I’m everything they wished for as well as their biggest curse, all in one mentally unstable package. Yay for that self-esteem boost.
“Sabrina,” he croaks, voice a strangled rasp as his gaze flits over me with regret marring his features.
I give him a watery smile. “Don’t, okay? I don’t blame you, and if I were in your position, I’d do the exact same thing. This isn’t a break up because we’re still going to crash in the same bed on occasion, stay up too late watching movies, and finish this operating system even if it makes our eyes bleed out of their sockets. So I don’t need any apologies, because there’s nothing to apologize for. I’m one ill-timed puncture wound away from irrevocably changing your life, and I don’t fault you for being cautious of that. Hell, I’m proud that you’re actually thinking things through enough to be afraid; I know I am. Let’s just carry on and see what happens, because really, our lives seem to change every few days with some new revelation anyway, right? Who knows where we’ll stand a few weeks from now?”
Beneath his glasses, his eyes become glassy, but he quickly clears his throat and conceals it from his brothers. “Right.”
Nodding to him, I close my eyes and sink into Boden’s embrace, inhaling his scent and using it to ground me. It mingles with Slade, Cin’s, and even Reid’s, but I try not to concentrate on that last part. Instead, I take deep breaths, and by the time I’m walking towards the door again, I’ve packed everything away so that I can put one foot in front of the other without breaking down.
I want to, but I can’t afford to if I want a hope of surviving the Hawthorne’s unique brand of love that feels a bit like torture right now.
“We should probably get going, shouldn’t we? Sunset is fast approaching, and I might even make it a whole two hours tonight before I collapse and pass out, leaving you guys to maul the villagers while I get some much-needed sleep.”
Chapter 8
Slade
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My brother is a goddamnidiot. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.
I tried to do right by him, saving Reid from the darkest parts of our lives. Sure, he launders our money, but he very rarely has had to get his hands dirty like the rest of us. Sabrina trusts him the most, is closer to him than any of us, even when he doesn’t wear her mark like we do. So the only explanation why he’d push the best thing to ever happen in his life away is because for all of those brains, he’s fucking stupid.
Yet she loves him enough to accept it without a fight, trying to puthimat ease, as if she thinks she’s some plague that no one could love and can’t fault him for abandoning her. I love my little brother, but I’m two seconds away from pushing him in front of a car so that he can get a reality check and reassess his priorities. I know he’s scared of the loss of control that shifting would bring, that he thinks his very existence is a curse, but he loves that woman. Heknowshe can’t live without her, knows that he’s hurting her, but is still letting his fear dictate his actions.
I sheltered him too much. In my desire to protect him, it not only hurt him, but all of us, especially Sabrina. She doesn’t let people get close to her for a reason, and Reid got under her skin deeper than anyone’s ever made it thus far, only to rip her fucking heart out. How the fuck she’s going to ever trust any of us after this is beyond me, and I don’t have the first fucking clue how to go about repairing the damage.
Bo’s a wreck, more desperate than I am to fix this. Yet even with my hand on the small of her back, guiding our mate through the building and towards the parking garage, I don’t siphon any of her pain away. Instinctually, I know it’d be the worst move I can make right now. She has enough misplaced guilt on her shoulders without me adding to it. Using my abilities to soothe her would only result in her feeling like she was burdening me with her pain after our conversation.
Sabrina doesn’t want me to fight her battles for her, she wants support while she figures out how to deal with them herself. She wants help, not people taking over and making her feel small.
“So.” My sweet mate’s voice has a self-assured edge to it that has the fine hairs on the back of my neck bristling.
I glance down at my watch. We’re about an hour out from sunset, so I’m not surprised that her wolf is gaining more of a foothold, but I’m worried about what this means for her when Sabrina’s already holding on by a thread. What I’m more concerned about, though, is that mine’s strangely quiet; far more so than most days, let alone after the events of last night. If hers is stirring, mine definitely should be, yet all is suspiciously silent on that front. I don’t think I can even remember a time that I felt so... whole, the stress from Reid the only thing making me irritable.
I don’t trust it.
