Page 99 of Heat Lightning

Too far. I knew it was too far before it came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop myself. Even if it wasn’t true, I had to make him hurt the way I did, so he’d know how deep his betrayal cut.

Atlas reeled back. I’d never forget the look on his face for as long as I lived.

Broken. Utterly, and completely broken.

It ripped a hole in my chest. Don’t hurt mate, my omega whined.

Mate hurt us, I snarled back. Mate doesn’t want us.

“You don’t mean that, Max,” Gwen said, tears falling down her face. “I know you’re upset, but⁠—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I interjected, “and save it for the next best friend you can manipulate.”

Her small intake of breath would haunt me, too.

Neither of them stopped me from leaving after that. On autopilot, I was in my car and peeling off into the pre-dawn dark before I could think.

I had nowhere to go. No home, or safe place.

His promises, words of love, and calming pheromones were a lie. They’d always been a lie. I had no safe person.

They were all ripped away from me in the span of a conversation.

It was never real to begin with, a nasty voice in my head whispered. Grasping fingers wrapped tighter and tighter, drowning me in the inky depths of my darkest thoughts.

Tears blurred my vision, and I relented, allowing them to pull me under.

PART FOUR

TWENTY-SEVEN

MAX

“Max? Max! I know you’re in there. Open up!” Gwen’s fist pounded against the door, accompanying her shouts.

“Go away!” I yelled back. I wasn’t ready to look her in the eye.

“You really are an idiot if you think that’s going to happen.”

“Would you two shut up? Some of us are trying to sleep!” the omega in the room next to me shouted.

Yeah. He’d definitely been sleeping a half hour ago when I’d checked into this seedy motel. The clerk hadn’t even batted an eye at someone coming in at this hour.

The walls of the Paradise Plaza Inn weren’t exactly soundproof. Hell, I wasn’t even sure they were builder-grade. I threw my head back against the pillows—which I’d covered with a jacket I found in my backseat because I was almost certain they hadn’t been washed between guests—and sighed.

I’d left Mr. Marino’s house an hour ago, giving me plenty of time to drive around town and spiral, pull myself together just enough to find somewhere to sleep for the half hour left before sunrise, and then spiral all over again at how royally my life was fucked.

Not in the least because of the awful shit I’d said.

“I’m only going to ask one more time,” Gwen called, “before I kick the door down.”

She would. And it’d only be one more thing we had to deal with, so I heaved myself off the bed and flung the door open. “If you’re here to drop off my cat, you could’ve texted to arrange a pickup instead of just showing up,” I said, not looking at her.

“Women are the emotionally unstable sex, my ass,” she mumbled, pushing her way inside and slamming the door shut behind her. “Of course. I tracked you down, parked my freshly waxed Mercedes in that godforsaken, pothole-ridden excuse of a lot, and nearly broke into this room that hasn’t been cleaned since before I was born because I just need to know what it’s like to get bed bugs.”

I bit my cheek to keep from laughing. She hadn’t earned it yet. “Well, when you put it like that.”

Silence stretched.