I was going to make Evan remember too.
I gripped the edge of the counter to stop myself leaping over it and thumping him. I’d need a step stool to reach his face, and I’d likely break my knuckles, but it’d be worth it. Anything so that he could feel an ounce of the pain his actions had caused me. “Clearly your memory is faulty then. Let me remind you.”
Chester stirred behind me. “Actually, Evan, I think you should leave. Now.”
It was sweet that Chester was speaking up for me, but nope. Evan had had his opportunity to leave and hadn’t taken it. Now he was going to face the consequences of his actions. “Nope. He had his chance. Now he’s going to be reminded exactly what kind of scum he is.”
Evan held up both his hands, like he was stupid enough to think that might placate me. “I’m telling you, man, I don’t know you.”
“Not this version of me, sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “But imagine me as a scrawny ten-year-old. Tattered shirt. A bruise around my wrist and a black eye that I told you I got from falling out of a tree. Ringing any bells now, hotshot?”
He frowned. “That was you?”
My temper was rolling beneath my skin now. I’d never been more furious in my entire life. Furious and terrified. What if Evan decided to go to my alpha father once again? What if he told them where I was? All I’d worked for, this life I’d built, I could lose it in an instant.
I shoved that fear away to deal with later. “So now you remember be. Do you remember what I asked you?”
Finally, Evan seemed to grasp the gravity of what I was saying. The blood drained from his face and his arms started to tremble. Unlike me, it wasn’t from fury, but the urge to shift. If he did that, I’d fucking kill him. Well, I might not actually manage it, but I’d definitely park myself on Finn’s doorstep until someone there did it for me.
“I thought you were joking. Wait, ye really wanted to leave?”
Chester was glancing between us, obviously confused. “Can someone fillme in?”
Neither of us answered him, both too lost in the past to return.
“You know what I am, where I grew up,” I said coldly. “You’re telling me you saw a child who was covered in bruises and clearly underfed, and thought me asking you to take me away was ajoke?”
Chapter 3
Evan
I’d never experienced this before. A level of shock that had the blood draining from my face. Of horror that had my limbs turning numb. An utter disbelief that had my wolf howling and punching to be freed.
I’d fucked up.
I’d fucked up so badly.
“I had no idea,” I said over the ringing in my ears. “I’m so fucking sorry. I can’t believe this. I swear, Reid, if I’d known?—”
“It’s too late.” Reid cut me off, looking at me with loathing. I didn’t blame him. Not one bit. “What’s done is done. But if you don’t get out of my sight in the next thirty seconds, I won’t be responsible for my actions. I don’t give a shit who or what you are, I have enough rage to make it an equal fight.”
I didn’t doubt it. Reid was glaring at me like he wanted to murder me. Knowing what I did now? I wouldn’t fight back.
I’d stand still and let him.
My lips thinned in disgust. At myself. At the past. Athaving made such a colossal fucking mistake. “I’m so sorry, Reid.”
His whole body started to tremble. I ached to comfort him, but I knew that was the last thing he wanted from me.
Chester put an arm around his shoulders. All the congeniality he’d shown when I’d arrived was absent now. He jerked his chin at me. “Get out. Now.”
My wolf was screaming at me tofix this.To go to my knees and lay out endless apologies. Or, better yet, to go to the Clarkson Clan and claw out Clyde’s eyes. To tear out his tongue for lying to me. Break his fingers for allowing Reid to be hurt under his care. Rip off his ears for not listening to Reid.
Maybe I should rip mine off too. I hadn’t listened either.
I walked back towards the door, not taking my eyes off Reid for a second. He was so completely different from the child I remembered that it was no wonder I hadn’t recognised him. His scrawny build had filled out into lean muscle. Gone was the youthful roundness to his face, replaced by high cheekbones and a sweeping nose. He wasn’t a child now, but a man. An extremely beautiful man. Possibly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
A man who hated me.
