moves to my face. To the scar. I know what she’s looking at. I always know. The three jagged lines pull at my skin when I move, a constant reminder of everything I lost.
“How did you get that scar?”
Of all the things she could have asked, she went straight for the wound.
I could deflect. Change the subject. Shut this whole conversation down.
But I hear my mother’s voice.Be vulnerable.
“My brother,” I say.
Her eyes widen slightly. “Your brother did that to you?”
“I challenged him for Alpha.” The words come out rough, dragged from somewhere deep. “Leading the clan... it’s all I ever wanted. Since I was a cub, I dreamed about it. Trained for it. Believed it was my destiny.”
I pause, the familiar ache settling in.
“I lost.”
She’s quiet, waiting for more.
“When you challenge an Alpha and fail, he has the right to kill you. That’s the law. That’s how it’s always been.” I touch the scar without meaning to, tracing the raised edges. “But Ronan... he’s my brother. He loves me as much as I love him. So he gave me this instead. A mark of what I tried to take and couldn’t.”
“But you left anyway.”
“He offered me Beta. Second in command.” I shake my head, the old bitterness rising. “I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t stand beside him as second when I’d spent my whole life wanting to be first. My bear’s pride was shattered. So I left. Exiled myself.”
“That wasn’t his choice,” she says quietly. “It was yours.”
“Yes.”
She studies me for a long moment, those olive-toned eyes seeing more than I want her to see.
“That’s a lot of pride for one person to carry.”
The words land. Not cruel, just... true.
“Yes,” I say again. “It is.”
It’s different now. Softer somehow. She’s looking at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. Not the monster who crushed her phone and ripped off her car door. Just a man with a scar and too much pride and years of loneliness weighing him down.
“Why are you being so nice to me now?”
The question hits me sideways. I knew it was coming eventually, but not now. I don’t have a ready answer. Or I do, but I’m not ready to give it.
“Because I’ve been cruel,” I say finally. “To you. To everyone.”
She doesn’t argue. We both know it’s true.
“I’ve spent years pushing people away. Making themmiserable because I was miserable.” I think about Merit at the school, the way she looked at me with pity and disgust. Derrick, who keeps trying despite everything. The cleaning ladies who fled down the mountain in tears. “The people in town cross the street when they see me coming. Derrick keeps sending workers up here even though I run them all off. My own mother has to ambush me just to see my face.”
I meet her eyes.
“I’m tired of being that person. I’m tired of being alone because I’m too proud to be anything else.”
She doesn’t respond right away. I can see her processing, turning my words over in her mind. Looking for the trap, the manipulation, the angle.
She won’t find one. For the first time in years, I’m telling the truth.
