Page 19 of Brutal Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #2)

If I call off my meeting with Sawyer and Jasper, they’ll know that something is up. Calling off internal pack council meetings or having Aaron administer in my place is not ideal, but it’s doable. However, when it comes to our Alpha meetings, it takes an emergency for one of us not to show up.

This is an emergency. But it’s a personal one that I’m not yet prepared to discuss.

“This shit is getting serious,” Sawyer is saying, walking around, inspecting the land as he approaches our meeting room window.

The mood is agitated, tense.

“How’s the land around your pack?” Sawyer asks Jasper.

Jasper is leaning back in his chair, his boots crossed over one another as they rest on the table. In typical Jasper fashion, he’s feigning calmness, but I know things are just as bad for him as they are for us.

“Not great,” Jasper says. “Not as bad as what I’ve seen at Ellis’, but we’re obviously seeing signs of decay too.”

“Have you found out anything else?” Sawyer asks. “Lacey and I have been trying, but that second tapestry just doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ve tried to get the witches to search for vines,” I say absentmindedly at first, but then I clear my throat. I don’t want to seem distracted; Jasper is already pretending not to take this seriously, and I don’t want to join him.

“The books have told us nothing of use, go figure. There’s not much we can do at this point other than prepare to fight.”

“It seems like we’re trying to intercept something that can’t be intercepted,” Jasper murmurs. “I wonder whether the witches might be able to find a better solution to destroying the shadow monsters?”

“Yeah,” Sawyer says. “I don’t think they’re the root of the problem, though. Just a consequence.”

My mind floats to Danielle. I’m still getting memories resurfacing, not as vivid as they were when they all came at once, but little ones popping up every now and then.

Like when I entered this meeting room, for example. I remember coming in here with Danielle. We were just playing around, two bored kids, looking for something to do on a late evening after school.

“This will be your meeting room soon,” I remember her telling me.

She said it in such a sarcastic tone that I remember being confused as to why she wouldn’t be impressed. All the other she-wolves in the pack were, but Danielle was different.

‘You don’t think I should be Alpha?” I remember asking her.

“ It’s not that, ” she said. ‘ I just hope you do a better job .’

I remember feeling confused about what she meant at the time, but knowing who she was and why she was so different, it makes sense.

“Ellis,” Sawyer says. They’re both looking at me now.

“Yep?”

“What about Danielle?”

I tense.

“What about her?”

“The shadow monsters,” Jasper emphasizes. “Does she have any idea about what to do?”

I realize that these are things Danielle and I could have been discussing had we not been preoccupied with fighting, avoiding each other, and then unearthing the painful, hidden reality of our past.

I can’t believe I could have forgotten who she and Monroe were for so long. I also can’t believe that I treated her the way I did.

I feel fucking awful.

“She doesn’t,” I say. “I think it’s a simple spell for them to get rid of them in the moment, even though many will appear afterward. It helps to get a shifter to distract the beasts while they cast it. But other than that, there’s little more that can be done.”

“Right,” Sawyer says. “Well, fuck.”

“Yeah,” I respond.

“And there haven't been any shadow monsters since?” Jasper asks.

I really did love her. I remember that feeling, all the way back to when we first were paired up together in that class.

It felt like I could talk and listen to her for hours without getting bored.

Even when my friends judged me, and at that time, I was more susceptible to their judgments, I didn’t care.

I defended her. I should have defended her more. I should have declared our friendship. I shouldn’t have let it be so secret.

What kind of precedent did that set? It made it so much easier for her to run away, to erase herself from the pack.

“Ellis, for Gods’ sake.”

I’m jolted back to reality. “What?”

“Jasper is asking you a question.”

Jasper and Sawyer both look at me as though I’ve gone crazy. With all the tampering that’s been done to my mind, it’s hard to feel like I haven’t.

Who knows what’s real anymore?

“Shit,” I say. “Well, I thought he was asking you. Yeah, no more of them since.”

“Are you good?” Sawyer asks me, frowning a little and looking pissed off. I could tell them what’s happened; their counsel might be helpful, but at the same time, we have enough problems to solve as is.

“Good,” I say, briskly pushing back my chair and standing up. “I need to get some water. I’ll be back.”

It’s not like I don’t notice the look of confusion on both their faces after I say this, especially considering we have a water fountain here in the meeting room, but I choose to ignore them and walk off.

Everything can be explained later—when I’m not feeling like a crazy person, and we’ve figured some of this crap out.

Without thinking, I keep walking, and unsurprisingly, my body leads me to mine and Danielle’s old secret spot.

It feels different now, knowing what this place was actually for.

As I look up at the sky and lean against the shed, I think back to that day ten years ago.

It’s all so visceral, the love I had for her, the way her body felt beneath my touch—the way that first kiss finally put everything in its place. I’d dreamed about kissing her so many times before that day.

How could I not have wanted her? She knew me better than anyone else.

And then, in that split second, everything changed. The regret of how I lashed out tears a hole in my chest, if things could just have been a little different, if I wasn’t still so blinded by my hatred and distrust…

I looked for her. I remember going into the forest and calling her name when neither she nor Monroe returned after a couple of days.

I knew the severity of what my words had done.

And then, in the forest, I forgot. That’s when the spell was cast. I had no idea what I was doing there, thought I’d shifted and passed out.

Who’s really to say who was more in the wrong?

All I feel now is regret. I want to make things right—to start again.

***

“But we can eat dinner at home?” Danielle questions, genuinely confused.

At least she’s looking a little better. Some color has returned to her cheeks since I last saw her; she doesn’t look so distraught.

