“Couldn’t walk, huh?” A small smile formed.
“Of course, that’s what you took from the conversation,” I snapped, throwing my hands in the air. “Answer the question. What would you have done that was so much better than what I did?”
“Didn’t say we would have done it better,” he said and then paused, his eyes going wide. For a moment it felt like I was seeing something replay there, something nothing to do with me, then his head dropped down. He pulled out the packet of cigarettes, tapping the one he drew out before turning to go through the back door. “We probably would’ve fucked it all, made everything much worse than what it is.”
I watched him go outside, light the damn thing and then take a seat at my outdoor setting, staring at my hydrangeas as he did so. He didn’t want to talk, that was obvious, but he’d started this. If he had some theory about Evie and her development, I needed to know it.
“What did you mean about not having a pack?” I said, walking over to him, then frowning and waving away the cloud of smoke before being forced to stand upwind from him. He watched me steadily, his eyes glowing even brighter in the late afternoon sun.
“Just that,” he replied, taking a drag, then moving to flick ash on the grass. “You normally have four or five boys born at the same time to an omega mother. Strong boys, big boys. A boy who could bully, harass, and cow all the other kids if he had a mind to. First thing he’d learn when he was real young is that some of his brothers are stronger than him and some are weaker.”
He paused then, staring at the grass, then forced himself to come back to the conversation.
“But no matter what, he loves each one of them like they’re the other part of his heart.” His voice got rougher, scratchier. “The need to fight and wrestle and pit yourselves against each other lives alongside a need, just as strong, to keep your brothers safe and happy.”
I blinked.
“That’s why you’re here. You said you didn’t want to be part of Evie’s—”
“I say a lot of things,” he replied dismissively, then shook his head. “No, I don’t, but some of what I say doesn’t make sense. I love my brothers. I’d throw down with anyone who dared get in their faces. They walk through this world knowing that no matter what differences we have, I’ve got their backs 100%. That gives them something. A power, a confidence, an ability to let small shit go because we are able to recognise it isn’t a threat to them.”
He took another drag of his cigarette and then exhaled, his face partially obscured by a wreath of smoke.
“And Evie doesn’t have that.”
Right now, I wished I hadn’t come out here, because I was realising that Reed was brutal outside of the bedroom as well as in.
“She’s a girl and, from what I understand, betas have weird ideas about boys being strong and girls being weak. There’s a bunch of limp-dicked little boy children who see her, her strength, and it makes them feel small. And that’s just the adults. She doesn’t fit here, in this world. She can’t tolerate abuses of power or authority where she can’t see the basis of it. She can’t accept that you think that Mr or Mrs So and So needs to be obeyed. They need to earn her respect first. If she had a pack, she might have been able to make it. They would help regulate each other, settle each other down, but also…”
He smiled then, flashing his fangs, but there was nothing happy there.
“She and her sisters would be a power. People would be too scared to fuck with a posse of Amazonian girl children who could put any one of these arseholes needling her on their arse. Everything is about power. Sex, death, school, work, family, love…”
His voice cracked on the last bit and then he shook his head.
“Instead, our cub is forced to go out every fucking day and deal with fuckers who seek to keep her down and, sometimes, she can’t tolerate that.”
The burning cigarette was crushed in his hand, only a tiny wince betraying the way that hurt him. But he was up and out of the chair, walking over to where the bins were to place the butt in it, and away from me.
For a second, I was utterly heartbroken. Reed didn’t show me a view of a different world, he ripped all of my assumptions and pretensions away and then stomped on them from a great height. My mind raced, tossing the ideas around and around, testing them, seeking weaknesses but not finding any. My head whipped around, watching him pace back and forth across the grass, before I jumped off the deck and joined him.
“So what do I do?” I demanded. “I can’t go back in time. I can’t put more of Ben’s jizz or yours in my womb to create a pack of girl alphas. I’ve been to therapists, so many therapists—”
“No one’s saying you haven’t tried, Lily.” He stared at me, and it felt like his eyes were lasers boring into mine. He took a step forward, then another, reaching out but then dropping his hands. “Anyone looking at the two of you can see how much you love your baby.” He let out a little hiss and then stepped closer until he was towering over me and that’s when he put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re a good mother.”
Why did I deflate at that? Why did I need to hear it, even from a man I barely knew, outside of the Biblical sense? Why did I take such comfort from his approval?
“You’ve done everything you can, love.” A thumb brushed across my cheek, then down to my lips. “And now you need to let us in so we can do the rest.”
“Well, well, look at you.”
My head jerked up to see Logan had appeared at the back gate, a sardonic smile on his face. Reed’s reaction was instantaneous. He shoved me behind him, his body a shield between me and his brother. Reed growled, actually growled, as Logan’s grin widened.
“Feeling all protective, Reed? That’s not like you. All this time and all we needed was some beta to thaw out the iceman.”
“That’s our fucking mate you’re talking about,” Reed snarled.
“So she is.” I caught sight of Logan as he peered over Reed’s shoulder, my own teeth baring when I did. “And she’ll be coming back home with us if she’s smart.”