Page 133 of Queen of Diamonds

Alive.

Well enough to be up by herself.

I didn’t know why I was shocked. Between travel, planning, and execution, my trip had been five days. It hadn’t felt like it, and the burner phone meant no texts or calls. I’d locked the bond down, too, but now I cracked it open, realising I’d been keeping her out.

I was met by a fierce ball of anxiety.

“You came back?” she asked.

“Of course I did.” How could I ever stay away from her?

She took another step toward me, eyes so nervous that my chest tightened.

I hadn’t expected how hard it would be to stand before her—to truly face her after knowing what she’d given.

Raised on the harsh indoctrination of toxic Alpha rhetoric, I’d never learned to face a queen. A woman so fierce she’d stolen my chance at saving my pack—a chance I would have wasted—only to sacrifice herself instead. My father never taught me what to do in the face of a woman like Glade, because he would have turned tail or cut her down for challenging his idea of power.

Or tried to crush her into a cage smaller than her reflection left him. Just like Ace had tried to do, only to learn she would survive scars before she bent the knee to any Alpha.

But I needed to become self-taught quickly since she was here, living, breathing, and waiting for me to speak. Living and breathing in a bond that tied me to her forever. I couldn’t watch her suffer another day with anything less than she deserved.

While I scrambled to figure out what an Alpha she deserved would say, she found her words first. With a shaky breath, eyes darting to the ceiling like she was trying to stop herself from crying, “Kyan said you bit me because I was dying.”

Shit…

I took two more steps before halting myself.

I had. It was a moment that would never leave me. But I thought… well, she’d entered the bond—accepted us—but of course she had when the alternative was death. “I didn’t want it to happen like that.” My voice was rough.

Another two hesitant steps, and she was almost within reach. This close, I could see the different shades of brown flecking her glassy chestnut eyes.

“Oh…” The word was so broken as it tumbled from her mouth. Her fingers twisted together, each breath a little shaky. “I… uh… I get that…”

My mind was racing, half of it sinking in guilt, at the bond I’d believed she’d taken out of necessity, not the choice I’d always wanted her to have. The other half was ringing alarm bells that something was wrong.

I frowned, my voice still dry.

“I mean…” She looked confused. “It wasn’t fair to you, to make you decide like?—”

“No.” I cut her off, what she was saying finally clicking.

Shit.

“I want you,” I growled, my own hairs standing on end as I closed the gap between us, reaching for her face. “I want you in this pack more than anything in the world.”

She should have been here this whole time.

Her expression crumpled, and I had to steady her.

“You were gone when I woke. I thought maybe you were angry, or?—”

“I was angry,” I breathed. “Not at you.”

At the whole fucking world for what had happened to her.

At myself.

My voice was broken as I sank to my knees. “I’m so sorry.” In that moment, I forgot everything in the world but what felt right. She deserved this. A real apology from me. I took her hands in mine, the edges scabbed from wounds she’d given herself to save me. “For everything you went through because I wasn’t enough.”

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