Chapter Eighteen
MATT
“You got something to tell me?” Bryce asked, closing the door to Matt’s den behind him.
Matt was pouring the whiskey. It would put off the instant when he had to answer Bryce’s question-that-wasn’t-really-a-question. Bryce had known him too long and too well.
Bryce took the filled glass and sat down with a slight groan, stretching out his legs in front of him. Matt folded into his chair and sipped his whiskey, relishing the burn.
“Anything I need to know about at work?” he asked.
Bryce shook his head, frustration in his eyes.
“You’ve missed nothing. What I want to know is what the hell’s going on?
I thought Jesse was just staying one night—hell, from the way he’s been talking, I thought he was leaving at least twice by now—but he’s still here, your scent’s all over him, and his—”
“Enough.” There was a weariness to Matt’s word, but it had the force of an alpha behind it. Bryce shut up.
“Maybe we just fucked,” Matt said.
“Leaving aside the fact you don’t ‘just fuck,’ not any longer, the fact you said ‘maybe’ has me questioning that statement.”
Anyone else, Matt could intimidate into shutting up. But although Bryce would submit to him, he never let things go completely.
If he told Bryce they were mates… The weight of the entire mess was suddenly back on his shoulders.
He’d done so well not thinking about it this afternoon.
He’d lost himself in Jesse, in the pleasure of being with him, and hadn’t allowed himself to think what that meant.
But now Jesse wasn’t here, and Bryce was asking questions.
“He’s my mate.”
He hadn’t intended to say it, but if he couldn’t trust Bryce to understand, he was truly alone.
Bryce’s face paled as he stared at Matt. “No. No way.” His fingers spasmed around his glass as he hauled in a painful-sounding breath, his throat working. After a frozen moment, he ran his hand down his face, hiding his expression.
Then he thrust up from his chair and strode over to the window, looking out at the land they’d bought together, the home they’d built together. He said nothing for a long time.
When he finally turned, he looked Matt in the eyes. “Congratulations, I guess.”
Matt was the one to break it, looking down into the glass and swirling around the little whiskey that remained. “It changes nothing.”
“What the hell, Matt?” Shock underlay the strain in Bryce’s voice.
“It changes everything.” There was a pause, before he added, “At least for you. Not for the rest of us, obviously, other than we just got a new pack member.” Bryce tried for a grin, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“God help us.” He huffed a strained laugh.
“He doesn’t know.”
Bryce’s jaw dropped. “How can he not—you mean to tell me, he doesn’t even know that much about shifters?” He stared at Matt in shock. “Why haven’t you told him?”
And that was the million-dollar question. Matt slugged back his last mouthful of whiskey and poured another. “I’m not telling him because he’s not staying.”
“You have to tell him, Matt.” Bryce’s shock had gone, replaced by a burning intensity. “Even if you don’t want him, you have to tell him. He needs to know.”
“No.”
Bryce furrowed his brow, staring right into Matt. “You’re going to leave him never knowing, always waiting? Like Cynthia? She waited until she was eighty-nine for her mate to come along, and they never did.”
Matt’s breath caught in his throat. It was accidental, the mention of a member of the Cheyenne pack. It had to be. Bryce knew better than to ever bring it up with Matt. Especially not today, when his ghosts were hovering closer than usual.
“So now you know,” Matt said, turning away, ending the conversation.
For a few stolen hours this afternoon, he’d forgotten.
Forgotten everything except Jesse, and the way happiness had felt like it might belong to him again.
He couldn’t remember the last time he was happy.
Actually, he could—it was before that night in Cheyenne.
And after, he thought he’d never be happy again.
It was betraying them, the ones that died, the ones that lived with the emotional and physical scars, for Matt to forget.
He couldn’t have a mate. He couldn’t afford to be distracted from this pack, the one he never wanted in the first place.
He’d only stepped into being alpha because he could see that for wolves like Jason and Dave, having no alpha, no pack, was even worse than having him.
They had one another and Bryce to buffer them from the worst of Matt. Jesse wouldn’t have that. All of Matt’s attention, all of his flaws, would be turned on Jesse, and he’d burn Jesse up.
“Matt.” Bryce’s voice, quiet yet relentless.
“We’re done, Bryce.” Matt didn’t turn around.
But it appeared Bryce wasn’t done. “Never thought I’d see you be cruel,” he said.
Matt swung around, pivoting on his heel, every muscle tight. “What did you say to me?” His voice was silky soft, but there was no mistaking the instinctive fear flaring in Bryce’s eyes.
Yet he still didn’t let it go. Just like he hadn’t let Matt go, all these years. His friendship earned him rights no one else had. “It’s cruel of you not to tell him. And of all the things you are, Matt, you’re not cruel.”
“No, I’m not cruel.” Matt tossed back the last of his drink and slammed the glass on the desk. “I destroy people’s lives, get them killed and maimed, but I’m not cruel.”
His fists were on the desk and he was leaning over, fighting for air.
He’d ignored Cheyenne for so many years, but the world was intent on shoving it in his face today.
And so it should—he’d had no right to forget.
Others hadn’t had that luxury, burying the ones they loved, living in bodies that were too damaged even for enhanced healing to mend.
