Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sofia
My head is a mess leaving the training hall. I barely notice the chill of the fall breeze on my bare arms. Or the scent of pine in the woods. My mind won’t stop circling, replaying Luca’s words, his apology, the sincerity in his tone.
It would be easier if he stayed my nemesis. When he was cruel, I understood how to hate him. When he was distant, I knew how to guard myself. But this version of Luca—apologetic, vulnerable, promising he won’t give up—he’s harder to fight. Harder to resist.
And I don’t know what the hell to do with that.
I can’t talk to Emily because Jackson needs her right now. Ryan isn’t exactly able to stay neutral on things. I can’t talk to Simon or Mike, because they don’t know the full story and they’re currently running a marathon. None of my human friends would understand in the slightest.
Shit.
I guess I’m stuck with my own head. Which is basically an echo chamber. I don’t want to give in. I don’t want to trust Luca. Or believe him when he says he pushed me away because he was too into me to be around me. My wolf whimpers, encouraging me to go back. To talk to him. To trust him.
But I don’t want to.
I don’t want to let him get close enough to hurt me again.
“Sofia,” Luca calls out, as if my thoughts summoned him. “Can we talk?”
I breathe in through my nose before letting out a long breath through my mouth. Am I any better than him if I push him away now the same way he pushed me away before? When my wolf wants him, and my body does too.
“What do you want, Luca?” I ask. My voice sounds tired and weary.
Accurate. I am tired. Tired of the push and pull, of wanting him one second and hating him the next.
I stiffen, shoulders squared, before slowly turning toward him.
He jogs down the steps of the pack house, his dark hair ruffled by the wind, his blue eyes locked on me. He really is unfairly attractive.
“I’m sorry,” he says when he reaches me.
“You said that,” I reply sharply. My wolf snarls at me, begging me to give in to him, let him make it up to me.
“I know. I just…” he trails off. He stretches his arms out and then places his hands behind his head. Almost like he’s trying to restrain himself, but his arms want to move towards me of their own volition. The way mine do towards him.
“I can’t take it back. I can’t erase how badly I fucked up. I won’t ask you what I need to do, because that’s not fair to you. You shouldn’t have to do my mental labor. But I can promise this—I’ll be here from now on. I’ll be better. I’ll work to be enough for you.”
He takes a deep breath and drops his arm, his shoulders slumping. “If you… if you need to reject me so that I can prove this isn’t only the mate bond… well, I won’t try to stop you.”
I rear back at his words, and my wolf howls in pain. “You’re okay with me rejecting you?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“No, I’m not okay with you rejecting me. I still want to throw you over my lap and spank your ass for trying to do it in the first place. But if that’s what you need to start trusting me? Fine. I’ll show you how much you mean to me even without the bond.”
This is what I wanted. From the first moment of finding out we were fated, I wanted to get rid of our bond. So why does it feel like a claw just sliced through my heart? Why does the idea of losing our connection make my stomach turn? My wolf keens, clawing at me, begging me not to push him away.
“Well, not that I need your permission, but thanks, I guess?” I snap, trying to claw back some of my power again. “I’ll wait until after the omegas are freed, obviously, but then there’s no reason to keep pretending that I’m going to accept you.”
I throw him my best glare, but the heat is gone out of it. And if I don’t have that, what do I have?
Goddess, I feel so damn alone. I wish my mom were here. The version of her she was before everything changed. I wish my dad could bother to give a fuck. I wish I had made more friends when I was a kid rather than following Luca and my brother around like a lost puppy.
“Sofia,” Luca says, his tone stern and unyielding all of a sudden.
He grips my chin and lifts my face to his.
Our hot breath mingling together and my heart continues to disintegrate.
“Don’t twist my words in your head. I’m not going anywhere.
Even if you reject me. Even if the rejection kills me. I’m still always going to be yours.”
A single tear rolls down my face. The warmth turns cold before it’s halfway down my cheek.
Luca looks at me. The old Luca. The one who always had my back.
The one who made me laugh, who never let me feel alone.
He pulls me against his chest, arms strong, the way he used to when I was a kid and the world felt too heavy.
“Why didn’t you ever call me when you went to beta training?” I blurt out, unable to hold the question in, even if it does make me sound needy and pathetic.
“I don’t know,” Luca says with a sigh. “I missed you so much, but I was starting to feel weird about it the older you got. You weren’t a kid, but you weren’t an adult either. I wasn’t sure how to interact with you.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Do you remember my leaving party?”
Five years ago
“Hey, wait up,” I call to Ryan. He’s getting ready to head to the boathouse for a day on the lake with his friends as a last social gathering before Luca leaves, and there is no way I’m being left behind.
“Can’t you hang out with someone your own age for a change?” he asks with a groan, and I roll my eyes. You would think he would be used to my presence by now. I guess I get it. I probably wouldn’t want a sixteen-year-old tagging along if I were twenty-five, either.
“Fine, I know where I’m not wanted.”
“Don’t be a dick, Ryan. Let her come,” Luca cuts in, stepping into the doorway with that smile that always unravels me. “You’re always welcome, as long as it’s safe, Princess.”
The way he says it—so sure—my heart stops beating. This will never get old. How he includes me and welcomes me. Ryan is my brother, and the only family I have really, but Luca is my favorite person in the world.
He’s always there for me; he has my back even when it involves going against his alpha.
He laughs at my jokes, and he was the one who put me and Ryan back together when our world fell apart.
