Page 28 of Meeting Her Mate
“No, it just hurts a little, but I’m okay,” she said. As I noticed the flush on her cheeks, I quickly let go of her face.
“You’re safe now,” I said. “Now, stay this madness and come back home.”
Alexis took a couple of steps away from me, looking at me with disbelief.
“Come home? Are you crazy?”
I could feel it coming back, the ire, the vehement fury, the impulse to lash out at her. I tried to hold it back.
“Yes. A wolf without her pack is susceptible, vulnerable,” I said. “You belong with the pack.”
“No. I don’t think I do. And I’m not coming back! And why do you care? You rejected me and humiliated me in front of the entire pack!” Alexis yelled.
She left me without a rational recourse. I had no control over what I did next.
Chapter 11: Alexis
Iwatched as his fingers coiled into a fist and the first thought that came to my mind was that he was going to hit me. Instinctively, my hands shot to my face in self-defense, and I backed up a step.
Will punched through the table I had been strapped to, splitting it in half. His hand was bleeding, and he was looking at the blood with a dazed look on his face. Then he looked up at me, the ferocity back in his face, and scowled.
“Do you get a kick out of being so stubborn?” He asked. His voice was surprisingly quiet and calm. This only served to unnerve me only further. “Why can’t you listen? Why don’t you obey?”
“Obey you? Am I crazy?” I had had enough. If I was ever going to stand up for myself, this was the time. “Take a look at yourself. You’re filled with anger. You barely have a lid on it. And on the few occasions that you do decide to talk to me, you yell at me as if I’m the architect of your misery. You scream and insult me with no regard for my feelings. You must really have a ton of screws loose in your head if you think I’m going to quietly come back with you and pretend nothing’s wrong.”
“Come back for your own safety,” Will said softly. “There are dangers lurking around every corner. It only makes sense that you be with your pack. There’s strength in numbers.”
It surprised me how he was able to say that entire sentence without resorting to raising his voice. Was he exercising self-control, or had he finally decided to see me as I was, a real person with real feelings?
“You should really get that hand looked at. It’s bleeding pretty badly,” I said. “As for me, don’t act like you’re concerned about me all of a sudden. None of you ever came looking for me when I went away, so I’m assuming that means that the pack’s well off without me. And you know what? I’m better off without you guys. I’ll be more careful. Relax. You don’t have to come to save me again.”
I turned around to leave. I hadn’t exactly shouted at him or snapped at him, but given that I’d spoken my mind for a change and he had listened instead of retorting with rage, it made me feel a little bit better. Not that there wasn’t wisdom in what he was saying. He was right. There was strength in numbers, and given what had happened today could just as easily happen again, it made sense that I went back to the pack, but where would be the dignity in that? I’d much rather die with dignity than live in disgrace.
Before I could take so much as a step, Will caught my wrist in his bloodied hand and pulled me back.
“Stop that!” Will said.
“No,” I said, yanking my wrist free from his grip. “You stop that! What’s your deal anyway? You seem to enjoy treating me like shit, you shout at me at the drop of a hat, and when you don’t hear what you want to hear, you’re manhandling me? Leave me alone and spare me the twisted emotional merry-go-round of toxic behavior. I have had enough of that for a lifetime.”
His bloodied handprint was enveloped around my wrist. I wiped it clean with my shirt. I looked at him one last time before I headed for the elevator. What a total disaster today had been.
“Alexis,” Will called.
“What?” I asked without turning back.
“Why did you come here today?”
I rolled my eyes, suppressed a sigh, and wheeled around again. “Kind of a strange time for you to start giving a shit about me. What do you care?”
“I care about the pack.”
“Yeah, right, the pack. Well, as I said, I’m not a part of your pack anymore. You saw to it yourself. And it’s not like we’re mates either. You also saw to that. So what’s with the sudden interest in my life?”
“You could have died tonight,” Will said.
“Geez, would that have been so bad? It’s not like life’s handing me anything other than piss-soaked lemons.” It was funny. I wanted to leave. The elevator was right there, a few steps away. And yet every time he opened his mouth and said something, I felt prompted to respond.
“I want to say that I’m…I’m no stranger to suffering,” he said.