Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret

Chapter 339

EMILY

I’m confused when my mind comes back to itself.

I’m no longer in the cellar storeroom, I’m in my bedroom with no recollection of how I got here.

I’m no longer cold, but wrapped up tight in a blanket, being held tight in a strong embrace.

Being held tight by—

Axel?

He’s humming some tune I don’t recognize, but it doesn’t sound like anything composed this century.

More like classical music of some kind.

It’s hard to imagine a hardened Alpha, a warrior, the Slayer, enjoying something so tame as classical

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I don’t know what to make of this moment.

Axel was the one who locked me up.

He’s the one who refuses to understand my need to escape, to shift and run on my own.

He is my mate who rejected me out of hand.

I should hate him.

I should be furious with him.

I should be escaping his hold and kicking him out of my room, telling him I never want to lay eyes on

him again.

However, it’s like whatever happened down in that cellar storeroom has burned away all that anger I

was holding onto.

Even though I want to be angry, I can’t find it within me any longer.

Instead, I just feel this overwhelming need to cry.

I feel this deep, rending grief for what happened to me.

For the loss of the girl I was before I got abducted.

I’m devastated at what I was forced to endure, at the person—thing—I became during those ten years

and all the horrors since.

I think now this is the reason I was hanging onto all that anger.

Why it was easier to respond to everything—including Aaron and Axel—with fury, because if I let

myself feel this anguish, it’s so deep and vast, I’m not sure how I’ll survive it.

Or, how I’ll ever escape it.

And then there’s Axel.

Yes, he was the one who put me in that situation, but he couldn’t have known what I’d endured at the

hands of the old Roberts Alpha. He couldn’t have realized what his actions would trigger within me,

because I’ve refused to talk about it.

I’ve been stubborn in my denial of needing to talk about and face everything that happened to me, even

with the pack therapist I’ve seen several times at Aaron’s behest.

How can I expect anyone to understand or help me if they don’t know the truth of my experience?

But, of course, there’s good reason for my silence.

Maybe I want to tell some of what that twisted old bastard and his equally twisted son put me through,

but I can’t tell them everything.

Doing so would risk my very life, especially where Axel is concerned.

The truth is like a barrier between me and the rest of the pack—the rest of the world, really—keeping

me separate and never able to fully engage or feel like I belong.

The tears have started flowing, and I feel like they’re never going to stop.

Like a faucet has turned on inside me and locked in place, letting the agony I feel inside flow freely

without end.

Axel stops humming and I feel him shift a little.

But I don’t want to look up at him.

In fact, I duck my head and close my eyes.

If I look up at him, reality will return, and this moment will have to end.

But I never want this moment to end.

I’m held safe and tight in the arms of my mate—even if we can never claim each other—and I don’t

think anything else could ever make me feel quite like this.

I’m terrified that Axel is the only thing holding me together right now.

That if he lets go, if he becomes cold and indifferent again, then I won’t be able to cope with all this

pain welling up within me, and much like what happened down in the cellar storeroom, I’ll become lost

within my own mind once again.

“Emily?” Axel asks in a low voice that’s almost a whisper. “Are you with me again?”

I nod, but can’t answer.

My throat feels too swollen, and I think if I try to talk, I’ll end up sobbing instead.

“Okay,” Axel says, and he actually sounds relieved. “That’s good. I’m glad. You had me worried for a

while there.”

I feel like I should apologize for being such a burden, for proving I’m as broken and fragile as Aaron

believes me to be, but I can’t find the words.

Axel doesn’t seem to mind, he just keeps holding me and doesn’t seem in a hurry to move, which I’m

grateful for.

I idly wonder what the time is and how long we’ve been lying here like this.

I know eventually I’m going to have to let him go. I’ll have to get up from this bed and face the world

once again.

But I’m not ready to do that just yet.

For a little while longer, I just want to hold onto my mate and pretend that this is something I get to have

—comfort and love from an Alpha who loves me.