“Wh-what?” Heath repeated, at a higher pitch this time.
“Jez!” Tony squeaked, sounding completely appalled.
I stared him down. “Well, it’s not likeyouwere going to say it if I didn’t.”
Heath’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. He snapped his jaw shut and swallowed before trying again. The wall shielding the bond started to shake. The cracks running through it widened, until huge chunks began to tumble free.
“Is this true?” he asked hoarsely.
Tony balled up his fists. “Of course it’s fucking true! I’ve wanted you since the day you showed up at my apartment and cleared away a body for me as though it was nothing!”
Heath made a choking noise and shoved away from the table, staggering to his feet. His mental wall crumbled to dust as he crossed to a bare section of wall and slid down it, sitting hard on the floor. His presence flooded into me, unfiltered. I gasped, clutching at the edge of the counter behind me to keep from following him down.
Gage looked between us, clearly worried and unsure what to do.
A terrible wave of guilt, every bit as strong as what I felt over Knox, slammed against me—threatening to wash me away beneath its force. But... why wouldHeathfeel guilty?Iwas the one who’d fucked everything up—
“You should both stay as far away from me as possible,” Heath rasped. “You two, of all people...”
Gage was still hovering, unsure who to fuss over.
“Heath, you need to talk to us properly,” he said. “We don’t understand what you’re saying... and we need to understand.”
Heath slammed a fist into the unyielding tile floor. It echoed with a meatysmack.
“I would have raped a kid!” he shouted. “Is that fuckingclear enoughfor you? They injected me with drugs, and I would have become the same kind of monster we fight, if my scent match hadn’t been locked up down the hall! If she hadn’t broken out and rescued that... thatchildfrom me!He was just a child!”
My fingernails dug into the counter as I gasped for air, caught in the undertow of my mate’s horror and self-loathing. The echo of long-ago hands pawing at me blotted out the pleasant kitchen, and my own moan of denial emerged from Heath’s mouth instead of mine as he felt what I felt.
“Shit.” Gage’s curse barely reached me through the maelstrom. “Stop it—bothof you!”
I felt a jolt and peered through blurry eyes, finding Gage crouched in front of Heath and giving him a sharp shake of the shoulders. Amazingly, it helped a bit.
“You wouldn’t have hurt the kid.” Tony’s voice was shaky, but his words had the ring of certainty behind them.
“You don’t know that,” Heath said, still sounding like he’d swallowed sandpaper.
“ThehellI don’t.” Tony was gaining strength now, stepping toward Heath and pointing a finger down at him accusingly. “I saw you afterward! You’d clawed furrows in your own goddamned face! You’d have torn your own throat out with your bare hands if that’s what it took to keep that poor kid safe! Iknowyou! You think I’d let just anyone stick their dick up my fucking ass, after what wasdone to me? Ofcourseyou wouldn’t have hurt him!”
I drew in great lungfuls of air, as the force of Tony’s words broke us both free of our spiraling emotions. Tears were streaming down my friend’s cheeks.
“Tony...” Heath said weakly.
“Yeah, I’m with him, actually,” Gage put in, his tense stance easing a bit. “Now, why don’t you talk to him about why you pushed him away after you slept with him?”
Heath looked up at Tony imploringly. “You literally told me that was all you wanted! I figured if a one-night stand was all I was going to get, it was better than nothing!”
Tony gaped at him. “You... would have said yes if I’d asked for more?”
Heath made an awful croaking noise that was probably a laugh. “I would have warned you off, because I’m an emotionally stunted alcoholic asshole, and you deserve better. But... yeah. And then you would have regretted it within a month.”
Tony flopped down on the floor in front of him as though his knees had decided to stop working.
“Oh,” he whispered.
Gage crossed his arms and huffed. “So, can we all agree that the people to blame for putting that omega kid in danger—and for setting Jez up to get bitten without proper consent—are the ones that kidnapped you and injected you with stim shots?”
“Yes,” I said, because despite what Heath seemed to think, there was really no arguing with that.
