Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
C hael
My wolf angrily paces inside of me as I stare down at my youngest brother. My ears still ring with the speech he just gave to most of the pack.
“Chael, what’s?—”
Reese’s voice behind me stills my anger just enough for me to think clearly.
“What’s going on?” she asks, nudging me.
I step to the side of the door, allowing enough space for her to enter with our son in her arms.
“Christophe,” she says, cheerily. “You’re here.” She’s forced to stop moving in his direction when I move in front of her.
“Get out,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
His eyebrows spike, before they lower and a resigned expression passes over his face. He nods. “Yes, Alpha.”
I glare as he moves past me in the direction of the door. While I’m aware of the entire pack’s eyes on me, I don’t have any words or thoughts to share with them.
“Why did you do that?” Reese is the first one to break the silence. “Why’re you letting him leave again?”
Try as I might, I can’t ignore that he did betray us all.
Yet, I know it’s useless to remind my mate of the way he took part in her kidnapping, tying her up in silver chains that burned her while she was pregnant with our son.
“Chael.”
I take one look at the pleading in Reese’s eyes and then spin on my heels. I don’t know what I’m going to say or do, but I head out of the door in the direction Christophe just took.
Christophe is about fifty yards away. He’s moving quickly, in a rush to get back to his house.
“Wait,” I call out.
He doesn’t stop.
I could use my alpha voice to command him to stop, but instead I increase the pace of my steps until I’m only about twenty or so feet behind him.
“Christophe, I said stop,” I bellow, now using my alpha voice. That gets him to halt immediately, though he doesn’t turn to face me.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” I demand to know.
“I’m doing it for you.”
“Doing what for me?” I ask.
He turns his head slightly over his shoulder. “I know you can’t stand looking at me. I’m saving you the trouble.”
Not for the first time, my stomach tightens at the same time the band around my chest squeezes almost to the point of pain. I’ve had countless moments of joy and bliss over the past couple of years.
The top of which, meeting my mate, mate bonding with Reese, and having our son. Additionally, watching Chance finally meet his mate and fall for Emery in a way I, at times, feared he would never allow himself to fall.
Many of those moments have been overshadowed by this.
Christophe’s absence. And the reason for it.
“Turn around,” I tell him.
“I’d rather just go back to my house. Tomorrow we can?—”
“Turn around,” I order.
Obeying, he turns to fully face me.
“You get to leave when I say.”
“You told me to leave.”
I shake my head. “I told you to get out. Not to leave.”
His face wrinkles in obvious confusion. I know my words don’t make any sense to him. It’s because they don’t make any sense to me either.
I’m at a loss as to how to handle this. I’ve spent nearly a year trying to block out any emotion or feeling when it comes to Christophe.
“Why were you in my home?” I ask, taking the coward’s way out with an easy question.
His mouth opens and closes a few times before he explains that he was making a cake, which then turned into him preparing the pack’s dinner with Ms. Elsie.
“I swear, I didn’t poison it or anything like that. Even took a bite to prove it’s not laced with anything. I wouldn’t even know where to go to get any sort of poison. Though, I know you won’t believe that. Not that I’ve given you much reason to believe anything I say, but I swear it.”
“I believe you.”
He stops, mouth agape. “What?”
I shift my gaze away from him. The light from Mother Moon catches my attention. In recent months, I’ve taken to staring at the moon less and less. Between running the pack, making sure I’m being a good mate, and being a new father, I rarely take the time to look at the moon.
This is one of those moments that reminds me why it’s necessary to do so.
“I needed to apologize to the pack.” Christophe’s words draw my attention back to him.
I snort. I don’t even know why. It’s not like his words ring hollow or untrue. I overheard the entirety of what he said to the pack and, though, I’m loath to admit it, it sounded genuine.
“I apologize for doing it while you weren’t there because it probably comes across as insincere, but I know how much you hate me and don’t want to see me. However, I needed to tell them before …” He trails off, pausing and inhaling deeply, before finishing with, “Before I go back to prison. I needed to tell them.”
At this point, I’m grinding my teeth so harshly that an ache in my jaw starts.
“I don’t hate you,” I confess.
“Yes, you do. You can’t even look at me.”
“Because every time I look at you, I’m reminded of how much I hate myself.”
We both pause, almost stop breathing as the words tumble out of my mouth. Christophe’s eyes widen to saucers, and I feel my nostrils flaring. Words I never had any intention of admitting out loud hang in the air.
Christophe wags his head back and forth as if trying to dispel the words from his ears.
“Hate yourself?” he asks, almost to himself.
I again turn toward Mother Moon.
“I failed you and I failed our pack.” I say the words even as they pain me to do so. “If I had been a better alpha, a more attentive alpha, I wouldn’t have missed the signs. I should’ve known anyone in my pack was hurting that much, let alone my own brother.”
Slowly, I turn to look back at my youngest brother.
“I should’ve known how lonely you were and how susceptible it made you to Rufus’ machinations. Or anyone else’s for that matter. You were hurting in my pack, and I missed it.”
“No.” He shakes his head and takes a step toward me before stopping. “I …” He pushes out a breath.
“It’s my damn duty as the alpha to know what the hell is going on in my pack. How everyone’s doing.”
Christophe opens his mouth to speak, but I keep going.
“I didn’t know you were hurting as badly as you were. Hell, I didn’t even know what happened to Serafina when she was a child. I missed the signs because I was too damn busy building our businesses, earning money. I should’ve taken better care of our pack.”
“No, Alpha,” Christophe rushes in to say. “Th-That’s not true. I mean, you were busy. You brought the Nightwolves out of constant strife and infighting, after hundreds of years. Our pack has never known true peace until recently. That’s due to your hard work.”
“I’m the alpha,” I reply.
“You’re the alpha, but you’re not Mother Moon,” he retorts. “You can’t be everywhere at all times, and you can’t be all things to all members of the pack. It’s not possible.” He runs a hand through his hair, turning his head away.
“And yes, there were some things you might’ve missed, but that doesn’t mean you’re responsible for my actions. Whatever I did was a direct result of my choices and my choices alone. Not yours.”
He stops talking. It takes a moment, but eventually, I allow my gaze to meet his. A sharp gust of realization crashes through me at the pain I see in his eyes.
Was that always there?
It’s so prevalent that I wonder how I could’ve missed it.
“My choices are and were always mine to live with. Not yours.”
With that, he turns and starts heading toward his house. Words elude me, and so I let him go. But my mind continues to race, so much so that I only hear Ms. Elsie calling after Christophe, once she’s directly next to me.
“You almost forgot what you came here to bake,” she says to him in that typically grandmotherly tone of hers.
I silently watch as she hands him the familiar cake serving tray with its cover on. “There you go.”
Christophe, seemingly at a loss for words as well, takes the tray from her hands and nods. “Thank you,” he tells her softly before granting me one last look before leaving.
Ms. Elsie turns to me.
I open my mouth to tell her … what, I don’t know. But she stops next to me, pats me on the shoulder, and then continues on.
“Left you a few bowls of chili and biscuits in the oven to keep warm,” she says behind me.