That crazy womanwas Natalie, no doubt, who had been the one to kick his door down and beat him with a baseball bat while he was still trying to recover from the wound Giselle had inflicted. Actually, now that I thought about it, his only real injuries had come from two women. Any hurt that we’d gotten in battle had no doubt healed within the hour. That was kind of humbling.
“So, when you randomly broke your routine to drive somewhere at night, I followed you. And once I saw you help a woman into your car and then sit there for fifteen minutes, I figured she had to be some sort of secret mate, or at least someone important to you.”
It felt invasive that somewhere, just out of the range of my senses, Melton had observed an intimate moment between Giselle and me. Not sexually of course, but deeply emotional, and I’d been quite vulnerable.
“You didn’t think it was weird that she was a human?”
“I didn’t really think about anything at all, if I’m being honest. Or at least anything outside of doing what I felt was my duty. All my mind could focus on was the fact that you had killedmy baby brother, and I had failed him. Like I wouldn’t even be able to breathe or sleep if I didn’t make you hurt how I hurt.
“So, once I had the tiniest clue that there was a way to do that, I jumped on it. I took her away, and I fully intended to tear her throat out the moment I heard you were close enough so you’d arrive right as she took her last breaths.”
My wolf and I didn’t like that, and I nearly let out a snarl. I tamped that down, though, reminding myself that hadn’t happened. If I wanted to hear Melton’s answers, I shouldn’t discourage him from verbalizing what he had thought in the moment. Even if it was horrific.
“But you didn’t do that,” I managed to say once the growl stopped trying to force its way out of my throat.
“No. I didn’t.”
More walking, more burning silence as we navigated along the path. Occasionally, sticks crunched beneath our boots, or we’d kick away an errant pebble, but other than that, it was as if the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for the culmination of our interaction.
“Why?”
“I just couldn’t. She was so scared, but also so calm, and when she looked at me with those crazy big eyes of hers, I thought of everyone else in my life I’d met with that same eye color. Kids. Adults. Shifters. Humans. And suddenly I wouldn’t just be killing her, I would be killing all of them. Innocent people who didn’t deserve it. Didn’t ask for it.”
Although I saw so much of myself in Melton, I still was cautious, even apprehensive, in his presence. Not sure whether to expect violence or anything else. But as his confession continued to tumble from his lips, I understood he was truly nothing like that awful roving pack of murderers that had destroyed everything I’d loved. He was a lost wolf. Maybe even a broken wolf. But he wasn’t a murderer.
“I think, before I even stopped the car, I realized I couldn’t do it. But right then, I was in the middle of it, I didn’t know how to get out. It wasn’t like I could ditch her there when I knew you were hunting us down.”
It certainly would have made for a weird but much less traumatic story.
“Do you wish you had?” I asked.
“No.”
He said it with such finality that I was actually taken aback. “Why not?”
“Because in some strange, fucked-up way, I needed what happened that night.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for Melton to fill in the gaps. The muscles of his jaw tensed and jerked every time he clenched his teeth. I listened as his heart raced, one second thumping along with the cadence of terror, the next with the persistent rush of rage, only to dive into the slow drudgery, the sticky mire of guilt. I remembered that rollercoaster, and I didn’t wish it on him.
“The moment I heard you, all this anger and hatred that had nowhere to go and was just ruminating inside of me suddenly had a target.”
“That target was me, I’m guessing?”
“Of course. Who else? I’d had this poison in me for months, and for so long it felt like I was rotting, just slowly decomposing from within. But then you were there, and I had someone to take it out on. Someone who wasn’t me.”
I took a slow, deep breath, remembering that fight. Melton had truly been vicious, and although he was smaller than me, he attacked with strength and prowess one wouldn’t expect from a wolf who wasn’t an alpha or a beta. I also recalled how damn similar his wolf form was to his little brother’s, and howmy mind began to mesh the two together, making it hard to distinguish when or where I was and who I was fighting.
I’d been losing. That never would have happened before the massacre. It really was insane how trauma could affect every single aspect of my life, including battle.
“I was consumed by it,” Melton continued, “and I know that’s a bad thing, but it was like having a fever. I was practically on fire, but it was burning through all of that decay that had been festering in me.
“I couldn’t see out of it, I couldn’t reason, so I don’t think I would have stopped on my own. But once I was forced to, I was left feeling empty and almost like all of that rot was scraped out.”
“I think I understand what you mean,” I said softly. Although his process wasn’t quite like mine, I understood the weird absence after a great and terrible rage. I remember staring at the inferno of the murderers’ lair after I enacted my revenge and expected to feel something like satisfaction, or even justice. But mostly, all I’d felt was an aching void of everything I’d lost.
That was about when I realized that my entire vengeance quest, while necessary to stop the roving pack from murdering more and more innocents, had really just been a delaying tactic, so I didn’t have to come to terms with everything I had lost.
“Yeah, I figured if anyone did, it would be you.” He shook his head and drew in a rattling breath. “I’m not gonna lie, though, I don’t think anythin’ else other than what your mate did would have been able to knock me out of that berserker state.” At that, he gave me a side eye, which I really didn’t expect. It almost would have been comical if we were in any other situation. “You have made her your mate by now, right?”
