That snapped me out of it.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, running a rough hand through my hair. “Sorry.”
“I need you to listen to me carefully.” Poppy gripped my hands. Then his gaze pinned mine. He didn’t let me look away. “This is not the past. We do not live in the past.”
I nodded vaguely, hearing his words but not truly understanding them, and he knew it. He growled again, louder. It was jarring to hear such a foreboding sound coming from Poppy. It startled me, grounding me back to earth. I focused on the sensation of his soft fingers digging into my skin; of his worried but warm eyes peering into mine.
“Don’t get swallowed up by your memories. Stay with me,” Poppy urged. “Ineedyou. Here, now.”
“I know.” It came out as a hiss between my teeth. “I’ll go now. I can get there before—”
“What did you say?” Poppy interrupted. His brows knitted. “You saidI’llgo, didn’t you? You’re trying to go without me.”
My shock turned into understanding, then disappointment. I didn’t want to have this argument with him.
“Whatever happens, I am not taking you back there, Poppy,” I stated. “I won’t do it.”
Poppy’s stare was resolute. “I’m going.”
“You can’t!”
“I can, and I will.” Poppy’s voice took the sharpest edge I’d ever heard. “Sorrel ismybrother. He’s my responsibility. And I left him behind.”
My voice cracked from guilt. “No,Idid.”
“In the last decade and a half, I never went back for him. Not to check if he was alive. Not to rescue him. Not once.” Tears glistened in Poppy’s eyes, but he remained strong while I turned brittle. “You’re not the only one who wanted to forget the past.”
I stared at him with an aching heart. Shame I’d barely locked away gnawed at me from the inside. The overwhelming memory that Jade’s warning conjured was so intense that it threatened to bring me to my knees.
Yet Poppy, who shared that memory, remained standing.
He was stronger than me. He always had been.
But it was my duty to protect my fated mate, and the idea of deliberately returning him to that evil place warred with my instincts. I’d already failed him as an alpha once. I wouldn’t be able to handle it again.
“Konrad is dead,” Poppy said quietly. “Without him, the clan is probably a shell of its former self. Rorik knows the state of it. We can talk to him.”
I shook my head. “I can’t bring him into this. Not when he has toddlers.”
“We’re not asking him to fight,” Poppy pointed out.
I winced when he saidwe.A pang of fear pierced my chest. I spoke louder than I meant to. “You can’t come.”
Poppy’s eyes flashed with emotion, then sharpened. He stepped closer to me, challenging, chest to chest. Then he proudly raised his face and stared at me with wolf’s eyes.
“Youpromised.”
The statement shook me to the core. I remembered the exact conversation that inspired Poppy’s words now, years later.
But the next time there’s a big adventure, you’re not leaving me behind.
Okay, okay. I promise.
My jaw dropped at his audacity before I slowly let out a resigned chuckle.
“That’s a low blow,” I said.
He pouted. “You deserved it.”
