Page 72 of Fight or Fly

“That’s not why I’m angry,” Alex said, cutting her off with a sharp jerk of the head. “It’s as she told me. We were barely more than pups when I mated her. We were a pair ofidiots.”

“Then, what?” I asked carefully.

“You don’t understand!” she flared. “You can’t understand—no one can!”

“Explain it to us,” Leo insisted, in a tone that brooked no argument. “Tell us, Alex.”

“She was alive!” Alex cried. “My mate was alive, and I didn’t come for her!”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said, taken aback by the pain in that simple declaration.

“But you still blame yourself,” Leo said slowly. “If she was dead, then you’d already failed. There was nothing more to be done. But instead...” She trailed off.

“They killed our pups and ripped her body to pieces,” Alex said jaggedly. “She was broken and frightened and alone, and I didn’t lift afucking fingerto find her and save her.”

“Does she blame you for that?” I demanded, ready to go give a certain omega a piece of my mind if she’d said any such thing.

“Of course she fucking doesn’t,” Alex snapped. “She’s moved on. She doesn’t love me. She never—” The words choked into silence.

Do you love her?I wanted to ask—but Leona was giving me a warning look.

“I would have loved those pups with my last breath,” Alex whispered, and perhaps that was an answer, of sorts. “God. We were almost—”

A family, my mind supplied, into the blank space. And oh, how intimately I knew that pain. Pups that might have been. A family that might have been.

I lifted a hand toward her, inching forward on my knees, clearly communicating my intention. When my arm came around her shoulders, high enough to avoid the fresh blood seeping through the bandages, she stiffened.

“Don’t touch me,” she said hoarsely.

I stilled. “Tell me that again like you mean it, and I promise I’ll let go,” I said, hoping it wasn’t a terrible mistake.

Silence fell, broken only by the awful, labored sound of breathing that wanted to be sobs. One heartbeat, two, three—and Alex slumped against me, shuddering. Leo scooted up on her other side and wrapped her between us, being as careful of her broken hand as a mother bird with a newly hatched chick.

“You have a family,” Leo said. “You have apack, Alex. Please, let us take you back to them. They need to know that you’re hurting.”

Alex let out a low moan of pain and leaned into us, trusting us with her weight. We stayed like that for several long moments, just supporting her between us.

“Do you need to see one of the doctors first?” I asked—worried about the damage she might have done to herself.

Alex uncurled enough to glance down at her bruised right hand as though it belonged to someone else, before shaking her head slowly. “It’s fine,” she rasped.

She let us heft her to her feet on rubbery legs. After a moment, she nodded, and the three of us began the awkward shuffle toward the front door and the huge house across the compound.

It was more or less the mirror image of when we’d dragged Jax to the infirmary, though Alex gained steadiness as we walked, rather than growing weaker. It felt like the short journey took forever, but eventually we entered the east wing to find Flynn pacing restlessly in the foyer while Jax leaned against the wall, looking pale and haggard.

“Shoulda woke us up,” Flynn growled. His eyes were for Alex, though. He looked like someone had taken his compass away and handed it back with the needle pointing south instead of north.

“What happened?” Jax asked quietly.

“Rough day all around,” Leo said shortly.

“Is it Irina?” Flynn asked.

“Not here,” Leo shot back. “Let’s go to the nest.”

“Bathroom first,” I said. “I want to clean up those split knuckles, if nothing else.”

“I’m not an invalid,” Alex snapped.

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