Page 217 of Alpha Mates

I roll my eyes as I push off the car door and start towards the stairs. “Here we go.”

“Here we go with what?” he shouts after me as he follows. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he’d just storm off so I could ride all this shit out alone, but Julian would never do that.

“You defending them!” I shout over my shoulder. “You fucking love them.”

“I don’t. I just don’t see the point of killing them for sport because you’re having a bad day!” he protests, making me stop. “You take out your anger by ending their lives, and that’s not right.”

“They deserve it!” I turn and let him have it. “They’re fucking mutts. They’re rogues, Julian!” My voice shakes, throat bulging. “If anyone should understand that, you’d think it’d be you after what they did to Oliver.”

I bite my tongue, but it’s too late. The words ring out.

Julian’s blue eyes clear, becoming almost translucent at that moment where hurt overwhelms anger. I watch the memories gut him. The wayIgut him.

I hurt him, my mate, and I can feel the torture of it cut through me like poisoned claws.

I step forward, but he takes one back, tongue working the inside of his cheek.

“I don’t love them. I could never love them after …” He doesn’t finish, the pain of it all seeming to stop him, but he doesn’t let it deter him from getting the rest out. “And even if I did, shouldn’t you of all people be glad for that?”

I still. Every bone in my body, every muscle, every vessel—stills.

“… Why wouldIbe glad for that?”

Don’t.

Don’t fucking say it.

Julian shrugs as his expression shutters. That flat, practised thing he does when he’s trying to hide behind his familiar walls. I’ve seen it before. Too many times to not see the hurt teeming there that fuels his next words.

“Because you’re one of them.”

They’re like a knife to the heart. Simple as they are, they slice the muscle open and bleed it dry, guided by Julian’s lips.

I’ve been hurt a lot in my life. By words and by sharper things. I learnt how painful this world could be very young and never forgot the lesson.

I never learnt how to suffer through pain like this though. And I never thought it’d be Julian behind the blow.

Even after all the years we spent hating each other, when it became clear that he was mine and I was his, and there was love there, I never thought … I never thought he could hurt me like the rest of them.

I stare at him through these cursed eyes, desperate to hide them. I’d gotten rid of all my shame becausehesaid he didn’t hate them, that he liked my eyes … my red, fucked-up eyes … and I believed him.

I actually believed him. And now he thinks I’m fucking one of them.

I wanted to tell him. I laugh, low and bitter. He thinks I’m a fucking rogue, and I wanted to tell him.

I feel myself nodding as I sniff, looking at the ground to gather myself before I look at him again, making sure he sees me clearly so there’s no mistaking the sincerity behind my next words.

“Fuck you, Julian.”

I take the stairs in the packhouse three at a time, eating up the space as fast as I can so I can get the fuck out of here. What had become my safe space now feels like a cage, and if I don’t get out, I’ll burn it down with me inside.

In our place, I move on autopilot. I grab a bag and start stuffing it with shit without looking. Just need clothes. Space. Air. I stop just long enough to message my parents before heading for the door.

But the second I leave our room, Julian’s there, stepping through the door with frantic eyes.

The sight of him makes all the hurt and anger surge. I’m on the edge of my own sanity.

Julian’s eyes travel over me, lips parting aimlessly. Nothing comes out until his gaze drops to the bag in my hand, and then those blue eyes are filling.