Chapter Six #2
“They did leave. Escaped, more like. But…” His hand tightens. “You saw how Montague was with Julius. Dismisses and insults him but also needs him? He needed his sons, and as much as they would have loved to turn their backs on him, that was never … safe.”
“For them?”
“For them or for others. Mostly, their concern was for others. They did what Nancy does now. Looked after him but also restrained him. For my father and uncle, that came with a price, but…” He adjusts his grip on my hand.
“When Montague’s attention turned on me, I discovered it gave me the power to distract him.
Make him focus on me. Draw his attention from Julius, my father, my uncle. ”
I think of the little boy who learned that lesson, and my heart cracks. “Oh, Bishop.”
“It was fine,” he says firmly. “I made a choice. No one knew I was doing it, and I would like to keep it that way. Any discomfort I felt being the focus of Montague’s attention was nothing compared to what the others endured.”
“All right.”
“What I need you to understand, Cordelia, is the fear that hangs over me all the time. I hate admitting it, because it’s not who I want to be, but I also need you to see the worst of me.”
When I open my mouth, he says, “No, please. I didn’t say that for you to console me. Just listen. Please.”
I nod silently.
“I grew up hearing how I was like Montague, and no matter what my father and uncle did to mitigate that, I felt it because I saw all the ways I am more like him than I am like my father and uncle and Julius. My ambition, my single-mindedness, my capacity for ruthlessness, it all mirrors my grandfather. I fear becoming Montague, as if what poisons him lurks deep in my soul, a rot waiting to take hold.”
“You fear that you inherited the worst of him, as well as the best.”
“Yes, and you can tell me I’m not like that. My father did. My uncle did. Julius does. But that only leads to another worry, one that eats away at me. The worry that I can’t be what I need to be—what I want to be—because of my fear.”
I think I know what he means, but I stay silent. Don’t interpret. Let him explain.
“I’m Alpha now,” he says. “Alpha at the worst possible time for the Albion Pack. And I fear … I fear I’m not the right Alpha for this moment.
I was the right Alpha yesterday, when I won the challenge.
The Pack has been fractured for years, and I could make them strong and united.
Heal the wounds Silas inflicted. But what the Pack needs now is… ”
Again, I resist the urge to jump in.
He swallows. “When I first joined the Pack, I hoped I wouldn’t need to ever challenge Silas.
I fantasized about an ideal world where he would guide and mentor me to Alphahood.
That hope gradually faded, and when I realized what he’d done to your mother—and witnessed what he did to your aunt—I knew a slow and bloodless ascension wasn’t possible.
It wasn’t that I balked at killing him. I balked at how many others might die.
I kept thinking of Montague, who dreams of executing anyone who might conceivably stand in my way, including Oliver.
I feared that wolves would die supporting or opposing me, but I also feared that I might fail to act because allowing more deaths would make me like Montague.
” He glances at me. “I’m not making sense, am I? ”
“You are,” I say carefully. “You’re worried that, in trying to not be like Montague, you might be unable to do what is necessary.
Fighting a cabal will require you to be ruthless, and you can be.
But if it requires you to be brutal, even cruel, can you do that for your Pack?
Or will fear of becoming your grandfather hold you back? ”
His hand tightens on mine so much that I think I’ve made a mistake. Then he’s in front of me, his hands going to either side of my face, holding it gently, as he says, “Yes. That’s it exactly. Thank you.”
“I can’t see you becoming your grandfather, Bishop. The seed isn’t there. He can be cruel. I saw that. There isn’t a drop of cruelty in you.”
I take a deep breath and push on, “I’ll be honest. You’ve done things I hate.
Taking me into protective custody when there was nothing I needed protecting from.
Lying about the threat against me. I know that was on my father’s orders, and you had to go along with them because open disobedience would hurt your chance of deposing him, but it still rankles. And yet…”
I look up into his eyes, dark and unreadable, shadows roiling behind them.
“And yet it rankles because it was me. Because you kidnapped me and lied to me. But if you said, today, that we needed to capture a stranger and lie to them, and that would help save the Pack? If you promised we’d take care of that stranger, to the best of our ability, as you did with me?
What would I say to that?” I reach to touch his chin and whisper, “I would not hesitate to do it, and I know you wouldn’t either.
That’s manipulation, and it isn’t kind, but it’s not cruelty. ”
I continue, “Lenora was considered a dark witch, and she practiced lethal spells that I couldn’t bring myself to learn.
I thought the two of us represented the spectrum for a dark witch.
From me to my aunt. But now I’ve met my grandmother, and I laugh at my naivete.
If that is a dark witch, I’m not even on the scale.
Now I need to decide how I can learn some of that magic while not falling down that hole to becoming someone I don’t want to be. ”
I meet his eyes. “What if I become Beryl, who’d murder half a Pack because their dead Alpha crossed her? Or what if my fear of becoming her holds me back from learning magic I need to fight her?”
He lets out a slow breath, relaxing with it. “Yes, you understand.”
“So, can we help each other then? To find the boundaries? The one we don’t cross and the one we need to cross. To pull each other back if we near the one, but push each other forward if we shy away from the other?”
“Please. Yes, please.”
His mouth comes to mine, and there is such need in it, such raw need that it’s like ripping the bandage from a wound, all my own fears rushing out to meet his. That kiss is a connection like I’ve never felt before. As if we’re two swimmers keeping each other from being dragged into a whirlpool.
My hands move to his face, cupping it as he kisses me, and he groans, the kiss going deeper still, until the world constricts to the pinpoint of that contact between us. I press into him, and his hands slide to my hips, lifting me against the tree.
I rise up, trying to get my legs around him, growling in frustration when my skirts refuse to let me.
I reach to tug them, but he’s already there, one hand on each side of my skirts, hiking them with a single motion to my knees and then another, getting them up around my hips, and my legs wrap around him.
My hands go to his hair, raking through it, and his lips never leave mine, that deep kiss of connection, of life itself, as if breaking it would steal the air from my lungs.
His hands slide between my arse and the tree, cradling me while pulling me against him, and I open my legs wider, wrap them tighter, feeling the faint rasp of his trousers between the split legs of my drawers as that hardness finds exactly the right place.
I arch my hips, and he thrusts against me, and it is fast and it is rough and it is exactly what I want, exactly what he needs, and release comes quickly for both of us, glorious and welcome release.
When we finish and he pulls back, his laugh ragged and a little awkward, I press my fingers against his lips.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I think that’s supposed to be my line.” He kisses me again and then sighs and lowers me to the ground. “I really need to stop doing that.”
I tug my skirts down. “Not at all. You just need to be better prepared. I’d suggest packing an extra pair of trousers. At all times.”
He laughs and kisses me, tender and sweet now. Then he scoops me up, ignoring my protests, and carries me down the path.