Chapter 35 Chapter 35

Chapter 35 Chapter 35

“I only sort of got what I wanted after I took off. Kyle just had to be there. Do you know why my pack did that? It was a rite of passage, especially for my bloodline. A private moment with the Goddess herself. Probably why my shift was so hard and took so long to start, she was watching. After I shifted, you and Caspian arrived, it was as if only finding your mate mattered; the rest was just details you’d just work out as you went along if it didn’t play out as you wanted, which it didn’t.”

Asher looked genuinely pained at my words. Through our bond, I felt a complicated tangle of emotions, regret, shame, and something deeper that made my wolf whine with recognition.

"I know that now," he said quietly. "I've been learning about Lancaster pack traditions since the bond formed. I should have respected your heritage from the beginning."

I crossed my arms, still angry but also surprised he'd bothered to research my family's customs. "It's a little late for that, isn't it?"

"Yes." His simple admission caught me off guard. No excuses, no justifications, just acknowledgment of his failure. "But I'm trying to understand now. To do better."

I studied him, searching for signs of the arrogant boy who had tormented me for years. All I found was exhaustion and a desperate hope that I could see he was trying to change.

"Why did you hate me so much?" I asked the question that had haunted me for six years, finally finding my voice. "What did I ever do to deserve how you treated me?"

Asher's eyes met mine directly. "I never hated you, Imogen. I hated how you made me feel, vulnerable, exposed, as you could see right through every wall I'd built."

"So you punished me for it?"

"I punished you because I was a coward," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "Because I couldn't handle wanting someone who reminded me that there was more to life than pack politics and Alpha training."

I laughed bitterly. "That's rich, coming from the perfect Alpha heir."

"Perfect?" Asher's expression darkened. "I've spent my entire life trying to be perfect because it was expected. The responsible one. The strategic one. The one who never lets emotions interfere with duty." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "And then there was you, this girl who'd lost everything but still found ways to be kind, to be honest. You wrote letters to your dead parents, for God's sake. That kind of raw emotion terrified me."

His words hit me harder than I expected. I'd never considered that my grief, my openness about missing my parents, could have been threatening to someone like Asher.

"So instead of facing those feelings, you decided to humiliate me in front of the entire pack," I said, but the anger behind my words was fading, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion.

"Yes." Asher didn't try to soften it. "And I've hated myself for it every day since."

The food on the tray was growing cold, but I couldn't bring myself to care. This conversation felt more important than dinner, more urgent than the hunger gnawing at my stomach.

"Why are you telling me all this now?" I asked. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing you're not willing to give," he said quietly. "I just wanted you to know the truth. That what happened that night, what I did between us at the council meeting, wasn't about you at all. It was about me being too afraid to face what I felt."

I stared down at my hands, processing his confession. Two brothers, two admissions of love, two explanations that boiled down to fear and self-hatred. The pattern was starting to become clear, and I wasn't sure how I felt about it.

"And Caspian?" I asked quietly. "Let me guess, he's been secretly pining for me, too?"

Asher's silence was answer enough. I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of three different bonds pulling at my heart, three sets of emotions bleeding through our connection. It was too much. All of it.

"I can't do this," I whispered, standing abruptly. "I can't sit here and listen to all of you tell me how much you've loved me while you spent years making me feel like I was nothing."

"Imogen..."

"No." I held up a hand to stop him. "You want to know what the real tragedy is? If any of you had just been kind to me, if you'd shown me even a fraction of the attention you're showing me now, I would have fallen for you so hard it would have broken me."

The admission hung between us like a blade. Through our bond, I felt Asher's shock, his desperate hope, his crushing regret all at once.

"I was so lonely," I continued, my voice cracking despite my efforts to stay strong. "So desperate for someone to see me as more than the broken girl who'd lost everything. And you three were right there, and I thought... Goddess, I thought maybe someday you'd notice me. That maybe if I just tried hard enough to be invisible, to not cause problems, you might actually like me."

Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I wiped them away angrily. "But instead, you made me feel like I was poison. Like everything wrong with me was visible for the whole world to see."

Asher stood as if to come toward me, but I backed away, shaking my head.

"The worst part is, I think part of me knew," I said. "Deep down, I think I knew you didn't really hate me. There were moments, tiny ones, where I'd catch one of you looking at me differently. But I told myself I was imagining it, because the alternative was too painful to consider."

"What alternative?" Asher asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"That you were capable of caring about me and chose to hurt me anyway." The words came out broken, raw with six years of buried pain. "That I wasn't worth the risk of your reputations or whatever else you thought you'd lose by being decent to me."

The room fell silent except for the sound of my ragged breathing. Through our bond, I felt Asher's anguish so clearly that it made my chest ache. But I couldn't comfort him. Not when I was barely holding myself together.

"You're worth everything," Asher whispered, his voice breaking on the words. "Everything, Imogen."

I couldn't bear to look at him, couldn't handle the raw emotion in his eyes. "Please go," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. "I need to be alone."

For once, he listened without argument. I heard the door close softly behind him, and only then did I let myself collapse onto the bed, sobs shaking my body until I had nothing left.