Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron) novel Chapter 56

Chapter 56
LEAH
When I get into the vehicle, I lie out on the back seat. I stretch my legs and fold my arms under my head. The SUV is new and the leather is expensive. It has a distinctive smell.
Aaron moves to slide in beside me.
“No,” I tell him.
Just that one word, but it has force behind it.
He pauses.
So do James and Cedric. All three males glance at each other.
“Leah,” Aaron says quietly. “Close your eyes and look deep.”
“If my eyes are closed, I can’t ‘see deep’ into anything, Aaron.”
He stands in the car door. He’s angry. “Search in yourself, Leah. Do you hear your wolf? Do you feel her?”
I don’t feel anything.
I’m just tired.
I think if I closed my eyes, I could sleep for a week.
“Maybe this will cure your ca ncer,” he says quietly.
Hope floods my body, but I tamp it down and say casually, “What ca ncer?”
He frowns.
“You’re si ck. Adam told me so.”
I laugh. “I never thought you were gullible. I’m fine, Aaron. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
His arms flex where he holds the door. “So that blood you spat up and the flat-lining… all of that was
what?”
…
I sit up slowly. “You’ll have to be more specific. Which time, Aaron? When I was attacked on your lands, or when the news of my father’s suicide crippled me?”
He looks contrite.
“Or maybe we should add a third time, when you starved me for a week? I didn’t di e that time, but it sure felt like it.” I cross my arms. “Did you ever think that maybe Adam said those things to try and protect me? Or to get you to finally let me go?”
James clears his throat, reminding us we’re not alone.
Well, whatever.
This beta knows too much about me anyway. And the rest of the
pack, they all know how Aaron has treated me.
“Slide over,” he tells me.
I don’t want him near me right now. He spent hours in these woods holding me. And even if he did hold me together in the literal sense, the reason he had to… it all stems back to the vicious way he tricked me, manipulated me, set up my father and all but pulled the trigger himself.
He ki lled my father.
Before I can say, get the he ll away from me, he lifts my legs to move me out of the way.
I slam them back down on the seat. “No.”
His eyes go full gold.
“What are you going to do, challenge me?” I taunt. It’s a st upid move on my behalf but … “You do realize that’s the most f**ked up part in all of this. Because even though you came here, killed Brian and saved me, that whole time you were holding me…I was more afraid of you than anyone else.”
He je rks back like I’ve struck him.
But he needs to hear the truth.
“You’re a killer, Aaron. And you’re merciless. And I know. I know in my heart that there was a chance that you would end me.”
“Is that what you think?” His voice drops to a growl that is more animal than human, as he leans into the car threateningly…