“Be my mate.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She’s glaring again. She tilts her head to the side in disbelief and her sass fuels my urge to annoy the shit out of her.
“I’m not.”
“What would being my mate do?”
“They are going to ask you to be part of their Pack, and as your mate, that invitation is extended to me too,” I say with a smile of my own.
There’s a rumble in the building, and the noise scares my little cub, and she trembles. Her little quivers are adorable. I raise my eyebrow in question, and the scathing glare she gives me makes this day the best fucking day of my life.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes, Ghost, you can be my mate. On two conditions,” she says. I wonder what the vixen wants, and I’m all ears to what could possibly make her agree to being my soul mate.
“What?”
“One, set me free, and two, give me a year.”
“A year for what?” I don’t know if I have a year, if my family has a year, but if she’ll easily agree, then what could it really hurt?
“A year to convince the Pack we’ve been seeing each other, and a year to get revenge.”
“Revenge,” I echo, raising an eyebrow.
“On my fucking brother.”
Little did she know, I was already planning on ruining Milo, so all in all, I win.
25
EDDIE
GettingWillow to step away from the meeting downstairs wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it to be, and that worries me more than soothes me. She’s yet to utter a word since I’ve gotten her up to my room and into the bathroom inside. My tongue is dry from not knowing what to say or do. My nerves are shot, and I should be the one to have it figured out, but I’m as lost as she is, and I can’t help but be disappointed in my lack of control over the situation.
Pulling out her bag from the trip to Kaler City, she only has one clean outfit left. It’s a long skirt with a matching purple tank top, and I pray it’s something she’s comfortable in. I watch her face as I set it neatly on the bathroom counter, but her face remains unchanged, as if it was set in stone and her eyes are empty.
Steam fills the room as I turn on the shower, and it warms up. It kills me to think that Layla is out there possibly hurt, but it absolutely has obliterated Willow. I help her undress, quickly undressing myself and sliding on a shower cap over her hair as I guide us into the shower. My own braids will just have to frizz at this point.
She stands stock-still in the shower, and I quickly lather soap and clean her and myself. Starting with our faces and working my way down, I quick use our shower. Dried blood and dirt from my fight with Mr. Barrow colors the shower floor. I see her grimace, and I almost sigh in relief. Sadness is better than nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters, turning around to face me with her big, sad eyes and down-turned lips.
I land a quick kiss on her lips before switching us around so I can rinse off quickly before putting her back under the water.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” I say as I get us out of the shower and cover her skin with lotion.
“What am I going to do?” she mutters, and something cracks in my heart when I hear her useIinstead ofwe,but I know it’s my fault. My heart plummets as I remember our conversations today, when I was sure she was going to say she thinks I am her fated mate.
I’m wishing now that I would have let her say the words, but I knew I couldn’t hear them unless she was 100 percent sure. I couldn’t hear her admit the words out loud and let her think there was any possibility that I could walk away for any sort of reason after that.
I couldn’t do it, and so I stopped her. I stopped her from potentially creating a monster she’ll only be able to get rid of by death.
“You are going to get dressed,” I tell her, lifting her foot and rubbing lotion on it, messaging her foot as she maintains her balance by gripping the counter.
“Then what?” she says, and her voice is low and vulnerable that I flinch. I stare at her feet, unable to look anywhere else because if I meet her eyes and see the pain I know is filling them, it might crush me. Her teardrops land on my back as she cries again.