“Yes,” I say. “I know, but I thought we could get out of the pack, go to one of the human restaurants nearby, and catch up. Away from all this.”

She looks suspicious.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not going to ambush you. If you want, you can text the coven and tell them where we’re going.”

“No,” she says. “It’s fine. Let me get changed, and then we’ll go.”

Knowing Danielle now is so different from knowing her a couple of days ago. I don’t doubt that she’s changed over the past ten years, as I or anyone else has, but there are so many things I remember about her now.

Like she loves to eat burgers, but only without the bun. She likes soul music and jazz, but hates it when people play the volume too loud. She loves nature, but is particularly nervous about the sun.

She also always has to get changed before she eats out, even if she’s already wearing something suitable. It’s a mindset thing, she once told me when she had to excuse herself from one of our meet-ups early in order to get changed to go out with Monroe.

And the list of her quirks goes on. I wonder if they’ve changed. At least her outfit thing hasn’t, and that’s why I made sure to give us enough time.

I take Danielle to a burger restaurant called Smokey Eye, a small spot by a river in one of the nearby human towns.

I’m waiting to test my theory the whole way, and when we finally order, I smile a subtle victory grin when she orders her burger without the bun.

“Why are you smiling?” She asks.

Maybe not so subtle.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just something I remember.”

“Oh.”

There’s an awkward pause. A silence that has many different ways of being filled—are we going to talk about the obvious trauma that’s lurking beneath everything we discuss, or keep it casual?

I opt for casual for now.

“So, what have you been doing all these years?” I ask her. “Was it not difficult to adjust to the coven?”

She sighs, takes a sip of ice water, and settles it back down. She crosses her arms protectively over her chest.

“Not difficult,” she says. “They felt more like home than the pack ever did.”

I nod. “That’s understandable.”

“I focused on my magic,” she says. “Focused on being a better witch, which felt good after having been suppressed for so long.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

I mean it. I’m deeply sorry.

She winces a little and looks away. I know that it’s going to take a long time to heal. “Anyway,” she says, taking in a deep breath. Her curls frame her small face and the width of her chest perfectly. “How about you?”

“Leading a pack is pretty hard,” I tell her. “Harder than I expected, but also, in some ways, not.”

She smiles a little, and I can’t help but wonder how she can be so beautiful. “Do you remember when we spied on one of your dad’s council meetings, to get a feel for what was to come, and after five minutes, we left because we got bored.”

I chuckle. “I do remember that, and you told me that I’ll find it more interesting once I’m older.”

“Well?” She asks. “Have you?”

I shake my head. “Not really, no.”

She laughs. “Of course not.”

The waitress comes with our food, Danielle’s bun-less burger, my full one, and we spend the rest of the lunch catching up, talking about everything, until the check comes and I realize that there’s one thing we haven’t talked about. The very thing I asked her out here for.

“In all seriousness, Danielle,” I say, plopping my card down onto the metal tray. “I am very sorry for the way that I treated you.”

She stops me, growing visibly uncomfortable. “It’s fine. We don’t have to—”

“No,” I interrupt. “We do. I want to.”

She stays silent, watching me with those bewitching green eyes.

“My Mom left when I was so young, and the havoc that wrecked on both me and my dad wasn’t something I could healthily process back then.

Still working on it now. I was clouded by so much hatred, so little understanding of how someone could just leave their child like that, and it made me completely irrational.

Prejudiced. Ignorant. I understand that now. ”

Her face softens, she looks at me with sympathy I don’t deserve.

“I’m not saying this to try to get you to feel sorry for me. I know what I did was wrong. You were my best friend,” I say. “You understood me the most.”

Best friends is easier for us to be right now. I don’t even know how to communicate that I love her. I don’t even feel like I deserve to.

The waitress comes to take my card.

“Hope everything was good for you both!” She smiles.

I nod. “It was.”

After I finish paying, I pop my card back into my wallet. Danielle looks like she’s still processing. She looks sad, which was not my intention at all.

“You don’t have to respond,” I tell her. “I just wanted you to know.”

“I appreciate that,” she says quietly. “And I appreciate that you’re giving witches a chance, because, you know, some of us are pretty cool.”

I smile. “Amen to that.”

Another pause. Not awkward, just settling.

“Do you wanna get going?”

She nods.

“You know,” I say as we’re walking home. “No rush on lifting the spell for the rest of the pack. I understand why it might feel overwhelming. Especially with everything else we have going on.”

She smiles gently. “You know, you’ve really grown up to be a good leader. You’re good at making decisions.”

Instinctively, I wrap one arm around her as we walk. She’s so small, perfectly sized, we fit so well.

“Aww, you’re going to make my ego explode.”

“Oh boy,” she giggles. “We don’t want that.”

“No, we don’t...”

I’m about to make another joke, something about another way she can stroke my ego. Something about the shadow monsters, but then she pauses mid-stride.

She freezes, her face turning pale, as she stares off into the distance—she looks horrified.

“Danielle?”

I look to where she’s looking, but I don’t see anything. Don’t scent anything, either.

I shake her gently. “ Danielle? ”

But I know what this is. I recognize that look from when she was staring at the tapestry.

The vision can’t be good.

I’m still holding her, and when she finally comes to, she collapses against me, groaning in pain. She’s clutching onto her stomach.

“I’m sorry-” she tries to say. “I-”

“Shh,” I soothed, picking her up into my arms. Her head rolls against my chest; she’s still wincing in pain, clutching onto me.

I hate seeing her like this and knowing that there’s little I can do about it.

“Just relax,” I tell her, as I pace forward. “We’re almost home.”