Chapter 40: Jamie

40

JAMIE

C allum’s long gone.

And Dean’s furious.

The longer he stands there, completely silent, an impatient look on his face, the more convinced I am that this was a terrible idea.

My heart breaks seeing him so distant toward me. Instantly, I know that all those times I mentally labelled him as angry before were a figment of my imagination. This is what angry Dean looks like. I was choosing to see the worst in him, which is rich considering I’m the rogue who invaded his territory.

But I’m not just any rogue, and now he knows it. I just don’t know if he’ll accept it after what I said.

“Dean…” Just hearing me say his name is enough to make him grimace.

He steps back, and I feel like my chest is being ripped apart. His features are dark and stormy, and all the confidence I built up on the run over here disappears instantly, along with the hope I had for repairing the damage I’ve done.

“Whatever you want to say, just spit it out. You’ve dragged me all the way out here, when I’ve a million better things to be doing…”

Now it’s my turn to flinch away like I’ve been slapped.

“I didn’t mean…” Dean drags his hand back through his tousled black hair, looking tired and worn out. “There’s a lot going on, and I’m not able to do this right now.”

With an aggravated sigh, he throws his hands out by his sides and presses his lips together, impatiently waiting for me to get on with it.

This is it.

Clearing my throat, I shift from one foot to the other, blushing as his flinty gaze travels down my body leisurely, unsmiling, but taking in every detail.

He stands tall, and slowly folds his arms across his chest, appearing completely unbothered by my nakedness. Yet he’s not as relaxed as he’s acting. One fist clenches by his side as he waits, his big bicep bunching each time he opens and closes it.

“I want to apologise.” Pausing, I slam my lips shut and frown. That sounds so lame.

“Is that it? You convinced my beta, my entire pack, to set me up and lead me away from my duties, for that?!”

Chin resting on his chest, he shakes his head, a humourless laugh bubbling up inside him.

I don’t rise to the bait. He wants a reaction, he wants me to fight with him, so he’s justified when he eventually rejects me. But if he’s going to sever the bond, he’s going to listen to me first, calmly, so that he knows exactly how I feel. Then, he can make a proper decision, one that we’ll both have to live with for the rest of our lives.

Sucking in a deep breath, I flex my fingers and gather my courage.

“I’m not sorry that I snuck onto your territory and forced you to let us stay and compete.”

Dean’s eyes glow in the darkness.

“This is the worst apology ever,” he comments, tipping his chin up imperiously, looking every inch the angry alpha everyone says he is. But I know better. And so does his pack. That’s why they love him so much.

“If I hadn’t convinced Wyatt to storm your border, I’d never have come here. I’d never have met you.”

For the first time, he doesn’t have a smart comment, and his posture relaxes slightly, the tendons in his neck looking slightly less pronounced.

“When our pack kicked us out, telling us that it was because your father might come back for us, they pretended it was in our best interest. That they were protecting us in case he returned.” I scoff, feeling the pain of our eviction as sharply as if it were yesterday. “But really, they didn’t care enough to defend us from him, and they were happy to be rid of Wyatt. It was easier for them to send us away.”

Dean blinks, and the tendons in his jaw twitch, but other than that, he remains motionless. It’s like trying to appeal to a statue.

“We spent years hating your dad for taking our mother and hating her for leaving us. We were angry at our pack for casting us aside.”

I don’t want this to sound like I’m looking for his sympathy, because I know he endured far worse. Maggie has hinted at the regular beatings, the mind games, the torture that he and his siblings had to endure. The impact that it had on Jax’s wolf, and his mental health, and how Dean carries the weight of that around with him.

“Then I heard the rumours of how you took over, and when she never returned to us, I put two and two together and got five. I assumed you were stopping her from leaving, because why else would a mother not return to her children? It had to be because you were holding her here either by force or by…” Trailing off, I look at the ground. “I believed what I wanted to believe. That someone else was to blame for my mother not coming back to look for her children. Not her.”

Dean’s hard outer shell cracks at the mention of my mother.

“Don’t be too hard on her. She thought she’d be disrupting your happy life and dragging her problems into your world.”

A sadness stretches between us, both wishing she’d been left without the scars on her, both mentally and physically, that have her living half a life.

“I don’t care what you thought of me before you got here, Jamie. Whatever scheming you planned, whatever revenge you had imagined in your head, I understand it, more than most probably would.” The disappointment painted on Dean’s face is soul-crushing, but the anger there is staggering. “But after we met. After you saw my pack is happy and well-treated. After I saved your life and after that night…”

He’s getting more and more worked up, his anger coming to the surface as he allows himself to feel what he’s been shoving down and hiding.

“Even though I didn’t know for sure we were mates, I thought we could still be together. That you must have felt the same. How stupid was I?”

Dean knew I was up to something, but he’d hoped I’d show him that I could be trusted, and that I could trust him.

That’s why he left me in his house, alone. It was a test. One I failed miserably.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“You threatened to take my fucking pack, Jamie. After all of that, you wanted to leave me homeless, to take away my family, even though you knew I wasn’t a bad person.” He stalks forward, breathing hard as he steps inside my personal space and stares down at me. “You think I’m going to kill you when we get mated. I would never.”

It’s just a slip of the tongue, saying when instead of saying if, but I’m floored, my heart cleaved apart by a longing I can’t begin to explain.

I can’t breathe. “I’m sorry. I was an idiot. I just wanted to hurt you, like you were hurting me. But it was too far.”

Reaching for him, it feels like someone’s stabbed me in the heart when he recoils, moving away so I can’t touch him.

Dean tilts his head back and looks up at the stars, a pained look on his pinched features. “How am I supposed to have a Luna who, deep down, thinks I’m capable of being a monster?”

I have no answer for him, or, not a good one. “I’m sorry.”

Turning his back on me, Dean starts to walk slowly away, leaving me standing there, alone, with my wolf curled up on herself, protecting herself from the hurt of being left behind by her one true love.

“So am I.”