Bryce sucked in a breath, unsteady and loud. “Matt,” he said, reaching for Matt’s shoulder but not quite touching it. His fingers hovered, before he drew his hand back. “You know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Then whose fault was it, Bryce?” Matt was quiet, defeated. “I was the one in charge. I led them into that trap like the greenest rookie that ever existed, and then I kept them fighting.” Pain stabbed in his chest, doubling him over. “If I’d just surrendered… ”
“You might all be dead right now.” Bryce had moved further away, and sounded as if he were pacing, footfalls heavy on the wooden floor. “You were too much of a threat to let live, you know that. All of you were. You did the only thing you could.”
Bryce hadn’t been there. He didn’t know. They’d been so badly outnumbered, but Matt had told them it was about pride and honor and their pack, that they had to fight for those things. No wolf would refuse to defend their pack, which meant he’d practically forced them into that fight.
Where was the pride in seeing your lover slaughtered?
Matt would never forget the sound Eddie made when Simone went down—a raw, broken noise that tore from somewhere deep inside him.
Then Eddie had charged, silent and wild, like he wanted the end.
Like he couldn’t live in a world without her but would damn well make them pay before he left it.
Bryce hadn’t seen the blood-soaked aftermath.
Neither had Matt, for that matter—a head wound had taken him out of the fight before the end.
He’d never understood why no one had torn his throat out when he went down, and he’d resented, for so long, that no one had.
He could only think the amount of blood from his wound led them to think he was already gone.
So no, Matt hadn’t seen the aftermath for himself, but he saw it each night in his dreams.
“You know what I think,” Bryce said, his words short and cut-off, tense and difficult.
“Yeah, maybe you could have done things differently, but if you had, maybe it would have been worse. Weaver told you what to do, and you had no choice but to follow his order. If you’d refused, he’d have gotten someone else to do it, and maybe things would have turned out even worse. ”
“I guess we’ll never know.” Matt’s voice sounded like he’d been gargling ground glass. He wasn’t going to have this discussion. Not again. “And following orders is never an excuse.”
“It is when you don’t know they’re bad ones.
You were trying to defend our pack. Hell, you did defend our pack, because your attack bought the rest of us time.
Matt, listen, things went to hell for some of our brothers and sisters that day, and I’ll never not mourn them, but the rest of us?
You bought the rest of us the time we needed. ”
He strode over to Matt, steps quick and jerky, his hand biting into Matt’s shoulder. “You know Weaver made you out to be responsible for the whole goddamn mess because, otherwise, everyone would blame him. You know those things he said about you were ass-covering lies.”
Wasn’t so much what he’d said about Matt as to him.
How Matt, who’d been groomed for years to take over from Weaver as Cheyenne alpha when the time came, had been reckless, hotheaded, possessive, temperamental, stubborn, and too proud.
All things Matt knew he was. He’d just never seen them as faults.
Definitely not flaws bad enough to lead to the devastation that followed.
Weaver had flayed him verbally, had left him in anguish, raw and unprotected, and he’d run.
That way, he didn’t have to face the accusation in grieving pack members’ eyes.
It had taken him months to understand that running had compounded his offense.
He should have faced up to the consequences of his actions, even if that meant someone tearing out his throat one dark night.
Bryce had refused to let him go back. Told him straight up he’d been officially shunned, that if he returned, they’d kill him.
And maybe that didn’t sound like a punishment to Matt at the time.
Maybe it even felt like a mercy. But Bryce had looked him in the eye and called it what it was—self-indulgent.
Said it wouldn’t change anything. That if Matt truly owed a debt, he’d pay it by living. By doing something that mattered.
And Matt, for once in his goddamn stubborn life, had been shaken enough to listen to Bryce.
Bryce, who was standing in his den, glaring at Matt. “You’re not hearing me.” His voice had gone flat, and that was the only warning that Matt got. He waved his phone at Matt. “Maybe you’ll hear it from Lindsey.”
A cold knot of dread settled in Matt’s gut. He’d faced death, faced enemies, faced his own pack turning their backs on him, and somehow he’d weathered it all. But this? Not this.
“No.” Matt’s voice was rough, low, too close to a plea.
Bryce’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t pull back. “I haven’t done this before because—” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “You know why. We don’t talk about Cheyenne.” He breathed out steadily before fixing Matt with a look that felt like a goddamn verdict.
“But today?” Bryce shook his head, his voice going taut. “Today, I can see what it’s still doing to you. What it’s now doing to Jesse. And I can’t—” He cut himself off, his lips twisting as if the words tasted sour. “I should have done this a long time ago.”
Matt’s breath caught.
Bryce scrolled his phone. “I wasn’t shunned alongside you,” he said at last, quietly. “I found Lindsey on Insta a few months back.” He closed his eyes briefly. “We got talking.”
Matt’s pulse roared in his ears. But Bryce didn’t give him time to do anything, to say anything.
“Hey, Linz. How’s it going?” he asked cheerfully, his voice light even as the world closed in on Matt. “I’ve got Matt here to talk to you.”
He held the phone against his shirt, muffling the sound. His eyes met Matt’s, steady and relentless. Not giving Matt an out. “Hate me all you want after, but you have to do this.”
Matt took the phone like it was a live grenade.
Bryce gave a nod and silently left the room.