“But you don’t have to protect me from what happened to your mum,” I replied. “I don’t blame her for how it went down. She obviously felt she had no other options, but I do. I’m not gonna suck off the whole enforcer team of random alphas for any other reason than because I felt like it.”
That earned me a low growl, but he smiled after to soften it.
“I know, and none of this makes sense, but…” He stared off into the darkness. “I had to know.” He paused, as if that made sense, but it didn’t. “The blokes in those towns, people thought they were fine, upstanding men. Ambitious, sure, but all enforcers are. The alphas were tough, but that’s what it takes to run a pack, but…”
His gaze slid back to me. “I needed to know. Zack trusts you, has worked all this time to make you as resilient and tough as you possibly can be, and I know that if any of those you chose to include in your pack turned out to be muppets, you were perfectly capable of kicking them to the curb, but…”
His jaw muscles flexed, his grip on me tightening imperceptibly.
“But Declan hurt you so fucking much when you were a kid, and I didn’t know Lorcan. I don’t give a shit that he’s an Engel, but he seemed to be a smartarse shit when we first started talking. Micah’s a good bloke, but he’s a dark horse. Doesn’t give much away. I had to know that they were good for you, that they’d love you, look after you, protect you from all the fuckheads in our world who are gonna wanna tear you down, because I’ve met a lot of them. I needed to know if they were worthy.” The burning gaze faltered. “And then there’s me.”
He frowned as he pushed my hair back from my face, then stopped.
“Who hurt you more than me? My job was to protect you, to keep you from harm and I… I had it all planned out in my head. I’d show you, fall down on my knees and beg for forgiveness—”
“You did.”
“I was gonna stand by, watch, wait, hold things back, keep things on an even keel for you. Make sure you had time and space. Stop them from pushing you too hard because who knew better that fierce fucking pull towards you than me? I needed to know that this pack was solid, that this wasn’t just mating heat throbbing through all of them. That when shit got real, they’d have your back. That no one would treat you like her, not even me.”
“Mase…”
“I was supposed to honour what Adam asked of me all those years ago. I needed to know that you’d be safe, secure, loved. Before I did anything, before I even factored into the equation. Sort them out, sort the pack out. Except…”
When he looked at me, we both saw it, all the times he broke his own rules so fucking beautifully. Naked in Stevie’s flat above the bar, together with Micah as the god rode them in the hotel room.
“I didn’t need a beta,” I started to say, a figure emerging from the dark at our words. Ulfric stepped forward, a smirk on his face, arms crossing his bare chest. “I needed a mate. I needed you. I’ve always needed you, back then on the stairs, when I was eighteen, when you called me home, and now. No matter who comes into my fucking life, you’re there in my heart, so deep down, I haven’t got a hope in hell of dislodging you. Even when you fucking slayed me.” He flinched at that. “Even when you left me wondering, doubting, unable to work out why the fuck you were running so hot and cold.”
“I’m sorry, love.”
“I’m glad I saw this. I’m glad I know where you come from, what you went through. If I could have done anything to prevent that…”
Something occurred to me as I paused, staring at the darkness below us. What the hell happened to Kailee, to other ulva growing up in these insular little packs?
“But it’s done, Mason,” I said, my eyes snapping back to them. “We have to walk away from that…fucking shit of the past and forge something new, and if you’re not one hundred percent on board…”
He grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest, over the warm thudding beat of his heart.
“I will always choose you,” he said. “Always. You’re fucking everything to me. There is no one else in my life that means even a fucking half of what you do. I love you, Paige. I’ll always love you. Always.”
And as if he knew I needed something more than words, he dropped down onto his knees before me, staring up into my eyes right up until the moment his head was tilted away. He revealed the corded muscle of his neck to me, made himself as vulnerable as a shifter can to another. His beast would have fought it, hating the risk this posed, but still, he held it. Not moving, not checking to see if I would accept his offer, just waiting for me.
The world filtered back, the training room, my mates. They’d come back, summonsed by some unknown call, and had formed a loose ring around me, Greta having faded away. I heard the sounds of bird calls, the wind in the trees, and his breath.
I
