Page 102 of Starting a New Life

I laughed and shook my head.

Another foreign concept, another detail that made this pack unique. Usually, the needs of the pack trumped everything. At least with the packs I’d visited. I’d seen it time and time again. The pack’s needs trumped everything. And the Alpha was the pack. So, in the end, the Alpha’s needs trumped everything.

Was this pack really the exception, or was it the norm and I’d just not known? I’d never decided which packs to help. My coven had. They’d gotten the payment, and I’d gotten my marching orders.

But… had the price been the only deciding factor? Or had there been more criteria the packs had to meet? Criteria I hadn’t known about.

What if… what if they’d only ever sent me to bad packs. To packs they knew I wouldn’t want to stay with. Packs I couldn’t ask for help.

My mind started spinning, my eyes watering as I looked at myself in the mirror.

Would I have been able to have this earlier if I’d asked for refuge in a closer pack? Was everything I’d learned about packs all my life a lie?

I heard Gray turning in the bedroom and took a deep breath as I wiped my eyes. I needed to calm down, or my emotional turmoil would wake him and… too late.

“Sweetheart?” he called out, voice heavy with sleep. “Where are you?”

I swallowed, opened my mouth but closed it again, slapping a hand to it to keep a sob from escaping as my thoughts started spiralling again.

What if the only thing that’d kept me from my freedom was me and a web of lies that’d turned my mind into a prison?

Gray wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against his warm, furry chest.

“Hey. What’s going on? Talk to me.” He kissed the top of my head and gave me a sad smile through the mirror. “Whatever it is, I’m here.”

I blinked, tears still spilling from my eyes as I swallowed. “Just… thoughts.”

Gray barked out a laugh and turned me within his arms so I could look into his face, not just his reflection.

“It’s not just thoughts if they hurt you so much,” he said, his thumb brushing my tears away again and again. “You can share your pain with me.”

There was so much compassion in his eyes, so much hurt for the way I was hurting that the words spilled out before I could think about it.

“I was wondering if there are more packs like yours and if my coven purposefully kept me in the dark about what packs really are like, so I wouldn’t see a way out.”

For a second, Gray’s face glitched, compassion turning to rage, his eyes clouding, but then the warmth was back.

“Oh, Nix,” he whispered, pulling me against him again, his arms tightening around me as I was squished against his pecs. I closed my eyes and breathed in his earthy scent, let his steady heartbeat calm my own racing one. “That’s a loaded question,” he said eventually.

I let out a wet laugh. “Yeah… I’m sorry I woke you up with my freakout.”

“No.” Gray shook his head. I couldn’t see it, but I felt his muscles moving beneath my face and his hair swishing through the air. “You don’t have to be sorry for something I want to be there for, okay? I’m your mate. I want to be there for your freakouts because I want to hold you through them. I want to be the rock by your side. Always. I don’t think you realize how amazing you truly are. You went through so much, but you made it to the other side. You made it out. And now I’m here. I’m here so you don’t have to do it alone ever again, okay? You’re a warrior, and warriors have wounds and scars. They’re proof that you survived, but they’re also a burden. And I’d love nothing more than to share that burden with you.”

The tears started again, my throat clogging up as his words hit me. Not just his words, though. It was the honesty in his eyes, his love radiating through my chest, ringing true in my heart.

I reached out, pulled him down, and smashed my mouth to his. There were no words in my mind that could match his, but I had the urge to show him just how much I appreciated and fucking loved him.

Gray smiled against my lips, then carefully lifted me up, never breaking the kiss as he cupped my butt, holding me tight as he carried me down the stairs and gently lowered me to the couch.

“Give me a minute,” he whispered against my lips. “I don’t have a problem with nudity, but this feels like a conversation best had clothed.”

I snorted. “But we’re good at doing things while you’re naked. Think about our first kiss.”

Gray chuckled but pulled away. “True. Still, let me at least grab a pair of sweatpants.”

He was back in less than a minute, putting on a shirt that did nothing to hide his muscular form.

“Okay.” He nodded, then grabbed a blanket off the wooden shelf next to his TV. “You were wondering if there are more packs out there that are like this one?”