Chapter 121 I WANT YOU
RAGNAR'S POV
Silence.
Theresa thick and heavy silence after his absurd question.
It's heavy but full of all of the conversations and things we should have addressed many years ago.
Things that no longer matter.
And should have been left to die with time.
I take a slow step forward, closing the distance between us just enough to make it clear of one thing and one thing only.
This is not a conversation I intend to entertain or have anymore, not after what he did all those years ago.
Not on his terms and not like this. This conversation he wants to have died the day he decided to commit an act so vile and repulsive.
My gaze locks onto his, cold and unyielding.
Whatever amusement he came here with, he can keep it. I have no time to reminisce about the past with him, especially one so horrible.
Because I have no intention of playing along with him
My voice, when I finally speak, is low and controlled. He cannot think he got to me
“What the hell are you really doing here, Lance?”
For a moment, neither of us moves.
The air between us tightens into something thick, suffocating and charged with too many things that were never properly buried.
Lance studies me like he’s trying to peel me apart layer by layer, like he used to.
Like he still thinks he can.
But I don’t give him anything. I don't give him a flicker or even crack for this serpent to latch on to.
His smile shifts slightly, something sharper creeping in at the edges as he realizes I'm not in the mood.
“Well,” he murmurs, “that’s not very welcoming of you Alpha of Alphas.”
“I didn’t invite you,” I reply flatly.
His brow lifts, amusement dancing in his eyes and so with mischief.
“You never did,” he says. “And yet, I still came.”
I exhale slowly, already done with this back and forth conversation.
“Leave now Lance.”
Simple, direct and final.
But Lance just laughs in a low, soft tone that's entirely unimpressed.
“Even after all these years you're still like that,” he says, shaking his head faintly. “Straight to the point. No patience or room for… anything else.”
His gaze drifts over me again, slower this time like he's seeing through my skin even though I'm clothed and I feel disgustingly naked in his gaze.
“You weren’t always like this you know,” he adds.
I don’t respond because that’s not true, what he's saying is false. He just chose to see the side of me he preferred years ago.
I’ve always been like this, he just chose to see something else.
“Do you remember,” Lance continues, his voice lowering, “the nights by the ridge we'd spend hours in hiding from your dad?”
My jaw tightens but I don’t answer.
“You used to slip away after meetings,” he goes on anyway, undeterred by my lack of response.
“Act like you were doing something important. But I always knew where to find you in the end of it all.”
His lips curve faintly.
“And you never told me to leave back then, you'd always encourage my visits and we'd have so much fun.”
That was different, I was different.
All of these days he's missing are the good days before the previous Alpha passed away. It was way before responsibility tightened its grip around my throat.
Before expectations became chains for me to this pack.
Before–
I cut the thought off.
It’s been years, it's all irrelevant now in the future.
All of it.
“Whatever point you’re trying to make,” I say coldly, “ I suggest you'd get to it.”
Lance studies me for a beat too long before he scoffs and something in his expression shifts again.
His smile has dropped to a less amused one and now he's looking at me more… intently.
“You had something with me,” he says simply.
Past tense. I'm happy he also knows it's past tense and it's in the past when we were young and stupid.
We were Sebastian's age when we fooled around.
“And I ended it,” I replied.
“Yes,” he agrees easily. “You did, like the good Alpha you were after you found your mate.”
There's no anger or sense of frustration from him like it's something he's made his peace with.
He's merely stating it like facts and that's somehow worse because I know Lance.
It is never over with him and if he's bringing it up, it's about to go all bad for me.
His eyes sharpen slightly and focus on me.
“But don’t pretend it didn’t matter to either of us back then,” he adds.
I don’t, I never have. We would have ended up married if I didn't find my former Luna as my mate.
I was a young and naive Alpha happy that the life of the party, Lance, was happy to even be a casual friend with benefits with me.
But that doesn’t change anything right now. He and I were history that I wouldn't visit.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I say instead.
There’s a difference in his expression after I say that, it's a subtle one but I see the way his gaze flickers at it.
“And yet,” he says slowly, “here I am… and you’re still standing here talking to me.”
My patience thins at his beating around the bush. What did he want exactly?!
“You’re here because you chose to be,” I correct. “Not because I want you here.”
“What the devil do you want, Lance?”
There it is.
The question that’s been sitting beneath all of this from the moment I opened the door.
Because I know him, I'm sure of it that he didn’t come here for nostalgia, he could find any other wolf for that.
He didn’t come here to reminisce, and he certainly didn’t come here just to provoke me.
Lance tilts his head slightly, studying me again.
And this time, he doesn’t dodge the question.
“You,” he says.
The word lands without hesitation or any form of shame in them after a beat.
Without anything soft to cushion it.
It's just plain truth from him and I actually blink in confusion when he says it.
So I stare at him unimpressed, wondering if this is a joke or another one of his games he likes playing.
He's actually serious?!