Page 3 of Pack Rivals: Part Two
I swallow. My mouth is dry and I feel like I’m choking on my own fucking tonsils, every breath sharp in my constricted throat.
More footsteps. This time heavy.
They stop on the other side of the door.
There’s a moment, a moment as he reaches out to take the handle, that I could turn around, that I could leave, that I could pretend I never saw a thing. Because this is the moment, this is the moment everything changes. Once he’s opened that door, there is no going back.
But my feet won’t budge. They are rooted to the ground, determined to see this through, determined to unleash my anger on the man who has shattered all my dreams.
The door swings back. Axel stands in the dark hallway.
He knows. He knows as soon as he sees my face.
His brow furrows. His shoulders tense.
He’s ready for the blow, but he’s prepared to preempt the damn thing anyway.
“It’s not what you think, Angel,” he says.
And it’s something about those words, those words in particular, that has me erupting like a fucking volcano.
Does he think I’m stupid? Does he think I’m blind? Does he think I didn’t see it all?
I slam my fist into his jaw, and though I hear my knuckles crunch, though I perceive my skin split, I don’t feel anything. Nothing at all.
Axel stumbles backwards.
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles. “Will you just stop, Angel? Will you just stop for one minute and talk to me?”
“I saw you,” I say quietly, coming for him again. “I saw you together.”
I swing at him a second time. But this time he ducks and my arm flies through empty air. He barrels into me, forcing himself right up into my space so I can’t swing for him again.
“No,” he says.
I find the front of his shirt, gripping it in my hands. I slam him into the wall. But he’s just as big as me, just as strong, and he pushes right back, jamming me into the wall on the opposite side of the hall.
“You had to take her,” I yell into his face. “You had to take her from me. You couldn’t let me have this, could you?”
I push him and he pushes right back. We tussle in the hallway, stumbling through the open door and out onto the balcony.
“I don’t want her,” he yells.
“Of course, you fucking don’t, but you had to take her anyway.”
I stamp on his toe and kick at his leg and he jabs me in the ribs, the force of it ricocheting all the way through my bones.
“You’re being fucking ridiculous,” he spits.
And the rage magnifies tenfold.
Ridiculous?Ridiculous?
“You know what’s fuckingridiculous, brother?” I snarl into his face. “If you’d waited, if you’d been patient, you could have had her. I wanted to make her ours. Our pack omega.”
“Then what the fuck does it matter?” he snaps back.
“You went behind my back.” I shove him hard. He stumbles away from me and now I have the space to launch at him. I punch his face and his head, his chest and his gut.
