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Chapter

Twenty-Nine

K NOX

“Yes.” There was no way I’d deny him, although I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going. I wrapped my arms around Danny and held him close, my wolf rumbling with satisfaction even as my senses were alert for the slightest hint that the situation was about to go downhill.

Danny sighed. “After everything that’s happened, I feel like I owe you the truth about what happened between me and Rex.”

I frowned. “You don’t owe me anything.”

He grimaced. “I phrased that wrong. I… I want to tell you. It’s just hard for me. Can you be patient?”

“Of course.” As if that wasn’t all I’d done every day since I’d first smelled him. “You can share as much or as little as you want. There’s no pressure.”

Danny snuggled against my chest, resting his cheek over my heart. “I know. You’ve been so patient with me. More than I deserve.”

“Not true.” I didn’t like it when he spoke badly about himself .

“Agree to disagree.” He closed his eyes, and I stroked his hair, reveling in its softness. I wondered whether his bear would be this soft to touch. “So, I started dating Rex about a year ago. Maybe a little more. I knew we weren’t fated mates, but I figured the chance of meeting my mate in a tiny place like this was slim, so I was open to dating.”

A low growl vibrated in my chest, but I cut it off. This was about Danny. Not me.

“Rex always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about traditional gender roles and stereotypes. He liked that I was bigger than most omegas because he thought it meant that I was stronger and could handle more than them. In hindsight, perhaps he believed it meant he could hurt me more before I broke. But he still wanted me to behave in the way he thought an omega should. Subservient. If I acted too much like an alpha, he saw it as a threat to his masculinity.”

“Asshole,” I muttered.

He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Yet he didn’t like me showing my softer side either. He said it made me weak. I could never tell what he wanted from me. There was no winning.”

My poor baby. I could imagine how confusing that must have been.

“It took me a while to see through him. I was blind to the red flags. He was impossible to please, and jealous too. At first, his jealousy made me feel special. Until it didn’t.”

My stomach soured. I knew I’d be possessive of him if he ever allowed me to claim him. My beast considered him ours. I couldn’t help it. But I’d have to try to rein it in so I didn’t remind him of his ex.

That was, assuming he gave me a chance. I hoped the fact he was willing to talk about this and had called me his mate meant he was—or at least, that he would be—in the future .

“He’d always make little comments if I didn’t behave in a way he thought was appropriate for an omega, or if he believed I was flirting with someone else—not that I ever was. At first I didn’t think much of it, but that must have encouraged him because he got bolder and began to make me a bit uncomfortable.”

It was only by force of will that I managed to keep my claws sheathed. Somehow, I knew this story was about to take a turn.

“He got meaner. I guess it was a type of emotional abuse. He’d belittle me and I just took it because I was honestly so shocked. I didn’t know how I’d been so wrong about him, or what to do about it. I tried to leave him once, but he convinced me he’d just been awful because of something bad that had happened at work, so I stayed.”

“Breathe, baby,” I urged as his scent adopted a bitter undertone. “You don’t have to be scared. I’ve got you.”

He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “Thank you.” He nuzzled my chest. “Um, so one day, I was home late from work and he thought I’d been with another alpha. He, uh, he hit me.”

I stiffened, my vision sharpening as my eyes changed. I closed them, not wanting to give him any reason to fear me.

“Did it happen more than once?” I asked, my voice modified by the fangs that had dropped, itching to tear out Rex’s throat.

He nodded. “I was so ashamed of myself for allowing it to happen that I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone, and he threatened to beat me worse if I left.”

“So, how’d it finally end?” What—or who—did I owe my thanks to for saving Danny?

“He attacked me one night. He was sure I’d been cheating on him. I hadn’t, but that didn’t make any difference. I… I thought he was going to kill me. Everett turned up and caught him. He fought Rex off and told him to leave town.”

This time, I couldn’t suppress a growl. I should never have let Rex leave that alley alive. I should have ripped his head off his neck and ensured he could never hurt, threaten, or scare my omega ever again.

Danny curled into a ball, making himself smaller in my arms. “I hate that Everett saw me like that, and that he took me home to Momma, so the whole family could see what had happened. Suddenly, everyone in town seemed to know how weak I’d been.”

“You weren’t weak.” My voice was almost inhuman. Rage coursed through my veins, but I managed my reaction as best I could. Losing my shit wouldn’t help him. “You were strong, and I’m proud of you for surviving that.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t fight back.”

He was obviously ashamed, and I hated it. He had no reason to be.

“You kept yourself alive. None of what happened is on you. Your trust was broken. That’s not your fault. It’s his.”

Danny sniffled. “I should have left before it got to that point, or seen the warning signs. Gods know they were there.”

My gut twisted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, baby. Things are always clearer in hindsight. You made the best choices you could at the time.”

He scoffed, but didn’t speak.

Tentatively, I kissed the top of his head. The need to comfort him was almost overwhelming, but I was afraid to come on too strong and scare him away.

“What else is going on in here?” I asked, tapping his temple gently.

The dampness of his tears soaked fabric, and my wolf howled internally, horrified that our mate was upset. I breathed through my mouth so as not to smell the salty tang of his misery.

“Rex was right,” he sobbed, burying his face in the fabric. “I’m weak.”

“No, you’re not.”

He whimpered. “But I am. None of my brothers would have let their partner bully them or hurt them.”

I gritted my teeth and clung to the fraying threads of my temper. “Firstly, you can’t know that.”

“But—”

“Secondly,” I continued without pausing. “Your brothers are alphas. I know we’re all equal in the eyes of the law, but physically, they’re stronger and they heal faster. You can’t hold yourself to the same standard as them when something that would only inconvenience them temporarily could kill you.”

I’d rather he was cautious and kept himself alive than behaved recklessly in an effort to be more like his alpha brothers.

Danny tilted his face toward me. The glossy sheen on his rich brown eyes flayed me. If I had my way, he’d never have a reason to cry again.

“Milo was kidnapped, and he fought back,” he whispered. “He’s only human, and he was pregnant, and he still tried to get away.”

I brushed his hair off his face, resisting the urge to trace his features with my fingertips. “The attack on Milo was by a stranger. Rex spent time building a level of trust with you. He tore you down so slowly that you couldn’t have been expected to see what was happening.”

“I had more time, more support, more… everything. I’m a coward.”

I racked my mind for a way to stop him from sounding so defeated. “Have you ever heard of the way some people boil crabs alive?”

He looked at me as though I was a monster.

“Not me,” I added defensively. “The point is, they put a crab in a pot of cold water and slowly heat it until it’s too late and the crab is being cooked alive. Your relationship was like that. You can’t blame yourself for not realizing that the water around you was gradually heating up.”

Danny blinked up at me, his eyelashes clumped and wet. “People really do that?”

“Yeah.”

His face twisted with disgust. “That’s awful.”

He was getting sidetracked. That wasn’t the point.

I sighed. Perhaps I owed him a truth of my own. “Thank you for telling me about Rex. There’s something I’d like to share with you too.”