Page 18 of Brutal Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #2)

That incredulous, pained, and confused look, the one that I’ve been dreading, is finally here, staring back at me inches away from my face.

I let go of his hands.

I doubt he’ll want to speak to me, let alone hold me. I doubt he’ll want to touch me ever again.

So I brace myself for the tsunami of anger that I know is about to come pouring out of him. He’s confused now, but he knows, and soon that confusion will transform into disdain.

I try, somehow, to formulate responses to the inevitable questions. How could you do this? Why would you come back? Are you completely insane?

I don’t have the answers.

And then, something happens.

It’s as though the magic has affected me too—my vision is clouded with flashbacks, memories that I’ve suppressed.

“Why do you do that?” Ellis asks me. We’re in our secret spot.

“Do what?”

“Hide yourself away? This place is your home, too.”

We’re leaning against the shed. Ellis is dressed in a full tux, I’m in sweatpants, and a baggy tee. Tonight is our high school prom. I’m not going.

“Why do I want to stand around at some stupid party, have no one talk to me, and dance alone? No thanks. I’d rather be at home—in my cabin, that is.”

“But you’re always in your cabin.”

I shrug. “It’s better in there. Why do you want me to go?”

“Don’t you want to dance?”

I sigh, looking up at the stars. “Well, sure, but as I said, I’d be dancing alone.”

“Well, that’s a shame.”

“It is what it is.”

Ellis has that mischievous glint in his eyes. He takes his phone from his pocket and types.

“What are you doing?”

In a few seconds, smooth soul music begins to blast, and he takes me by the waist and pulls me toward him.

My chest freezes, my skin breaks out into goosebumps.

I shake my head, hanging it on his shoulder.

“Come on,” he says. “Don’t be a killjoy.”

“This is ridiculous,” I laugh.

But he guides me as I follow his steps. It’s just us, the night, and smooth soul.

“Ridiculous, yes, but at least you get your dance.”

***

I’m in the woods by our coven. Midnight cloaks everything in silence, except for the faint rustle of leaves and Monroe’s steady breathing back in the cabin.

She's fast asleep. It's been a day since we arrived.

The memory spell is set to be completed tomorrow, and in my hands, I hold three things that have still been weighing me down.

Ellis’s sweatshirt he gave me one night in the woods when I got cold, the sweatpants and tee I wore that night of middle school prom when Ellis made me dance, and the charm bracelet Ellis got me for my sixteenth birthday.

I shouldn’t have brought them with me. I should have forgotten they existed—but they’re here, and they have to burn.

I light a small fire, bundle everything in my hands, and take a deep breath.

The flames lick wildly, waiting to claim my memories. But my arms are reluctant, then I remember what Ellis said.

Releasing my breath, I throw everything into the flames. This is it, Danielle. Now, you have to move on.

My memories are so vivid, it’s as if I’m having psychic visions. But everything I see is real; all the things that have happened, all the things I worked so hard on, making sure I forgot.

Countless memories of little moments with Ellis alongside the big ones. The way just a look from him would make me feel in the dining hall, how it felt to be touched by him. Deep down, I always knew he wanted me.

But then I’m also reminded of the countless sleepless nights at the coven, the times I’d wake up screaming, my stomach twisting with pain. All the times that my memories of Ellis came flooding back, each memory was more painful than the last.

Then there were the times when everything hurt so bad that I became numb. A numbness I had to disguise in my new home. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, despite being reunited with a family I never had. I felt so alone.

I can’t go through that again.

I get up and walk away from him, my hands trembling.

However mad he might be, and he’s justified, I know—I can’t take whatever it is right now. My body feels like it's dying, like it's feeling everything: the love, the pain, the loss, all at once.

I don’t know how to hold on.

“Danielle,” he says. “Wait.”

I pause, but I don’t turn.

His voice still has such a command over me, and his face—I already see it so clearly in the memories that live in my head—I can’t bear it in person. Not now.

“I’m going to give you some time,” I say, my voice shaky. “To process everything, you need time.”

I rush through the forest, walking briskly, which soon turns into a run.

But my stomach drops when I hear his footsteps behind me. At lightning speed, he’s in front of me within seconds.

I come to a halt, my breath coming out in frantic gasps.

“Danielle, look at me,” he says.

I shake my head, refusing. If I look at him now, I don’t know what’ll come out.

He touches the side of my arm, and I shiver, his hand warm and steady, anchoring me.

“Please,” Ellis says, softer now, his voice painfully familiar. “Don’t run from me. You can’t keep running away.”

I swallow hard, unable to look up, my eyes fixed on the ground between us. “You remember everything, don’t you?”

“Do you understand what that feels like?” He asks me. “For a whole part of your life to be taken away by a spell. Who gave you the right to do that?! And what about the pack?”

