“I knew you were lying.”
“You’ve got to learn to control your anger. Bottling it up is all fine and noble and shit, but there will come a point where you can’t control it. Where all of a sudden the littlest thing makes you mad, and that anger builds. It drives you to do things you wouldn’t do.” He knelt down near the pool, and she moved a little closer.
“You did it on purpose,” she said, not really a question.
“I had no choice. You were not facing up to the risks. There’s only so much I can do, and I’m not going to have you hurting yourself or the pack.”
She felt so sad in that moment. This wasn’t her pack yet.
“This is your pack,” he said.
Cassie looked at him with a frown. “How did you—”
“Know? You’re not that hard to read. Your pack did a real number on you, didn’t they?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does. You have to accept what they did; be angry, be fucking furious at them but know it’s only for them. That your anger has a focus point and then you can move on.”
She moved away as he climbed into the water. She averted her gaze as he removed his boxers, and she kept her back to him. “Is that what you did? You accepted why your pack turned their back on you?”
“I had no choice. They kept asking me to do things I couldn’t do.”
“Like what?”
She looked at him, curious to know the truth. He moved in close, and this time she stayed still, waiting to see more.
“I wouldn’t submit to the alpha. It wasn’t that he was a bad alpha, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I tried. Every single time I saw him, I tried to bow down, but no matter what, my leg wouldn’t bend. It was like my will wouldn’t let me. That I was destined to be an alpha from the beginning, and it was why I was rejected from my pack.”
He didn’t seem sad about it.
“Are the rumors true about you?”
Abel burst out laughing. “About me turning a human so I wouldn’t go mad?”
“Yes.”
“No. It’s funny though. I know I’m cool and fucking awesome, but that’s not what happened. My parents came with me. They didn’t want me to die as I was their only son. We formed a pack together. Kind of weird being my parents’ alpha, but they were not naturally born to it. I was.”
“Ah, so that’s how you survived going feral?”
“Yes. It wasn’t anything mysterious.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if it will work with every single person. I was lucky because I’m a natural leader.”
She pulled away from him, not liking the draw that his body was becoming. She didn’t look at men for her own physical pleasure. As wolves they had needs all the time. But after being hurt by her pack, those needs had never been a problem for her.
With Abel near, she wanted him. Her wolf liked being held down by him. His control had turned her on. It had made her feel safe.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You’re withdrawing.”
“I’m not.”
“You also don’t have to hide your nakedness from me. I won’t mock you.”
“Even though I’m fat.”
“You’re not fat.”
“I’m not skinny.”
“So?” he asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“People have their own ideas of fat and thin, beautiful and ugly. I don’t follow the norm. You should see that with my pack. We’re all a little flawed in some way.”
“My old pack were all thin and beautiful. My hair was either too red or my eyes too green. My hips too wide, my breasts too big. They found fault with every little thing. I hated them,” she said, looking at him. “I thought … I thought about hurting them a lot. About making them feel the way I had.” Tears once again sprang in her eyes. “And I hate that they got to me to the point that I felt that way. I don’t like feeling that way.”
“When did you first realize your strength? I don’t think it was that one time. You must have kept control of it.”
She nodded. “It was … erm … not long after I turned eighteen. I was going through their rigorous training. I was forced to run in the woods repeatedly. One day I got angry, and I was sitting on a boulder overlooking the lake. I lost it, and I just brought my hands down in a single strike.” She remembered seeing the boulder, how it split in two, and she’d moved as it fell into the water. “After that I kept testing my strength and watching other people in the pack. I didn’t want them to find out. Of course, I didn’t realize that my wolf has a mind of her own, and poof, she took care of business for me.”