We weren't going to let her go. Ever. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she fought, no matter how much she hated us, we would never, ever let her go. Most people would find that terrifying.
I found it comforting.
"Same time tomorrow?" I asked, my playful tone returning, my smile sliding back into place like a mask. "I've got plenty more truths to share. And lies."
"Go to hell," Ava muttered, not looking at me, her voice thick with exhaustion.
"Only if you come with me," I replied, standing and stretching, my gray eyes never leaving her huddled form. "It wouldn't be hell without you, Red. Just boring eternity."
I walked away before she could respond, feeling her gaze burning into my back. Through the bond, I felt her hatred, bright and hot and beautiful. Underneath it, buried so deep she probably didn't even know it was there, I felt something else.
Curiosity.
She wanted to know more. Wanted to understand us. Wanted to find the cracks in our armor so she could exploit them. Little did she know, there were no cracks. We were solid. United. Bound together by our love for her and our absolute refusal to let her go.
I'd let her keep looking. Let her keep playing the game.
It was more fun that way.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AVA
I couldn't stop thinking about what Leo had told me.
Both his arms. Three ribs. His jaw. A stranger. A man who had touched my hair at a coffee shop and said something about how pretty it was. A man I'd smiled at politely and forgotten five minutes later.
Leo had followed him home. Learned his name, his address, his habits. And then he'd beaten him nearly to death. For touching my hair.
The horror of it sat in my chest like a stone, heavy and cold and impossible to ignore. Every time I looked at Leo, his easy smile, his dancing gray eyes, his playful charm—I saw something else now. The monster beneath the mask. The violence coiled behind that pretty face like a snake waiting to strike. They were all monsters. I'd known that. But knowing it in the abstract and knowing it in the specific were two very different things.
I sat in my nest, knees drawn to my chest, staring at nothing. The afternoon light filtered through the curtains, casting long golden shadows across the bedroom floor. The blankets aroundme smelled like all of them now, honey and pine and cedar and chocolate, layered together until I couldn't separate one scent from another. Three days since the game. Three days of Leo's revelation rattling around in my skull like a marble in an empty room. Three days of feeling their presence through the bond—their love, their certainty, their complete lack of remorse and wanting to scream.
Through the bond, I could feel them moving around the cabin. Mason's steady warmth in the kitchen, the clatter of pots accompanying his presence. Ethan's cool focus somewhere in his study. Caleb's patient intensity by the front door, always guarding. Leo's restless energy approaching down the hallway, getting closer with each passing second.
A knock on the doorframe. I looked up to find Leo leaning against it, one shoulder braced against the wood, his dark hair artfully mussed, that familiar smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. The late afternoon light caught the sharp angles of his face, made his gray eyes gleam like polished silver.
"Dinner's ready," Leo announced, his voice light and casual, as if he hadn't confessed to nearly killing a man three days ago. "Mason made that pasta you like. The one with the cream sauce and the?—"
Something snapped. I was off the bed before I knew I was moving, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor, crossing the room in three strides. My hand connected with his face in a crack that echoed through the cabin, the impact stinging my palm, vibrating up through my wrist.
Leo's head snapped to the side. When he looked back at me, there was a red handprint blooming across his cheekbone, vivid against his tan skin, and something dark flickering in his gray eyes. The smirk was gone. What remained was colder. Sharper. More honest.
"Feel better?" Leo asked, his voice soft and dangerous, pitched low enough that only I could hear, his body utterly still in a way that made my instincts scream. I hit him again. And again. My fists pounding against his chest, his shoulders, anywhere I could reach. The fabric of his black t-shirt bunched under my fingers, warm from his body heat. Screaming—I was screaming, I realized distantly, wordless sounds of rage and grief and helplessness tearing from my throat until it burned.
Leo let me. That was the worst part. He just stood there, solid as a wall, absorbing my blows without flinching, his gray eyes watching me with that patient intensity that made me want to claw his face off. Through the bond, I felt his emotions, not anger, not pain, but something worse. Fascination. Appreciation. Love.
He was enjoying this.
"You monster," I shrieked, my voice cracking, tears streaming down my face and dripping off my chin, blurring my vision until he was just a dark shape in front of me. "You fucking monster, you hurt someone, you almost killed someone, for nothing, for touching my hair?—"
"For touching what's mine," Leo corrected calmly, catching my wrists when I went for his face again, his grip iron-strong despite his lean frame. His fingers wrapped completely around my wrists, cool and dry against my flushed skin. "There's a difference."
"I wasn't yours!" I screamed, struggling against his hold, my whole body shaking with fury, my pulse pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples. "I was never yours, I didn't even know you were watching me, you had no right?—"
"I had every right," Leo interrupted, his voice still calm, still patient, still terrifying in its absolute certainty. His gray eyes bored into mine, unblinking, pupils dilated despite the bright light. "You've been mine since you were young. Every man wholooked at you wrong, every Alpha who got too close, every stranger who dared to touch you, they were all trespassing. I just made sure they understood that."
I spat in his face. The saliva hit his cheek, catching the light as it slid down toward his jaw. Time seemed to slow. I watched his expression shift—the mask slipping further, the predator emerging from beneath the charming surface. His gray eyes went cold as winter ice, his grip on my wrists tightening until the bones ground together and I gasped in pain.