I look up at him pleadingly. “I’ve only lifted it for you,” I say. “I can lift it for the pack, but only when you decide you’re ready.”

Despite the anger in his tone, Ellis just looks overwhelmed, and etched on his face, I notice a little of what looks like guilt.

“This is crazy, Danielle,” he asserts with force. “I get running away, but before you did a spell, why would you not at least try and talk to me first?”

“How could I talk to you?” I yell, jerking myself out of his grasp. “When you were looking at me like I was a monster just because of what I was. Can you imagine how that feels? To make love to someone and then be looked at that way?”

I notice another flash of guilt cross over his face.

“I was young, Danielle.”

“And I was young too!” I press, walking away. “You’re painting me out to be this villain, when I did what I had to do to survive.”

“And what about me?” He calls.

I turn around. “What about you?”

“If none of this had happened, you would have kept me in the dark? Our history is my history, too. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you should erase it. That’s insane!”

My throat tightens. “You think I don’t know that?”

He doesn’t move. His chest rises and falls, his breath shaky, fists clenched at his sides. I can see the war behind his eyes—grief, betrayal, confusion.

I hate seeing him like this. I never wanted to cause him pain.

“I hated doing it,” I admit, quieter now. “But I didn’t see another way. If I were going to live nearby, I couldn’t risk anything happening to the coven because of me. I didn’t know how you’d react; it was for practical reasons, and hey, didn’t I spare you years of pain?”

He scoffs and closes the distance between us. I’m nervous, unprepared for us to be this close.

“You’ve spared me nothing, Danielle. I feel everything now. All of it at once, all the pain...”

His voice trails off. “And I searched for you. You know, I remember that now, once you left, I searched the forest, I thought maybe.”

He looks away.

“Thought what?”

Then his jaw clenches, the fire in his eyes alight. “I thought you were dead, Danielle! That something happened to you because of me. We were only kids. We couldn't think straight.”

I shake my head. “Don’t use that as an excuse.”

“I’m not. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, or said what I said; I know that now, Danielle, of course. But you shouldn’t have run away! You shouldn’t have made me forget so many good things.”

That stops me.

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. The wind rustles through the trees around us. There were so many good things.

I feel them in my body. They’ve lived there along with all the bad things, all the trauma, and the pain. Even when I forced everything from my mind, the memories never truly went away.

I want to cry. It feels like my stomach is caving in on itself, a sharp pain that precedes a sharp pressure in the back of my eyes.

“You broke my heart,” I say quietly.

My words carry in the space between us, raw, ugly, and vulnerable. True.

Maybe Ellis and I coming together is too frantic, too messy, too much.

I try holding back the tears, but my eyes water anyway. I fight to hold back cries. I fear that I’ll unravel completely before him.

And who gave me the right? I understand how wrong it was to take his memories away.

His face is washed with guilt.

“I didn’t mean to do what I did. I’m sorry,” he sighs. “Things never should have turned out this way.”

“Yeah,” I whisper.

“Sort of a worst-case scenario, right?”

I scoff a little, almost laugh, and delicately wipe the dripping tears from my eyes.

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing, Danielle,” he says.

A cooler breeze blows through his copper hair as he speaks.

My emotions are storming through me, contradictory and almost unbearable.

I feel close to the point of becoming numb.

“I was young, stupid. I hope you can recognize that I’m not the same guy. It was so long ago.”

I nod. “Yes, it was.”

Somehow, though, it only feels like yesterday that I was running away from him in our secret spot.

“And before all that, we were friends.”

I can tell that Ellis is trying to work through the old memories, to make sense of them all. To figure out where we stand today.

But it’s too difficult for me to stand in front of him as he does it. It’s too hard to be reminded of everything all at once.

“Look, Ellis,” I begin.

“You want to go?”

I nod, my face twisting a little with sadness. Looking into his eyes is like a drug, but I have my pain, my sadness, and my shame pulling me away.

“Please,” I say. “I need to go.”

He nods, and the look on his face makes my heart break.

Ellis steps back, just slightly, giving me space. His eyes flicker, dimmed with a mixture of guilt and understanding.

“I’ll walk you back,” he says, quiet but steady.

“No,” I say. “I’ll go alone.”

As I walk off, I feel his eyes on my back.

He doesn’t try to stop me, and I’m relieved. The relief only lasts for a second, though. Once I’m further away, out of his sight line, my inner world collapses.

I’m so panicked that my body doesn’t allow me to cry. I need air, space to breathe.

I decide I can’t go back to the pack, not now. I can’t bear the onslaught of visceral memories that are rising to the surface, reminding me of what was.

The more I think about the past, the less able I’m able to breathe. Being surrounded by all these physical reminders will only exacerbate the situation.

I’ll go to the coven, I decide, and hide out among nature there—alone.