I sit up straighter. “Wait, what?!” When he reaches out for the bottle, I pull it out of his reach. He looks at me now, straightinto my eyes, and what I see there shocks me. There is just pain, anger and betrayal.
A mirror of my own expression when I am alone.
“Fuck! I shouldn’t have said anything,” he groans. “I just couldn’t stop myself from blurting out the truth, to tell it to someone.”
“What happened?” I ask. “How… What’s going on in that pack of yours?!” When he stays quiet, I chuckle bitterly. Right. Why should he share his secrets if I didn’t give him anything in return?
It’s always a risk. Allies who I thought would stick with me forever have turned their backs on me in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, I know I have no other options. Forest has shared a secret with me, something that weighs a lot, and while there is still the possibility he is lying to me, my gut feeling and my experience tell me otherwise.
It’s a risk, but I am willing to take it to get back at Jordan.
“I am Rosea Bryce,” I say into the silence.
He raises his head again to look at me, and frowns. I can almost see the thoughts in his head running wild. “Bryce.”
“Bryce,” I repeat simply.
His mouth drops open. “No way! You are Jordan’s luna!”
“Was,” I correct him.
He keeps staring at me, sometimes raising his arm a little and then dropping it again. He looks shocked, and I am starting to wonder if this was a good idea. Should I have kept quiet? Usually, my gut feeling is spot on. The only time it failed me was with Jordan, and in my defense, he was my mate, and I was still very young. Then, Forest suddenly jumps up, his eyes glinting in fury. “I knew it!” he exclaims. “I knew that asshole was full of bullshit! What did he do to you?”
I hand him the bottle again. “You go first,” I tell him. “I am not budging on this.”
He looks me in the eye again and then nods grimly. “Alright, buckle up, Luna Rosea.”
When we have finished our stories, the sun is high in the sky. Forest goes and finds a few cans with food in the storage, tasteless beans in tomato sauce, but we are both starving and need something to eat.
Until today, I thought my own story was terrible, but what Forest told me is equally as insane.
“This is unbelievable.” Forest shakes his head. “I had a bad feeling about Jordan from the first time I met him. Fucking psycho!”
“I have heard Lissa’s name before,” I tell him. “She definitely had an affair with Jordan. I am aware of two times they met, at least.”
“How did you find out?” he asks, amazed. “Seriously, how come you managed to gather so much information while that asshole basically kept you away from everything? The things he told us at the alpha meetings… unbelievable.”
I had a feeling Jordan would twist the truth. It doesn’t come as a shock to me. It will make it harder, though, to stir public opinion on him in a different situation. “While Jordan did lock me in, I had a few chances where I got out. I used excuses like running errands and visiting doctors; not often, but sometimes I could. And he wasn’t as organized when he took the pack over. I had many more chances to slip away back then, and I used every single moment to gather intel on him and to plan an exit. Not that the latter worked in my favor.”
“It did,” Forest argues. “Or you wouldn’t have survived. You must have nerves of steel, Rosea! You are more alpha than I am.”
“I was just lucky to have had loving parents,” I say. “And they prepared me well. The knowledge and the skills I was taught came in handy. You didn’t have that chance, Forest.”
“Still, you could have broken,” he mutters.
I press my lips against each other grimly. “I wanted revenge.”
For a moment, he looks at me, mirroring my expression. “I want the same.” He balls his hands into fists, then loosens them again. “I am a lost cause,” he tells me again. It’s the second time he’s said it, but I don’t comment on it. There is a reason this man has so little confidence, and it’s certainly not because he is in any way not made to be an alpha. He is simply a different type of leader, and there is nothing wrong or unusual with that. His insecurities and his self-loathing come from deep within.
“I am not much on my own either,” I point out.
“Rosea…“ he takes a deep breath. “Let’s work together.” He pauses, his face flushing again. “Well… I know you probably have different options, and I am aware I am not the best one out there—“
“Actually, you are,” I interrupt him.
“Because I am such a loser,” he sighs.
