Page 57 of The Alpha's Chosen Fate

“I’m sorry for how I reacted,” she said, surprising the hell out of me.

I swiftly found my way to her, kneeling at her feet.“No.You don’t apologize, not for anything.I’m the impatient bastard who should be begging forgiveness.It’s just …”

“Not your Alpha nature?”

“Right.”I chuckled.“Colten told me I should just say sorry for being an asshole, for basically just being who I am.So I’m sorry.About my personality.”

Ivy rolled her lips between her teeth.Was she trying not to smile?My Beta really was right.

“Ivy, I have no experience making amends like this.I do my best to be a good Alpha, to help the pack thrive.It’s my own problems, apparently, I’m shit at fixing.”

“Well, to be fair, your, or I guessour, problem is bigger than most.”

Gently, though I felt far from being gentle this close to my mate, I clasped her hands.“Ivy, I need to know if you think you can ever truly forgive me?”

Her blue-green gaze remained steady."I'm trying, Briggs.I really am.I finally know the truth of it all and I get that you were in an impossible position.It’s the forgetting part that’s giving me the most trouble."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair.It wasn't the definitiveYes!I had hoped for, but it was better than an outrightHell no!

I lifted one of her hands and turned it over, kissing her wrist.“Thank you.”

Her small smile made me feel ten feet tall, which made me disinclined to steer the conversation where I needed to steer it.

I knew she hated the locked door.I couldn’t keep locking her in for much longer, but Onyx would go insane if she up and disappeared.

"Listen, Ivy, I know theoutcomefor Ruby isn’t easy to come to terms with.But there’s actually one more thing I need to tell you about the day she went into labor.”

Her brow furrowed and I wanted to kiss the little wrinkles between her eyes and make them disappear.

“How well did you know her?”I tested.

She inhaled deeply then let it out slowly.

“I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but she had a mean streak a mile wide.Choosing someone like her was rubbing salt in the wound and imagining the two of you together made me want to come back and kill her.”

Her lower lip wobbled.“And now I feel like I actually did kill her.”

“No, Ivy, that’s not on you.It’s on me.Completely and totally on me.And since you want honesty, here it is.”

I peered into her eyes and braced for judgement.“I tried to feel bad about Ruby’s death but in the end, I just didn’t.”

“That’s appalling, Briggs.”

“It is.I had no love for her.No affection.In fact, Onyx wanted to kill her the night I rejected you.And most nights after."

Ivy’s eyes rounded.

“It’s true.I had to drown myself in liquor to get anywhere near her.”

I hated her wince, but she deserved honesty.“I can’t erase it, but if the choice was your life or hers, I’d end hers every time.”

“But the baby—”

“Please don’t.Not today.”

She opened her mouth to speak then clamped it shut.A heavy silence hung between us until I got around the lump in my throat.

"Ruby was worse than any of us actually knew," I began."It was no secret she was shallow and ambitious—and mean, as you aptly pointed out.”

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