“I deserve this! How can you say I don’t deserve this?”
I gripped his wrists tightly, but instead of pushing him away, I pulled him in closer, using my alpha voice to exude comfort, understanding, and peace.
“You were a child in an impossible situation that you never should have been put in! It is not your fault! Do you hear me? None of this is your fault!”
The way he looked at me was so utterly heartbreaking that tears began to pool in my own eyes. But I pushed through. Because even with everything that was stolen from me, at mycore I was analpha, and it was my job to protect the weak. To care for and nurture those around me.
“I don’t understand how you can say that. Do I have to make you? Do I have to threaten to do something terrible? Please, please don’t make me. I just need to be punished. I need all this pain to end so I can finally be with my momma and my little brother again. So, if you have any sense of justice, any sort ofmercywithin you, you’ll release me from this hell I’m in!”
Such awful, devastating words, but at the same time, I completely understood where Melton was coming from. He carried the same shame and guilt and failure that I did, but the difference between him and me was that the people I was mourning were all truly innocent and had been targeted by others with evil in their hearts. In Melton’s case, those he loved were the ones who had done the harm, so he took every single death on as his own responsibility.
I couldn’t imagine that kind of pain. But I also understood that Melton needed some sort of sense of justice or punishment to ease that unending agony within him. At the moment, it was obvious he thought there was only one way to do that. But an idea was beginning to grow within me, an idea I wasn’t sure was viable.
But God damn, it was very clear to me that the lone wolf in front of me needed some shred of hope. Because if I walked away without giving him what he wanted, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t take his punishment into his own hands. And as crazy as it was, I didn’t want that for him.
Charles’s actions had caused so much pain. So much spilled blood and senseless loss of life. The idea of even one more drop from someone who was only tangentially involved was intolerable to me.
Steeling myself, I put firmness and command into my voice, squaring my shoulders as I did.
“If you truly believe that all of this is your fault, do you think you deserve mercy?”
“W-what?” Melton murmured, all the aggression that had been building in his posture immediately deflating.
“You heard what I said. If it’s true that my pack’s massacre is on your shoulders, how dare you come to me and ask me to be the one to reunite you with your loved ones while I walk this earth with only two survivors? Why should you have relief before me? Why should you be released from this pain if it’s caused by your own hand?”
I didn’t truly believe what I was saying, but I wanted Melton to hear the flaws within his own pained logic. I also understood that he was not in a place where I could convince him he deserved comfort or healing. If I wanted to save his life, I needed to meet him where he was at.
And despite everything, Ididwant to save his life.
He’d fucked up big time, but so much of him was still that abused kid trying to make up for the actions of an evil parent. That wasn’t right. And that wasn’t on him.
“I-I-I… uh?—”
I increased my grip on his wrist. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to ground him in the moment with me. “No. If you believe that you are responsible, then I do not release you from this hell.”
Something broke in him. I watched it in his face, and I hated it, but I also knew it had to happen. His mouth cracked open and big, ugly, racking sobs punched out of him. I was sure that if I wasn’t gripping him, he would be on the ground.
“You can’t do this! You can’t! I have nothing!” His teeth were growing, and his eyes were flickering between their natural color and a bright yellow, all the while snot and tears ran down his rippling face. “Every day, all there is, is pain. I have no pack, and I don’t deserve one! I have no future, and my past is wiped out.Please, please, I’m begging you. I know I don’t deserve this, but I can’t live like this anymore! I won’t!”
“Melton,” I said firmly, letting go of one of his wrists to grip the back of his head and make him look into my eyes. Once more, I called upon my alpha voice as I spoke.
“You said yourself that you owe me their blood, right?”
“Y-yes,” he whispered, barely audible.
“Then I should be the one to say how you repay that, not you.”
He drew in a shuddering breath. “Yes. Please, I need to paysomething.”
“I know. I understand.” As much as I wanted to dissolve into tears with him, to embrace him as well as my former self, who had been similarly tortured, I had to be strong. This was my moment as an alpha to begin to repair the deep wounds that Charles had inflicted on all of us. “I accept your debt, but I do not release you. You are to keep living and cannot purposefully allow harm to come to yourself.”
“Why? Just to have me suffer?”
“No, Melton. It’s because I want you toheal.”
“Heal?” he spat. “There is no healing from this!”
“I used to think the same. Trust me, it’s not an easy path, but it is possible. And I want you to make that journey.”
