The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 388

Chapter 388

1 froze.

Not outwardly.

Not visibly.

But inside, something stopped.

He didn’t care.

He kept going.

“You want someone to blame? Fine. Blame me. But don’t pretend this is about something else.”

“Oh, it is,” I whispered. “It’s about everything.”

His voice dropped so low I barely heard it.

“You told me you hated me.”

“I meant it.”

His jaw clenched so hard a vein ticked in his neck.

A beat.

A long, brutal beat.

Then something in him snapped.

“Bullshit,” he hissed.

My eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” His voice wasn’t loud-it was worse. Controlled. Sharp. “You don’t hate me. You’re pissed. You’re hurt. But you don’t hate

me.”

I laughed-ugly, bitter, exhausted.

“You don’t get to tell me what I feel.”

1/4

“Oh, trust me,” he shot back, leaning in so close I felt the heat of his anger, “I know exactly what you feel.”

“Really?” I snapped. “Then congratulations, because I don’t even know what I feel anymore!”

“Yeah, you do,” he snarled. “You’re angry at me because if you weren’t, you’d fall apart.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.*

“Don’t pretend.” he growled. “You’re terrified, and you’re using me as a punching bag because it’s easier than facing the fact that you almost-

“DON’T,” I cut him off, voice cracking. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

He didn’t stop.

You almost didn’t make it back.”

h stuttered.

And I had to sit there,” he continued, his voice breaking in the middle of the rage, “imagining what they were doing to you. Imagining you screaming for me. Imagining you alone. And now you want to fucking punish me for not being fast enough?”

I stared at him, heart pounding.

He wasn’t shouting anymore.

He wasn’t cold either.

He was shaking.

“You think I didn’t suffer too?” he whispered, the anger melting into something sharp and painful. “You think I slept? Ate? Breathed?”

“I didn’t ask for that,” I whispered.

“No,” he said, “you didn’t have to.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Don’t twist this,” I whispered. “Don’t act like I owe you anything. You hurt me. You pushed me away. You treated me like I didn’t matter.

And then you expect me to forget all of it?”

“I don’t expect you to forget,” he snapped. “I expect you to stop acting like I wanted any of this to happen.”

“You did!” I threw back. “You pushed and pushed until I broke!”

2/4

“Because I was trying to protect you!” he roared.

That silenced me.

We stared at each other, breaths harsh, faces inches apart.

“Yeah,” he said quieter, chest rising and falling. “I fucked up. But don’t stand there and act like you’re the only one bleeding.”

“You don’t get to compare what I went through with-

“I’m not comparing,” he cut in. “I’m telling you that you’re not the only one who’s been hurting.”

My vision blurred

–

not with tears, but with fury and a pain I couldn’t name anymore.

“You don’t know what they did to me,” I whispered.

worked once

hard

like he had to swallow down something sharp.

“Then tell me,” he whispered back.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

That was the one that hurt him.

Really hurt him.

His eyes flicked away.

Just for a second.

Then he nodded once, jaw tight.

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