He remained motionless.
She sucked in a breath, hard and rattling. “I wanted to shift,” she said simply, “I wanted it so badly. For so long. I thought that maybe I had been given these powers as…as some sort of test. That if I just worked at it and tried andtriedthat I could…” She shook her head, wiping her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“You wanted to shift,” Dominic said simply.
She nodded, then her face crumpled.
He took a step forward, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” His voice was low again, rough with barely-contained rage. “If the pack finds out, if theysmellthat kind of power on you, they’ll think I’ve been compromised. They’ll think I’ve let a witch into our ranks, into our home—”
“Into your bed?” Layla’s voice cracked, raw with pain. “Is that what this is about? That you’re ashamed of me?”
Dominic froze.
The question hit too close to the truth.
“No,” he said tightly, though the denial sounded like a lie, “this isn’t about that.”
“Then what is it about?” she demanded. “You think I don’t know what I am? What they think of me? I’ve lived under pack rules my entire life. I’ve put up with every insult hurled at me. I’ve smiled and bowed and kept quiet while they called me low-born, worthless…and still, I stayed. Still, I tried. I—”
Her breath hitched, tears glinting in her eyes, “I saved you. Even though out of all of them,youwere always the cruelest to me.”
Dominic’s heart stuttered at the reminder.
Her voice softened, breaking apart. “I didn’t do it for power. I didn’t do it to betray you. I did it because I—”
“Stop,” he said sharply, and she did, her lips parting in shock.
The silence that followed was worse than any shouting.
Dominic turned away, pacing, trying to find air in the thick quiet. He could still feel the hum of the bond between them, weaker now, frayed at the edges. Every pulse of it reminded him that she was his mate, that her heartbeat was half his. That he was bound to someone he could never truly trust.
His voice was quieter when he spoke again, but it carried the weight of command. “You don’t understand what this means.”
Layla wiped her face with the back of her hand, trembling. “Then explain it to me.”
“You’ve jeopardized the entire pack,” he said, “if they find out that the Alpha’s mate is a witch, they’ll see weakness. They’ll think Skymist has been cursed, corrupted. Leonid will use it to tear us apart.”
Her expression hardened. “Leonid doesn’t need me to destroy you. He’ll do it himself.”
“Don’t test me, Layla,” he growled.
But she didn’t back down. “You’re terrified,” she said. “Not of me. Of losing power. Of everyone thinking you’re weak.”
Dominic stopped mid-step. Turned.
“Weak?” he said, his voice low, shaking with fury, “I tore my own father’s head from his body. I turned the whole order of the pack upside down. I remade it how I wanted it. I bled for it. So don’t youdarestand there and tell me I’m weak.”
Layla’s tears spilled over. “Your mistake, Dominic,” she said, “was always thinking that any kind of strength different from your own is automatically a weakness. Maybe you can’t stand the fact that had magic been allowed, had I been permitted tobe who I actually am, to learn from those like me, that maybe I might have been strong? Maybe I still could be! Maybe I am! ”
He stared at her, chest rising and falling too fast. His anger was cracking apart at the seams now, revealing something messier beneath. “You really think you could go against me? That you have a hope in hell of overcoming me? I’ll show you exactly who the strongest person in the room is.”
She lifted her hands slightly, eyes glinting half-wild. “Why don’t youjust try.”
He considered her a moment, the static crackling at her fingers, the savagery in her snarl.
And he laughed.
“And this is what magic truly is,” he said, waving his hand at her. “Thank you for reminding me.”