I kind of wish he weren’t so handsome, though.
Because, goddess, he is too good looking.
Black hair that’s always hanging in his piercing blue eyes, a strong, muscular, and tall body.
And his abs do that V-shape thing that should be illegal.
But he’s nine years older than me and my brother’s beta and best friend, so it’s not as if he would ever see me the way I see him.
He would be horrified if he knew that I fantasize about him and imagine what his lips would taste like. It doesn’t matter; I can’t stop it.
I mouth a ‘thanks’ to him before grabbing my towel. I already have a bikini on under my summer dress.
Luca throws his arm around my shoulder and steers me towards the lake, chatting with me about school, asking how my end-of-year exams went, asking if there are any boys he needs to kill.
He has me laughing out loud. I haven’t even looked at any boys other than the one currently telling me I should definitely wait for my mate.
“You know, even when you find your mate, you should probably wait a bit longer. What about until you turn thirty?”
“Like you waited?” I tease while elbowing him in the ribs, even though thinking of his string of exes has pain lancing through my chest.
“That’s different. I’m not as good as you are,” he says while arching a brow. He stares into my soul, letting me know that he genuinely believes that. Not in some messed up patriarchal bullshit way, but as though he really believes I’m worth something.
“Agreed. Definitely wait until you’re at least thirty,” Ryan chimes in as we arrive at the lake. Around ten or so are already here, some sitting on the blankets, others swimming. No sign of Jackson yet, but that’s not a surprise. He rarely comes to these things anymore.
“You are both ridiculous.” I laugh, dropping to the blanket and grabbing a beer from the cooler. Ryan immediately takes it from me and starts drinking it.
“I said you could come, not that you could drink,” he says, raising an eyebrow. That’s his ‘don’t challenge the alpha’ face. It works on pretty much everyone else but not me.
“I don’t see why I can’t have one or two? I’m a shifter; it’s not like I’m a human teenager on spring break. It’ll barely affect me. Come on, Luca, back me up on this?” I ask, glancing at him over my shoulder and giving him my best puppy-dog eyes.
Before he can answer, Caitlyn, a blonde who is wearing heels and a dress that barely covers her ass—comes straight for Luca.
“Is this seat taken?” she says with a giggle before plopping herself on Luca’s lap. My wolf rears up, and my nails extend to claws. This bitch is lucky that I’ve been working on keeping my wolf in check since my first shift when we realized I am an alpha female.
My wolf wants to snarl at her to get away from him. That he’s mine. But I don’t. I can’t. Because he’s not.
“We were in the middle of something,” I snap when Luca says nothing.
“Sweetie, why don’t you run along and let the grownups talk, huh?” She says in the fakest sweet tone I’ve ever heard. “I’m pretty sure the beta doesn’t want to babysit at his own party.”
I cross my arms under my chest and cock a hip, ready to lay into her to defend myself, but I don’t have to.
“Hey,” Luca growls, pushing her off his lap. “Show some respect to Sofia. I want her here. You, on the other hand, are welcome to leave.”
My cheeks burn, but my wolf preens at Luca’s defense of me. At how he prioritized me over what was clearly an easy lay for him. He always has my back.
Present
“That was the last time you had my back,” I reply, my chest tightening as I remember how he stood up for me with Ryan and then again with that she-wolf.
“People were starting to whisper. You remember Caitlyn?” he asks, and my wolf surges forward with a snarl even though Caitlyn left the pack a couple of years back when she met her mate.
“Yeah,” I say, trying—and failing—to keep the snarl out of my voice. He flashes a cocky grin, delighted with my wolf’s possessive display.
“I heard her talking to her friends later, that I was more interested in little girls than adult females,” he says, shaking his head.
“I didn’t see you like that then. The way I see you now.
I cared about you, of course, but it wasn’t romantic.
I guess it freaked me out. I knew you had a crush on me back then.
I was worried; it seemed like I was encouraging it. Maybe worse than that.”
“You didn’t. You never acted like you saw me that way. But you understand that’s a bullshit excuse, right? You told me you’d always be there for me, and then you walked out of my life and never looked back. Like my mom. And my dad. Like Ryan is trying to do now.”
I wrap my arms around myself and look him in the eye. The pain that slices across his face is right on the surface. With his wolf close to the surface, his eyes flash silver, and he scrapes his hands down his face.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “I’m such a damn idiot.”
“Least we can agree on that,” I say with a shrug.
Pretending it doesn’t matter. This conversation has gotten too real.
Too vulnerable. My wolf is content that he knows he was wrong.
Now we know we are mates, the biological urge will be enough to make sure he could never leave me again. But it’s not enough.
“Don’t do that,” Luca snarls. “Don’t pretend none of this matters. It’s mostly on me, I get that, but that’s part of the problem too. You're acting like you don’t care.”
I believe him that he’s sorry. I even think I believe he won’t hurt me like that again. But I can’t bring myself to let it go. To give him the opportunity to hurt me again. I need my walls.
“I’m not sure what gave you the impression I care. Because I don’t,” I snap. “And anyway, at least you’ve got loads of practice not talking to me. Shouldn’t matter when we go back to not talking anymore.”
“Sofia—”
“No,” I say, holding up a hand to cut him off. “I hear you. I can see you’re sorry. But I can’t find it in me to give a fuck.”
The lie burns. My wolf howls. And still, I walk away.