Chapter 103 Be sorry

Chapter 103 Be sorry
COLE

The second the words tore out of my mouth, regret seized my throat.

Fuck. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it—not really. I didn't think for a fraction of a second that she actually wanted to be violated or anything. It was just the sheer, suffocating agony of watching her act so utterly defeated, watching her accept a lifetime in chains while asking me to stand by and watch. But God, saying it out loud was the most vile, unforgivable mistake of my life. How could I even begin to explain myself...

Iris pushed herself up from the dirt.

The way she was looking at me nearly brought me to my knees. Her eyes were flooded with tears, cutting jagged tracks through the layer of makeup on her cheeks, but she didn't look broken. She looked sad, yes… But she also looked mad as fuck.

"How could you say that to me?" she whispered, her voice trembling before rising into a razor-sharp venom. "You want to lecture me about rage? You?"

"I know, I know..." I stumbled over my words, holding my hands out. "Iris, please, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that—"

"I have been weak my entire fucking life!" she screamed, stepping right into my space. "I couldn't stand up for myself and I had no one on my side. So what, you're my hero now? Beating up your father, threatening the cowards who mock me in the hall, throwing punches at your own brothers for my honor? I am the one who spent twelve years grieving my mother in a freezing basement while the assholes who were supposed to be my family treated me like shit! Rage? Anger? I am fucking made of it!"

Her chest heaved, every word slicing into me like a serrated blade.

"Just because I'm not a reckless, hot-headed idiot who thinks with his fists like you, it doesn't mean I'm stupid," she spat, her voice shaking with furious tears. "Unlike you, Cole, I never had my daddy bailing me out every time I broke someone's jaw. Well... actually, that changed, didn't it? Except dear old daddy charges me a very different price for cleaning up my mess. Or did Ernest turn you into his little bitch too every time he saved your ass? No? Well..."

"Fuck, Iris, please..." I choked out, raw shame burning through my veins. Fuck, I had no idea Iris could be that cruel with words... I knew I deserved it, but still... It was a little shocking to hear her say things like that. "I said I'm sorry—"

"You better be!" she yelled, her voice cracking against the steel bleachers. "You better be sorry for twelve years of bullying a girl who could never defend herself! You better be sorry for ever daring to think I would want what your father is doing to me! You better be sorry for everything!"

"I am! I am!"

I lunged forward, desperately grabbing her shoulders, trying to anchor her, trying to pull her back from the ledge and make sure she understood how sorry I was. "I swear to you on my dead mother's soul, Iris, I am so fucking sorry! Please... just forget I said it—"

"Get out of my way," she growled, her jaw tight.

"Iris, please, listen to me—" I insisted. I didn’t want her to leave like this, I wanted her to know… I wanted her to forgive me.

"I said move!"

She slammed both hands into my chest.

It didn't feel like human hands. It felt like being struck head-on by a freight train traveling at terminal velocity.

My feet left the dirt entirely. I was launched backward through the air like a cardboard cutout, flying across the shadowed expanse beneath the bleachers until my spine violently collided with a heavy concrete support pillar twenty feet away.

CRACK.

The concrete fractured behind my head, and every molecule of oxygen was instantly violently ripped from my lungs.

I slid down into the gravel, clutching my ribs, my vision flashing white-hot with blinding agony. Through the haze of searing pain, I lifted my head and looked at her.

Iris was standing where I had left her, chest heaving, fists clenched. But her eyes...

Those weren’t her wolf eyes. Iris’s wolf eyes were light grey, almost silver. I saw them once, the night of her eighteenth birthday. She was on her bedroom floor, shifting for the first time, and her beautiful silver eyes locked into mine. I fell to my knees and recognized her as my mate. What a beautiful moment that was. Of course, I had to fuck everything up seconds later and reject her.

Right now, her eyes were red. Not bloodshot. Her pupils were… A deep shade of dark crimson.

A heartbeat later, the red vanished. Her brown eyes returned.

Iris’s eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror. The fury vanished, replaced by sheer panic as she realized what she had just done.

"Cole!"

She sprinted across the gravel, dropping hard onto her knees beside me, her hands hovering over my chest, trembling violently. "Cole, Cole, look at me! Oh my God... I'm so sorry, oh God, Cole, please… I didn’t mean to…"

I opened my mouth, but only a dry, wheezing gasp came out. My ribs felt crushed into powder, my skull was spinning with dizzying vertigo, and my brain was rapidly starving for air.

Iris frantically dug into her skirt pocket, whipping out her phone with shaking fingers. "I'm calling someone—the infirmary, an ambulance—"

No.

Through the suffocating fog in my head, a terrifying thought cut through: if someone examined me… They could find out it was her who did this. 

Using the very last ounce of strength left in my body, I swung my arm and fiercely smacked the phone out of her grip.

It went flying, clattering into the dirt.

"D-Damon..." I choked out, a thin trail of blood spitting over my lips as I gasped for air. "Get... Damon..."

Iris scrambled frantically through the dust, grabbing the phone again.

I leaned my head back against the shattered concrete, the edges of my vision bleeding into heavy, suffocating black, until everything went completely dark.