Darius
Iknew storming up to her room was the wrong move, but I was so pissed, I wasn’t thinking straight.
Rik hit it right on the head. This was what I did best, and somehow, I got played.
The only way The Collective could have known about Kursar and what role Viv played was that someone had hacked into my system.
Nothing about us coming here was ever sent to The Collective.
Rik used my computer to communicate with Astrid, but I knew the connection was clean.
As everyone gathered in the living room, I headed over to the bar in the corner, pouring myself a glass of bourbon.
I needed something to settle my nerves after almost losing it in Viv’s room.
I didn’t think it would affect me so much to see the others being intimate with her right before my eyes.
Knowing I could have her lips on mine once again, if I wanted, drove me out of my mind.
Walking away from her that time in the gym cost me my wolf.
From that day on, I’d barely felt him. He’d been keeping himself hidden in the recesses of my brain, unless it came to protecting Viv.
The loss of him already had me on edge, and then to have Rik point out this was all my fault… I lost it.
Watching Viv take control of her alpha energy and use it to make us come to heel was a sight to see.
If I wasn’t already lost for this woman, that would have done me in.
I wanted to fall to my knees and pledge myself to her then and there, but I knew I couldn’t do that now.
Not with this failure. If I couldn’t keep her safe, then I didn’t deserve her, or even to call myself Alpha of my own people.
“Darius.” Viv’s voice startled me, cutting through my thoughts.
She was standing with a hand on her hip, watching me with a cocked eyebrow. Apparently, she had been talking, and I wasn’t listening.
“Yes?” I answered, swirling my drink as I regarded her. I wasn’t going to give in. I couldn’t let myself become lost in this woman. I’d seen firsthand what it looked like to be left behind when you loved someone as much as I knew I would love her if I let myself.
“Care to join us and share what you know about our current situation?” she asked, directing me to an open chair to her right.
Silently, I sat in the chair and drained the rest of my drink before I began. “While I was working with Juris and the security team to see what needed to be upgraded, I got an email on my phone.”
“Wait, how do you still have your phone when the rest of us had to ditch ours before we got to the safe house?” Koit grumbled.
“Is your phone encrypted to be untraceable and send encrypted outgoing calls and texts?” I asked, baiting him.
Koit was always trying to get under my skin any way he could. Most of the time, he succeeded, but I tried not to let on by getting my own dig in.
“Seeing as how your fancy tech didn’t do jack shit, how do we know your phone isn’t a problem?” Koit asked with a raised brow.
I gritted my teeth, wishing I had thought to bring the bottle of bourbon with me for this conversation. “If that were the case, then nothing we have done would have been a secret. It took them over a week to find us at the safe house.”
“Hold on, Koit has a point,” Tav said, drumming his fingers on the couch’s armrest. “What if they wanted us to think that we were safe, but when you let The Collective know that you were sending them Faulk, it forced Vadik to make his move?”
“These are all things we need to look into, but what I really want to know is what The Collective has to say,” Viv said, getting us back on track.
Sarma, who had been silent up until then, just observing our dysfunctional pack, handed over a piece of paper. “Here is a copy of the email that was sent to Darius. I felt it would be easier for you to read it firsthand.”
Viv took the email and read it over, her face blank as she took in the words and their meaning.
I was waiting for her to fly off the handle, but that moment never came.
Instead, she went cold and quiet… which was far scarier than an outburst. Wordlessly, she passed the email over to the others on the couch for them to read.
Tav read it over first, and his eyes, full of anger, looked up at me like this was all my fault. “The Collective has sent an envoy to welcome the new Dama of Kursar, Vivianna Beck. Seems they hope to push her into an alliance with them right away.”
“How is it that we’ve only been here for a few hours and they already know so much?” Rik asked, reading the email again.
I could feel them all coming to the same conclusion, and I couldn’t blame them. If it had been me sitting there, I would think the same thing.
“Just come out and ask. I know you’re all thinking it,” I snapped.
Viv got up from her seat and stood, looking down at me, her eyes filled with so much emotion I almost couldn’t hold her gaze.
“Darius, Alpha of the Moonlake Pack, did you give The Collective any information on me or our plans? Did you turn your back on me completely?” Viv asked, and I could see her eyes well up with tears at my assumed betrayal.
“Is your dislike of me so strong that you would give me over to them to be rid of me? I would never have forced you to stay. I would have let you go, you just needed to say so.”
I watched two tears roll down her cheeks, ripping my heart out that she could so utterly believe that I would do this to her.
Was there anything I could do to get her to believe that I didn’t do this?
Did I want her to believe that? I could walk away right now, free to go back to my own pack, back to my normal life.
Then I knew what had to be done. It wouldn’t fix things, but it would prove my sincerity.