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It would be easy now. He couldn’t fight me. I could rip his throat out and that would be the end of him. I knew it’s what my brother wanted me to do. Probably my whole family as well.
But his heart beat along with my own. His curse still flowed through me. If he died now, I would never learn his secrets. I would never be free of him.
I shifted.
Pat kept a wooden box at the edge of the woods. I slipped on a t-shirt and an old pair of jeans. Anson waited for me, looking out at the water.
“It would be easier if you’d just kill me,” he said.
Enough of my wolf still simmered. I couldn’t suppress a growl. “You’re right. It might be. Only once again…like always…I’m stuck with you. But I’m done with lies. Tell me what you are. Tell me what happened to you. Or I’ll let my brother shoot you.”
He raised a brow as he turned to me. Anger swelled. For Jarred. For my father’s pack. For me.
“Tell me the truth!” I yelled.
Anson grabbed me. “You’ve never been ready to listen. Kill me! Be done with it. You’ve tortured me enough!”
“I? Tortured you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I regret the day I walked into these lands, and all the days I spent here. Every single one of them. You think you’re the one cursed. You think it’s hardest on you. You’re in my head, Tempest. My blood. My bones. I know what you are. What you need. You refuse to see it. Refuse to accept it. Refuse to listen!”
“I’m listening now,” I said. “So tell me. No more lies. What are you? What are…we?”
He turned back to the water. I couldn’t stand it. I let my rage spill over. I grabbed his arm and pulled him, forcing him to face me.
He snapped his jaw and let his fangs drop. I knew the agony of his collar speared through him. God help me. I felt it too.
“Jarred told me everything,” I said. “He remembers. He tried to warn me that you were X. He told me what you did to Lissa.”
Anson pulled out of my grasp. “Your brother’s naïve. He doesn’t know shit.”
“So tell me!”
“I’ve been trying to,” Anson said through gritted teeth. “You only hear what you want to. Only believe the worst. You’re incapable of thinking for yourself, Tempest. Always looking for approval from your father. You brother. His pack. And yet you won’t live under their rules. You make them miserable. You make everyone miserable.”
I took a breath, settling my wolf. He wanted me to rip him apart. He wanted my anger.
“I’m listening now,” I said. “So tell me, is Jarred right? He said he was in love with Lissa. He was going to mate with her. But you marked her against her will.”
Anson came close to me, staring at me. We were almost nose to nose. It was a challenge.
“Is that what you want to believe?”
“I want the truth,” I said, clenching my jaw.
“If he thought Lissa was his mate, then she was,” he said, his voice dropping so low, I had to strain to hear it.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s what she does. She becomes the thing you think you need. You thought she was a witch. That she held the key to breaking me. Freeing you from what you don’t want to admit about yourself.”
“What was she to you?” I said.
Anson turned back toward the water.
“Anson,” I said. “I told you. I’m listening. Jarred said he was never addicted to borrowed spells. He said Lissa’s magic is what afflicted him.”
Anson’s shoulders dropped. “It sounds like her.”
