“I don’t know shit about what happened,” Maddox said after several heartbeats. “This shit is all new to me. I need to get it under control, so I can go back to the office. They’re going to start wondering why I’m out all the time. Someone will pull me in for a psych evaluation soon.”
“There’s a pack here. You met the Alpha already. He’s a good man. Maybe you should pay him a visit. He can help you with everything you’re going through. Ness and I can help if things get out of hand.”
He lifted his glowing eyes to meet mine. “How can you and Ness help?”
I swallowed, nervous about what I was going to suggest. “Ness has a power. She can tell people what to do, and they have to obey. We’ve…we’ve noticed that I have a similar ability with you. I can’t do it with anything alive, but…”
“No,” he snapped immediately.
I opened my mouth to press the issue, but it wasn’t my place. Maddox wasn’t Pack. He didn’t live in Lakesedge, so he owed nothing to Ryder and his Pack. And I was the one who’d made a mess of this. There was no reason to listen to me. Maddox deserved to take his life back into his own hands.
Maddox
She wanted to control me.She’d just said as much, yet my beast saw no problem with this.
I stood and left the room without saying anything more. This conversation was over. I’d offered to protect her. It was all I wanted to do, yet she continued to push my boundaries. Why did I want her so damn much if she was going to keep me under her thumb forever and always?
A part of me knew that wasn’t what Addie really wanted. She was trying to help with the limited resources that she had available, but I couldn’t bring myself to trust her completely. There was always the chance that she would take control, and I would never get it back.
I could almost hear my ex-wife laughing at me. She’d struggled to control me the whole time we were together. Over and over, she pulled me to her like she’d known that her days were limited from the beginning. I’d flung myself away from her and buried myself in work.
That’s why she strayed. I’d been so mad at the time, but I wasn’t the same idiot that I’d been back then. Now, I could see that she’d found what she’d needed in someone else.
It was just a shame that she’d been on her way to explain that to me when a drunk driver took her life. We’d never gotten the chance to clear the air between us. Now, all of the problems we’d had still lived on with me. They festered in my chest and kept me from trusting anyone else enough to love them.
“Are you haunting me, Paige?” I asked the dark room.
Addie could see ghosts and talk to them. I could ask her if there was a woman with ash blond hair lingering around me. Addie would have told me if there was a woman laughing at me from beyond the grave, though. She wouldn’t pass up the opportunity unless Paige asked her to stay quiet.
“Did you stay here? Or did you give up on this world entirely and move on? I wish I could find out.”
There was a chance that Paige wanted nothing to do with me. She could be haunting the man she cheated on me with. He seemed like a nice fellow, actually. I hoped she wasn’t causing too much strife for him and whoever he was with now.
Was it time to move on? Probably not. I didn’t see a point in disappointing another woman.