Chapter 69: ALMOST TENDER

ASHER

It was three in the morning when my phone buzzed, with sleeping eyes, I opened the phone and my eyes opened wide.

Reed: Are you awake?

I stared at the message in the darkness. Reed never texted me at three AM. He never asked if I was awake. He usually just commanded me to come to him.

Me: Yes

Reed: Can’t sleep?

Me: No

Three dots appeared, disappeared and reappeared again

Reed: Me neither. Come to my room.

I should have said no, I should have told him I was tired, I should have done anything except get out of bed and pull on clothes and walk across campus in the dark.

But the bond was pulling and something about the way Reed had asked instead of commanded made my chest ache.

Reed’s door was unlocked when I got there.

I let myself in and found him sitting on his bed, back against the headboard, and still fully dressed. His room was dark except for the lamp on his desk casting long shadows across the walls. He looked tired, more tired than I’d ever seen him.

“Hey,” Reed said quietly.

“Hey.” I closed the door behind me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just—” Reed gestured vaguely. “I Couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to be alone.”

The admission surprised me, I stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do. This wasn’t like the other times Reed had summoned me. There was no command in his voice. No possessive edge, just exhaustion.

“You can sit down,” Reed said. “I’m not going to—” He stopped. “I just wanted company.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. