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“If Addy made it through then I am fucking thankful. But you are completely off your nut if you think I will let myself—or any of my wolves—risk your life like that. I will fucking end anyone who tries.”
Sasha got up right in my face then, caging me against the sink. Her eyes were full of fire.
“Don’t you dare patronize me,” she spat. “I watched one of my own die tonight. And it wasn’t a pretty death. Louise died screaming in pain. And Addy? She’s never going to be the same again. I took their agony and lived it as if it was my own because that’s what a leader does. But I need this.”
She softened for a moment, reaching out a hand to rest on my bicep. “Please, Grimm. I am asking you, as your mate, to give me this gift.”
“You still don’t get it.” Another bitter laugh tore from my throat. “Being a shifter isn’t a gift, Sasha. It’s a curse. Nobody needs the beast put inside them. A wolf only brings heartache and rage. Trust me.”
I went to shrug her off, to storm out of the bathroom which was full of her lust-inducing rage, but that hand locked onto my arm yanked me back into her body. Her perky fucking tits pressed like weapons against my shoulder blades.
All I wanted to do was give myself fully to her. To spin back round and fuck my little alpha against the wall. Sink my hands into her thick black hair, wrap it around my fist and take her lips until I tasted our blood. Mingled together as one. Forever.
“Let go, Sasha,” I growled. “You know better than to push a wounded animal.”
“Let me ask you something, Grimm.”
She breathed the words right into my ear. Guiding me with a firm touch on my arm and lower back until my wolf relented and bent to her will. Sasha pressed my thighs against the sink. When our haunted eyes met in the mirror’s reflection, she leaned into my bulk to pin me in place.
A dangerous rattle grew in my chest but she ignored it.
“Have you talked to Carbon yet?” I couldn’t look away, my mate held me trapped in her soulful stare. “Not that chin lift thing you do that passes for a shitty ‘hello’ in your world but actually talked? Did you know that his mate has night terrors every fucking night? That she tears their room apart in her sleep?”
“No,” I bit out.
Because even when she was pressing me to my absolute limits, my mate would only get the truth from me. Just as she would only give the same to me.
“Well, she has. Every fucking night. They can’t stand to be apart but Winter’s still so fucked up that she flies into a survival rage in her sleep. And he takes it. All of it. Anything she can dish out. Because that’s what mates do. They make each other more.”
Her eyes were pleading with me now. Begging me to understand. To give her this one thing.
“Make me more, Grimm!”
Sasha was barely holding back the sobs as she made her fierce demand. I wanted more than anything to bend to a knee before my mate and give her the world. But I couldn't give her this. It was the very thing which would destroy us all.
“Trauma looks different on different people, Sasha,” I sighed. “This is your fear talking.”
I tried to turn, to take her in my arms and soothe her, but the growl that ripped from my little mate’s throat sent shivers down my spine and held me in place. If Sasha had been a shifter, she would’ve had my neck between her teeth. And, for one insane moment, I believed the untamable beast inside me would have let her.
“The Bone Crushers were here, Grimm. On Soul Reaper soil. Playing a dark game of chance with our people. Not mine, not yours. Ours.”
“I’m well aware of that, woman.”
“Are you? I’m trying to extend an olive branch here, Grimm. To find a compromise we can both live with. There is no separation between yours and mine anymore, alpha. The lines are blurring. The longer we stay here, the more danger everyone will face.”
My beast growled, hating to hear the truth spilling from her lips.
“Addy is a wolf now, turned in a moment of violence she had no control over. Plus her sister is mated to Benji. Silver and Mongrel are mated to me. Carbon is completely gone on Winter. Zero was making eyes at Robbie. He and Nightshade took him home last night, it won’t be long before they seal their bond. If you don’t man up and give me your bite, we are gone.”
I stared at my mate in shock. She couldn’t mean—
“That’s right. I will walk tomorrow—taking my people and every single one of your wolves who wants to join us—with me. And you will be left with a broken pack. All because you were too afraid to give me the one thing that would unite us.”
“I’m the alpha here, Sasha,” I snarled. “Me. It’s my job to keep them safe. I will decide how best to do that.”
“Yeah. It is,” she scoffed. “But even a great leader needs good people at their back, Grimm. People they can trust. The Blood Moon Goddess sent me to you for a reason. You’re just too fucking proud to realize a mate would make you stronger.”
She licked her lips, bad memories rushing in before she banished them in order to finish laying down the law.
