Page 173 of Drown My Sorrow

“This is what we do to keep you safe.”

“You can’t do this to me! I need you. I need all of you. Please, Shale, please, I’ll do better, I’ll be better. Please don’t send me away.”

“Aspyn, enough!” Shale snaps. “We, as a pack, voted. You are suffering here, you are withering away. It’s making you sick. We need to stay, but you are going home with Gael while we take care of this asshole.”

I shake my head, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“You’re distracting, and you’re making it harder than it needs to be,” Kelly says softly. “You’re being a burden to us.”

I recoil, slamming hard into the wall I’ve backed up against. I’m a burden?

My whole world stops and crumbles. All my fight, all resistance, crumbles and falls like sand through my fingers. They are right. I’m nothing but a burden.

“Okay,” I whisper.

Shale pulls me into his arms, but I can’t feel anything. Just the cold.

Chapter forty-two

Beau

BeauAged23

“Are you all right?”

Aspyn looks up and winces. “I told them not to tell you!”

I smirk at the outrage on her face. “Everyone tells me everything. There are no secrets between the four of us.”

She humphs and folds her arms across her chest. She makes my heart leap every time I see her. I just want to make her happy. I never want to see her sad.

I’m in love with her. We’re all in love with her, but none of us have told her yet.

“Let me give you a massage.”

She opens her mouth to protest and instead just nods. She stands up, and I move to help her limp to the table where she lays down on her stomach.

I hate her capitulation because it just makes it clear how bad her pain is. Meek and mild. Totally not her.

I work the stiff muscles in her lower back and thigh and idly think I’d do this forever if I could.

Does she even realise it?

That’d I’d do anything for her?

PresentDay

I stalk into the office, throwing open the doors for Kelly and Ezekial to enter behind me.

The boardroom of CEOs, investors, and upper management turns to face us as one mass.

Kelly looks so different now. He’s in a suit, which I don’t really like, with his hair slicked back and an expression that makes me think he could have been one of these people if he’d stayed just a few more years and let this place corrupt him.

I glance at Shale and find he’s got his hunting face on. Good. Last night, we sent Gael, Nat, and Aspyn home where they would be safe until we could sort this out.

I want it sorted now. The stretch of distance has silenced the bonds. I don’t like it at all.

With a look of loathing at the board members, I pull my phone out and send a message to her.

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