Page 19

Chapter 18

Confessions

Sinclair

W hen I get out of the shower after dinner, Titus still isn’t back. He didn’t eat with us, but Ecker chalked it up to the second Fortitude Trial. I check his room, and his bed is still perfectly made, the way he left it this morning.

I unwind the towel from my hair and ask Bishop, who’s relaxing on the couch, “Has he stopped by at all?”

“No.” He sits up, light concern on his face.

“You think he’s still down by the lake?”

“Probably, I’ll come with you,” he offers when he realizes that’s my intention.

I pick one of their hoodies off the back of the armchair and pull it over my head. “It’s okay. I don’t know, I just . . .” I scrunch my nose, not exactly sure what I’m trying to say.

“Feel like you need to do this yourself,” Bishop finishes for me, and I nod.

“Yeah, something like that.”

I head out, but before I leave, he lets me know, “Come back before dark, okay?”

“You got it.” I smile weakly, unable to shake this uneasy, foreboding feeling, like guilt for something that hasn’t happened yet.

It takes me a few minutes of walking the perimeter of the lake to find him. He’s sitting on a pebbly patch of shore, limply tossing stones into the water. He sways slightly where he sits, and I notice a glass bottle next to him. 1

“Titus?” I call several paces out, not wanting to startle him.

He doesn’t turn around, just drawls dolefully, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

I sit next to him, and he picks up the whiskey, taking a lugging swig straight from the half-empty bottle. He offers it to me when he’s done, and I shake my head, disturbed by this drunken version of the man in front of me.

His eyelids hang half-closed, and his gaze never focuses, even though he’s looking right at me. I’ve never seen him drunk before.

I’ve never seen any of my alphas drunk before, but there’s something distinctly unsettling about seeing Titus this way. He’s always so in control. Even in the rare moments when he loses control, he’s still measured, fully aware of every step he takes over the line.

Tentatively, I ask, “Do you want to talk?”

“Nope,” he says flatly and throws another rock into the lake.

“You missed some really good meatballs at dinner—”

“It hurts.” He cuts me off as if he couldn’t possibly hold in the words any longer.

I reach for his hand, and he hangs his head when I wrap my fingers around his. “What hurts?”

“It hurts so much,” he laments, so much pain in his voice, it cuts me like razor blades.

“What does, Titus?” I plead with him to tell me.

He doesn’t lift his head, but his heavy, drunken eyes sweep up to mine. “ You.”

Me? I bite my lip, waiting to respond, hoping he’ll give me more than that single word.

“When I think about the way I treated you . . .” He looks away, full of disdain. He picks up another stone and rolls it in his hand. “When I think about that . . . it hurts. It hurts so fucking much and . . .” He drops the stone without throwing it.

I don’t let go of his other hand. I don’t squeeze it either. I don’t want him to feel like I’m pushing him, even a little. I just hold it, and eventually he starts talking again.

“I know I’ve given you nothing but pain, shown you nothing but a monster . . .” His throat seems to close up, his words strangled. “But I can be gentle, ya know. I can be . . . soft.” He turns to look at me, and the mournful weight in his eyes lands like a thousand pounds in my stomach.

“Is this because of the other day? When I told you to . . . like you hated me?” I felt like I needed that at the time, but if I had known what it would do to him, I would never have asked. “That wasn’t to punish you or because—”

“I was before, ya know. Gentle. You were sleeping and it was just a dream, but I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t . . . ,” he mumbles, dropping his gaze again as if in shame. “The way I am.”

I want to tell him he’s not a monster, that I don’t believe he ever was one. He was cornered; we all were. Put in an impossible situation with only bad choices. But I’m not sure he’ll be able to hear those words right now.

Instead, I say, “Tell me about that dream.”

He takes my hand off his and turns it over. Tracing the lines of my palm with his rough fingertips, he tells me, “You were sleeping, and it made sense that it had to be that way. You know, soft and unconscious, unable to fight. Not because I wanted to force you,” he quickly clarifies, then adds more softly, “But because we didn’t know any other way to be with each other.”

He looks at me as if checking to make sure I understand. “We didn’t know how to be if we weren’t fighting. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah, exactly. I could take my time. I could show you a side of me I never could if you were awake. I know it’s fucked up. I know that.” He sighs in defense. “But I was gentle. I was . . . sweet.” He stares out at the lake, the sunset now coloring the slowly rolling surface. “And I know it was just a dream, but . . .” He folds my hand, cradling my fist between the two of his, and looks me in the eyes. “But I also know I can be that again. For you.” He swallows deeply, and I’m afraid to move, to breathe, to do anything that might scare him into closing himself off again. “I don’t always have to be your pain.”

1. “Don’t Let Me Go” by Paul McDonald, Nikki Reed