22. River
River
My Alpha growls when he spies his brothers fraternizing with Pack Thorn at the bar they’ve set up at the festival, and it appears everyone is having fun except for me.
Fuck this.
I swagger over. I’d already downed a bottle of whisky even before heading out today, shoving various people aside as I approach the table.
The moment I’m close enough, I swing out my fist, aiming for Rowan Thorn. Yet I miss him by a hair.
Shit.
“River, stop!” Trent and Zale hold me back, but I only have eyes for Rowan. He’s a complete dickhead, and I hate his fucking guts.
So, I aim for him once again.
He jerks back, but my knuckles still clip his nose, drawing blood. His own brothers have his back now as they both glare at me, hackles raised.
“Rose… sort your brother out,” Briar snaps. “Or we will.”
I’m not sure which Rose brother he’s addressing, but I snap my teeth at him, too. “Fuck you! Fuck all of you.”
I have no idea why I am lashing out at the Thorn Park. I guess I just needed to divert my anger somewhere, and Rowan and his brothers just happened to be close by.
Also, just seeing my own brothers with them just tipped me over the edge. I know they’ve accepted Saylor, and it hurts.
Hurts that they didn’t discuss it with me first.
Ever since we were kids, it had always been us against the world. Yet now it feels as though I've been left behind. Trent and Zale have moved on. They've forgiven themselves enough to finally accept Saylor.
But me… I am exactly where I was ten years ago.
Stuck.
Maybe that was the hardest part. Everyone else seemed to be healing while I was still reopening the same wound every single day.
Trent smiles again. Zale even laughs louder. Even Daisy has found her happiness.
And Saylor has somehow managed to rebuild her life after everything we’ve put her through.
Yet every morning, I still wake up feeling as though we had rejected her just yesterday.
Screw this. I will show them. I will show everyone…
Have they forgotten what the Thorn Pack did to our sister?
They don’t deserve her…
Have they forgotten what we did to Saylor?
Because we don’t deserve her either.
Pack Wynter appears at some point, and it seems even the Alphas that own this lodge are turning against me now.
Everyone knows what a huge screw-up I am.
Robin offers me a pointed, stern look behind those smart glasses. “I think it’s time you left the lodge, River, or we will have to call the police.”
“I’ve got them on speed dial already,” Shepard sighs, grabbing his phone from his tool belt pocket.
Does he ever not wear a toolbelt? Such a handy man, but my beef isn’t with the Wynter Pack. They had graduated by the time I started Silverpine High, anyway.
No. My beef is with Pack Thorn.
Robin, Shepard, and Frost back up the Thorn pack now, but if I’m not mistaken, Frost seems to regard me with a little empathy.
In fact, he doesn’t look at me with disgust.
Worse. He pities me.
I have no idea why. I hardly know him. When I stumbled into the bar earlier, he was still playing his guitar live on stage.
Now he is here to escort me from the premises.
That’s when it hits me.
Of course.
He used to be a rotten drunk, too.
Trent, Zale, and I often found him passed out alone in alleyways. We even helped him home a few times, too.
So, I guess we’re both rotten drunks then.
“Just get him some water, and he should be fine. But it's best you get him home,” Frost announces next, gazing at Zale and Trent.
It looks like he’s remembering how we all helped him several times, too.
The Alpha is just returning the favor.
The festival carries on as though nothing has happened. Music continues to play, children continue to laugh, and somewhere nearby, fireworks crackle in the darkening sky.
It’s strange how the world refuses to stop simply because one man is falling apart.
Trent nods at Frost, and now he and Zale start hauling me away.
Fuck this. I don’t need to be babied. And I sure as hell don’t need a glass of water. Besides, I’m a glass-half-empty kind of person, anyway.
Now I shake out of my brother’s grips, marching out of the gazebo. Everyone is looking at us, but who cares?
I’m done with this place.
Maybe it’s for the best that I leave Vermont.
I've already ruined enough lives.
So, I’m not about to ruin hers, too.
I should go back to the UK. Start all over again…
That’s until I remember that she also lives there, too.
Saylor.
My gaze finds hers instantly.
She sits between my sister and Noelle Wynter Hale, staring at me with that look of sweet, utter concern on her beautiful face.
I don’t deserve her sympathy. Because I am the Alpha who broke her heart.
I treated her the worst.
So, I’m better off alone.
The world slows to a halt next as Saylor and I can’t keep gazing at each other. It may as well just be the two of us in that moment.
Saylor’s wide, ocean eyes seem to communicate something, but in that moment, I am too drunk or too blind to understand.
She… couldn’t possibly still want me, right?
I’m a mess. And she’s better off.
Still... is that an invitation in her eyes? She wants me back?
That’s when her perfume hits me next, and I freeze. Her usually calm scent is tainted with pain, and I have no idea what happens next.
One moment, she is looking right into my eyes. And the next she curls over, grabbing her stomach as she closes her eyes.
And then she passes out.
My whole world turns upside down.
Saylor… she is in pain.
And now I move purely on instinct.
My brothers do the same.