Chapter 126

My stomach clenched, and I looked down at the phone in his hand. It was a picture of me—at least, the back of me. I was walking down the hall, away from a shirtless Holden, who leaned in his room's doorway. That moment felt so long ago now—a moment that had happened back when Holden was still my friend. Before I knew what depths he would sink to if it meant getting what he wanted.

I went very still. “How long have you had this?”

“A couple of days.” Dane’s voice was quiet. I glanced up and noticed everyone had left the infirmary except the two of us. And Evander, of course, who was still unconscious in the bed.

I fought back the urge to laugh hysterically. I wasn’t sure what to say, or what Holden’s Alpha commands would allow me to say.

“Holden—” I tried to let it all out. To tell Dane about the ceremony he’d forced me through. I tried to tell him I was Holden’s mate, natural or not, and that I was a Fall Line wolf, somehow, even though I had no wolf and technically couldn’t belong to a pack like the others could.

As soon as I started, my throat closed. I coughed and had to cover my mouth to keep from gagging.

Dan didn’t reach out to comfort me. Instead, he watched me. I think he meant to be impassive, but I could see emotion buried deep in his eyes. Something had happened to him since he left this room. Something was wrong. And somehow, I was only a small part of it.

The urge to cough subsided, and I swallowed. My throat ached. I tried again to answer. “This was the morning after I accidentally… and your grandfather…” I shook my head. I didn’t want to remember how my actions had killed someone I loved. “You said you were going to exile me. Separate me from the twins. Holden…”

I waited to see if my throat would close, but it didn’t. “He gave me wine. I drank it. I woke up the next morning in his bed.”

I tried to maintain my cool exterior, but it cracked. I was coming apart. “I don’t remember what happened after that. Holden claimed…”

He had said, You were incredible.

Dane slipped his phone into his pocket. His entire body had gone tense, and I couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to be very deliberately not touching me. Instead, his arms were folded across his broad, muscular chest. A muscle in his jaw worked.

“What did Holden claim?”

“He implied we had been… together.”

Dane’s eyes filled with rage. “When I took you to my grandfather’s house that day, you said you hadn’t been with anyone since me. You’d never been with anyone except me.”

Helplessness filled me. “I don’t know what happened. At the time, I would have sworn Holden wouldn’t hurt me. But I know that’s not true, now. I suppose he might have drugged me. Whether he did anything to me while I was drugged, only he could say.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dane growled.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I liked to think I was never in danger from Dane, but right now I wasn’t actually sure.

“I was on my way to tell you, but your grandfather had died. Holden pulled me into that closet. Then…” I trailed off. After that, he’d picked me up like a caveman and carted me off into the woods, to his grandfather’s house. Then I didn’t have room in my mind or my heart to think of anyone but you.

I wanted to reach out to him so badly. I wanted him to take me in his arms and to feel the comfort of his immense strength. I wanted to hear him say he would protect me, and that together we could make this all better.

But I couldn’t take that first step. I couldn’t reach out to him. Not when I was tainted by Holden’s grip on me. Not when I was touched by shadow.

“Then we came home,” I said quietly, “And the twins were missing. Then Holden took me, and my problems became less about what he might have done to me and more about what he did do.”

Dane’s expression shifted. Maybe it softened, but I couldn’t be sure.

Very quietly, he said, “What did Holden do when he had you?”

I shuddered. My eyes burned. I wouldn’t cry. So much of what came between Dane and I was hard to believe. So much made me sound like a liar who just wanted to play the victim all the time.

I wasn’t sure what cosmic forces kept bouncing Dane and I off each other like magnets who couldn’t decide whether they wanted to attract or repel, but I was tired of feeling like their toy.

Doing my best to hide my trembling, I said, “I can’t tell you.”

Dane stepped close to me. Close enough that I could feel his heat. Close enough that I could finally identify the emotion in his eyes.

It wasn’t soft at all. It was a white-hot, seething rage.

“That’s not good enough,” he growled. “Tell me what he did to you!”

Something tugged on me. Not Holden’s magic… a different power. Dane’s power. As if he could touch me with his own Alpha commands, even though I had no wolf.

For an instant, it felt like the stranglehold Holden’s power had on me loosened, and I could breathe.

“Dane,” I half-sobbed, “He…”