“I thought I saw… I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
“Okay,” I say cautiously. I sit down across from her and try to read her expression. “You sure you’re okay?” I ask again.
She nods, trying to smile but looking very uncomfortable. “Everything’s great. Don’t worry about a thing, okay, Kit?”
I smile, hoping it’s warm and sincere. “Okay, babe, I won’t,” I say as worry builds in my guts and bleeds through my limbs.
She smiles back, and the entire moment feels like a thin veneer that’s about to shatter, revealing the ugly truth underneath.
Chapter 19 - Lexa
As Kit sits down in front of me at the coffee shop, I try to settle the wild beating of my heart. I’m so relieved to see him, I could throw my arms around him. But at that thought, a whole new wave of anxiety rises, attempting to swallow me.
I’m trapped!
Trapped just like I’ve always been!
“Should we grab some dinner on the way home?” Kit asks, and even though his tone is light, I can see tension in his eyes.
What’s wrong with him?
Maybe the talking-to I gave him this morning has him on edge.
Even though that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, it doesn’t convince me. My anxiety is starting to escalate into full-on nerves.
First, I feel like I’m being tracked, and now Kit is getting weird.
“Sure,” I murmur, hoping that my nervousness isn’t showing. I suddenly feel completely out of place, like I don’t belong here, and there’s no one I can trust.
I went from feeling welcome and safe at the meeting to feeling like an outcast, slowly being dragged back into a world of isolation and pain.
“Where would you like to go?” Kit asks, and I’m so distracted, it takes me a minute to realize what he’s talking about.
“How about some pizza?” I suggest.
“Sounds good,” he answers. “I haven’t had pizza in a while. How did the meeting go with the others?”
“Really good,” I say, smiling. “I didn’t think an official meeting would be so… cozy.”
He shrugs. “I’ve made a lot of changes. I’m determined to change this pack for the better after years of Grandfather’s tyranny.”
There is a hint of pain in his voice, and I feel like I have the perfect opening to ask about his involvement with the kill squads. But I can’t bring myself to say the words.
So, hey, Kit. Did your grandfather kill a lot of people?
Like, maybe, my mom?
“It looks like you have a council dedicated to the task,” I say instead.
He nods. “I want you to know that right after you left, when Grandfather died, there was quite a bit of chaos. My mother and father wanted nothing to do with the council. Grandfather had decided from an early stage that my father was too weak to be alpha—well, at least the kind of alpha that Grandfather wanted him to be.”
“That sounds awful,” I say sympathetically.
“I believe it was. He attempted to train several other young men, constantly pushing Father and telling him he’d replace him and humiliate him in front of the whole pack.”
I’m too shocked to speak. The more I hear about Leopold, the more I think he would have gotten along great with my own father.
Treating people as objects, possessions. Everything in this world is a tool to be used, and pain and fear are the only things needed to rule.
