“Give it to me,” he said, slotting his body in the space between me and my child and I made a harsh sound of dissent at that. He paid me no mind, utterly focussed on Evie as she slammed her hands into his chest.
“Give it to us,” Jasper said, standing beside Ben and forming a wall now between us. “You’re hurting and that’s not good.”
“Give us your pain,” Damon said and moved closer, until the three of them had formed a semicircle around her, locking down her space and her options. “You’re not angry at your mum, you’re mad at us.”
At the sound of Evie’s plaintive wail, at the sound of her scream and the dull thudof her blows, my tears came, as did Reed’s ragged sigh. He sucked a breath in, then another, before muttering, “Fuck it…” and took the last spot in the circle around Evie. She screamed the loudest at him, some incoherent sound, and he bore the brunt of it, letting her punch and pummel him until finally she was all out of rage. Then he bent down, they all did and put their arms around my daughter.
“Well…” Carmen said, appearing by my shoulder, “so that’s what she needed.” She seemed curiously fragile in that moment, something I understood all too well. We were just fucking betas on the outskirts of some alpha magic we’d never comprehend, which left us in the uneasy place of feeling grateful for it, but not knowing why. Her arm went around my shoulders and she hugged me tight. “All will be well, Lily. We just have to find a way through this.”
But would we though?
Chapter 43
Jasper drove us home, his eyes on the rear-view mirror, peering at Ben and I as much as on the road. Evie was wedged in tight between us, quiet now and emptied, but in some ways the silence was worse than her rage. When she was angry, she was telling me what was wrong on some level. Now, she was resigned. To the pain and the misery, the situation that had got her here. She’d given up entirely.
“C’mon, cub,” Ben said when we parked in front of the house, picking her up. When her head went to his shoulder, she looked like a little doll in his arms. He brought her inside, and the rest of the pack came with him, swarming into my house, filling it all up with their alpha bullshit, but I put up a hand, stopping them from coming any closer when we got to her room. Ben set her down on the bed and I sat down beside her.
“Evie—”
That’s all I got out before she threw herself at me, tears exploding out the minute I put my arm around her. The alphas all watched me tuck her into my side and then move us so we were both lying on the bed. I ignored them and just focussed on Evie.
I wanted to know exactly what had happened. I wanted every gory detail so I could rally and pivot, trying to find another way for my daughter. But not yet. I wasn’t sure if I was the same when I was a kid, but Evie re-experienced everything she told me when she’d had a rough day. She’d see, feel all the same pain and anger. So while it pained me physically, I’d learned to wait: to be there, be available and when she needed it to come out, I made space for her to do so safely.
So instead, I did something so much harder. I set aside my need to problem solve and was a silent witness as all of the poison swelling inside her was let out. I stroked her hair, pressed her body into mine and just held on.
And Ben was there throughout it.
Occasionally I’d look over. He looked too pale, too wide-eyed and somehow the fracture of all that alpha confidence made me feel both better and worse. He was an alpha. He did understand what Evie was going through, but even he seemed shocked by her outburst. He just sat there, oh so quietly, and waited her out. Then finally all there was were the big hiccupping sighs that came after, Evie’s whole body wracked by them until her eyes closed and she curled up and went to sleep.
They crept in afterwards, something that set my teeth on edge. Damon came and sat on the end of the bed, staring down at my daughter like she was some kind of alien, while Jasper took up position by Ben’s side on the floor. Reed leaned against the door jamb, not willing to come in any further and that was somewhat of a relief. It wasn’t their fault. I wasn’t angry with them or anything, but… when Evie was younger, I’d wanted, needed someone to help me through this so much. Her terrible twos were more like tornado twos, bleeding through into the bloody awful threes and… I’d been so young and alone, but now… Help was here, but it just felt like it was too late.
“We need to teach her how to fight,” Damon whispered, eyeing Evie, lest she wake up.
“What?” I hissed.
“Makes sense,” Jasper said with a nod of his head before turning to me. “If she learns how to fight, she can channel those instincts down more appropriate channels. She’s operating on instinct right now.”
I went to protest but Ben shook his head.
“Most of fight training is learning when not to fight and what to do instead,” he said. “Alphas protect, defend and, when required, will attack without remorse. All of that is boiling inside her with nowhere to go. She needs to learn with us how to be a true alpha.”
“Doesn’t change the fact she doesn’t have a pack.” Reed’s voice was little more than a raspy subvocalisation, but we all stopped when he spoke. “She’s alone. She has to be her own pack, whereas we were always there to back each other up. It’s not what you want to hear, Lily. I’m sorry for that, but it’s part of what makes her explode like that. She’s on her own and she shouldn’t be.”
He met my glare head on with green eyes that seemed completely shuttered, not letting anything in or out. But eventually he shook his head and pushed himself away from the door, wandering out into the house.
“Stay with Evie,” I commanded Ben, leaping off the bed to follow.
I stalked through the house, the plush carpets swallowing my steps, until I found Reed in my kitchen. His hands were on my bench tops, his head hanging down, his body set in the pose of someone expecting to cop a beating.
“So it’s my fault?” I snapped, finally able to let myself speak freely.
“Didn’t say that.”
“What the hell was I supposed to do?” I asked him, but the question operated on multiple levels, because I’d asked myself the same thing over and over. “What should I have done, Reed?”
“You should have found us,” he snapped back and all that cool reserve just shattered. “If we’d known… If we’d been here…”
“You’d do what? I’m fairly sure being some kind of wizard at kink was not what I was missing as Evie was growing up. Granted, having multiple orgasms until I could barely walk may have helped make it all bearable, but what else could you bring to the table?”