Chapter 102
0102
(James POV)
I have never felt so angry or so jealous as I felt the moment that I found out that Brady spent the night in Lily’s bed. In fact, Luke and I immediately began fighting for control, not because I wanted to hold him
back, but because we could not agree on which one of us got to confront Lily about it.
Luke won the original round, and he was doing great at first. However, as soon as Rose came forward, his anger immediately vanished. All he could see from that point forward was a rare opportunity to spend
quality time with his wolf-counterpart.
When Rose demanded that Luke give me back control, I almost laughed. I knew she did it because she
wanted to calm the situation down, but I was feeling anything but calm.
As soon as Luke gave me back control, I continued his interrogation of Lily.
As soon as Lily began to defend Brady, I began to fantasize about how many pieces I would have to slay
the a&&hole into before I would feel satisfied. If I only cut off his arms, would that make me feel better?
Or would I need to cut off his legs too? Should I go all out and cut off his di ck as well?
The picture I had in my head of Brady with his di ck cut off almost made me smile. Almost.
But then Lily made the problem worse by suggesting that Brady had been acting like her mate for weeks,
never giving her any reason to doubt him. I started to look outside for the fire escape that connected
their rooms, thinking I may not want to wait until morning to teach Brady not to mess with the mates of
other wolves.
Before I could jump out the window, however, I felt compelled to remind Lily that Brady had no right to
treat her that way; she was MY MATE. Not his..
And that is when everything really started to go sideways.
Lily responded to my sentiments about Brady by reminding me of an incident involving a wolf named
Levi. I immediately froze.
I knew (now) how badly I had messed up with the Levi situation, but honestly there had been many Levis
over the years, and I had dealt with all of them in pretty much the same way. I suppose Levi may have
been one of the few that Lily knew about, though, and there was the added complication that I had
actually chosen to confront her directly about his interest in her, which I normally never did.
Even so, recognizing that I did wrong in that situation and that at some point I owed an apology to Levi
and many other male wolves in our pack- had nothing to do with the reason that I froze.
I froze because even though the incident had happened several years ago I could still hear the pain and hurt in Lily’s voice when she brought it up. And that was a sobering reminder of where she and I were
in our relationship right now.
It might sound strange, but it had not occurred to me until right then how much pressure I had been
putting on Lily. I had had weeks to re-consider and process my feelings, and to start to gather
information.
In the course of doing all of that, so much had happened, and so much had come out, that to me it felt like a lifetime had already passed. And so, for me, it made perfect sense to ask Lily if she was willing to
claim her rightful place as my mate and future Luna.
But for Lily… really, she had barely had a single day. She had no idea what I was coming to Hawaii for,
and she had no way to know if I was going to be the same arrogant jerk that I had been to her before the
rejection.
For me to put her on the spot when I asked about her future plans and whether I would see her again was
unfair. Of course, she turned me down. Of course, she got scared. She wanted safety, and there was no
way for her to feel any of that after just 24 hours, no matter how amazing those kisses were.
And yes, they were amazing. Absolutely, f&&king amazing.
So what was I to do now? The only thing I possibly could, and the only thing I would continue to do until
she either shut me out permanently or forgave me: apologize and explain.
I took in Lily, studying her face which was still consumed with hurt and anger.
“Lily, I —-”
“What, James? You are sorry? Well, I guess what? I am sorry too. Because I wanted to believe that you
had changed, but it is clear to me that you still think the same things about me now that you used to think
back then. That I am a dirty sl ut who does not deserve to be loved.”
“No, Lily,” I said cautiously. “That is not it at all. I know I said some horrible things to you in the past, but I never meant them. None of what I said was true in the past, and those words are certainly not true
today.”
“Why would you say those things then?”
“Same reason that I just said them now. I was jealous. It is not an excuse, but it is the truth.”
“What? I mean, I get you being jealous now. But back then?”
“Lily, the idea of you being around other male wolves has never NOT pi ssed me off. It pi ssed me off even before Stephanie died, and it definitely pi ssed me off afterwards. Levi was only one of many male wolves
that I had to threaten to stay away from you.”
“But I thought you did all of that for revenge? Because I killed your precious Stephanie?”
“Yes, that was a big part of it. I will not deny it. However, knowing what I know now, when I look back on my memories of that time period, I can see that there was more to it than just that. The anger that I felt
went beyond just revenge.”
Post Views: 28