Chapter 189

Julian’s POV

Fury pulsed alongside my blood through my veins. The lingering pain of silver was aching in my legs, but that pain only added to the shame that fueled my rage.

That entire hunt for a new necklace for Alice had been a farce. Tony had led me out there under false pretenses. He must have! He knew there was nothing there, he just wanted the credit for saving my life.

And Healer Kevin, with that look on his face right before he was killed, had been so surprised by Tony’s betrayal.

Gods, why hadn’t I seen it before? Was it because Tony was family? I was desperate to believe the best about him?

When he’d saved my life, I had been so grateful. But we never should have been out there to begin with.

But worse than what he did to me, the stinging of silver, was what he did to Mom and Amber. Mom was his aunt. He claimed to care about family, but where was his care for her when he had been slowly poisoning her over these past few weeks.

I had to put a stop to this, once and for all. And what better way to do that than with a challenge. I survived the one against Roman, so surely I could survive this.

The words were on my tongue, when Amber tugged at my arm.

I looked down at her, seeing her for the first time. Surprise shot through me. What was she doing here?

“Let’s go, Julian. Let’s get out of here and think about this,” she said. “Don’t do anything rash.”

I focused on her and her words, hearing only her through the buzzing in my ears, through the roar of my wolf in my mind.

Focusing on her, I was able to calm down, to win over my anger.

With a lengthy exhale, I released all the air from my lungs, and let go of my fury.

“What’s this, Julian?” Tony said, his tone mocking. “Your mate calls you away and now you can’t even finish an argument with me?” He scoffed. “Your love makes you weak. Aren’t you a man capable of making his own decisions?”

My anger spiked once more, but this time it wasn’t powered by the rage of my wolf. It was instead filled with the righteous fury over just how very wrong he was.

I couldn’t stop my tongue even if I wanted to, my outrage was so strong. “Love doesn’t make me a weak Alpha. It makes me strong. It’s only because I love Amber so much that I know I even have the capacity to love and properly care for the entire pack.”

Tony sneered at me. “You said on the audio that you would leave the Alpha role if Amber asked you to.”

“I would never do that!” Amber shouted from my side.

Pride for her welled up inside of my chest. Though I had no anticipated these circumstances, this – the two of us standing against the rest of the world – was the kind of relationship I’d hoped we would have. Like this, we were a team.

Tony frowned. “And we are just supposed to trust you, Amber? To take your word for it? Why in the world would we do that? You have no obligation to this pack, especially as you are now a princess elsewhere. You could be plotting with Rafael!”

“Rafael is not our enemy,” I said quickly. “We’ve been at peace for a long time.”

“That could be changing,” Tony said.

“Now you are grasping at straws,” I replied, regaining some confidence now. “Perhaps you have forgetten when Amber lived here and worked as a Healer in our own hospital, caring for our sick. But I haven’t forgotten it. And I’m sure many other members of the pack haven’t forgotten it either.”

Amber had a sterling reputation around the entire continent. For Tony to doubt her could be his undoing.

For now, though, he just lifted his chin.

I did too, and we wordlessly squared off against each other, with the cameras panning between us.

Amber’s POV

Julian and I sat in the backseat of the car while the driver up front, behind the partition, drove around aimlessly under Julian’s prior instruction. He had said he was too frustrated to return to the hospital just yet, but he also didn’t want to take this anger of his home with him.

So for now, the car traveled aimlessly around his pack, while he and I took turns staring out the window and at each other.

When I noticed the way he was rubbing his thighs like the lingering silver pain was bothering him, I was embarrassed for not having seen his pain sooner. Some Healer I was, if I couldn’t even help those closest to me.

Looking up at him, I waited for him to look back at me, and then I said, “Take off your pants.”

His eyebrows shot the whole way up to his hairline, and I realized at once what I had said, and what it sounded like.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” I said quickly, blushing furiously. “I just wanted to check on your wounds.”

“Oh,” he said, a soft little sound that was filled with disappointment.

“I just…”

“It’s fine,” he said. He unhooked his belt, then shuffling a little on the seat, he pushed down his pants to his knees, revealing the worst of the damage.

While the wounds themselves had healed, the lingering trace of silver remained as long dark streaks that chased along his veins. The area around the darkest of the sections was red and inflamed, clearly painful.

“When we get to the hospital, I can get you something to help with the pain,” I said.

“The pain is fine,” he said. “I can manage.”

“Julian,” I said, looking back up at him. “There’s no need to be so… stubborn…”

My voice trailed as I realized what I was seeing. His face held some color. His eyes had darkened as his gaze on me intensified.

That wasn’t pain filling those eyes this time. It was a needy and open heat. One that I immediately felt fill my own body – my chest, a lower.

For a long moment, we froze, simply looked at each other.

Julian had his pants down. My hands were on his thighs, only a few inches away from his boxer briefs and the proof of his interest starting to make itself known.

“Julian,” I started to say.

“We don’t have to,” he replied, almost as quickly.

I knew that. I knew Julian would never force anything on me. The only way this would continue was if I wanted it to.

What he mustn’t have been realizing though, as he had told me that, was that I very much wanted to.

I was no less immune from the burning connection between us than he was. The only difference was that I denied myself much more effectively than he could.

But that didn’t mean that I wanted to.

Especially now, after everything that had happened in that news station, with the way he had defended me so passionately.

It stirred those feelings inside of me.

Before I had thought he’d claim his words were a lie, said in only the heat of the moment. To save himself, he could have diminished his feelings for me and the promises he had made.

But he didn’t do that. Instead he doubled down on those feelings, showing me that he meant his words and that he truly was going to try to protect my heart this time.

The walls I had tried to build around my heart came crumbling down and I surged upwards, catching Julian’s mouth with mine.