Chapter 0151

I leaned against the wall outside the bedroom door after checking on Athena. Isabella was already gone.

I shouldn't have kissed her. Her taste was intoxicating, but I shouldn't have lost control like that. I couldn't bring myself to push her away, not yet.

Maybe I didn't truly want to. She would come to hate me eventually anyway.

Brianna crept up the stairs toward me. Her lips were pressed into a thin line that gradually curved into a smile as she approached. "Do you think she'll talk to me if you're here?" She glanced hopefully at the door.

"Brianna, we've been through this."

"Zachary, I have to try."

"Nothing's changed." I muttered. I wanted Athena to listen to Brianna, but it had to be on her terms. I'd already learned that about her. "And she's definitely not in the mood right now. If you go in there, she'll probably kill you on sight."

"Oh." She leaned against the wall beside me. "How am I supposed to get her to listen to me?"

"You don't. You keep your head down. You do everything that's asked of you. You show respect to everyone here. Then, just maybe, she'll see you're trying and be willing to speak to you. But for now, she's pregnant. If she feels threatened, it's game over for you."

She sighed heavily.

"I told you it wouldn't be easy. I thought I had trust issues, but the Alpha's ability to trust is on another level entirely."

She frowned at me. "She trusts you."

"No, she doesn't."

"Then why are you guarding her?"

"To show her I mean what I say."

Brianna rolled her eyes at me. We had very different belief systems. She expected everyone to accept her as she was. Whereas I'd always had to work for it. Human or not.

"You know as well as I do that her abuse didn't end after you nearly killed her." I added.

"Right." Brianna nodded slowly. "I still can't believe you told the others the truth about him being your brother." She changed the subject because it was still hard for her to talk openly about her past.

"If I want to live here, I need to be honest with them."

"But you wouldn't have told them if he'd never shown up here, would you? And you haven't told them everything. You can't keep that secret forever. They'll figure it out!"

She knew me too well. But I also knew she wouldn't blab.

I hadn't liked Brianna when we first met. But when there are just two of you going through the same hell, it's hard not to form a bond. Now, I couldn't imagine my world without her. She'd helped me through some of the worst moments of my life and had done more than her fair share with the other Rogues.

She gave me a sad smile. "You've settled right in here. Who would've thought you'd like pack life?"

"You just need time. Isn't that what you first told me when I found you?"

Brianna nodded. "True."

"Go back to the house. There's no point in you standing here with me."

"I'll see you later?" She asked.

"Sure."

"At least you and Sophia like me." She muttered as she turned away.

I watched Brianna hurry back down the stairs until I was alone again.

My thoughts drifted to Isabella and how she hadn't backed away from me. Not a single ounce of fear in her eyes. Anger and annoyance, yes. But no fear, even when I pushed her against the wall. Almost as if she were expecting it.

A man's voice bellowed my name from downstairs. "Alexander needs you!" Sebastian, Alexander's Beta, spluttered when he saw me.

"Why?"

He glanced at the bedroom door and dropped his voice to a whisper. "It's here. It's in the hospital with Isabella."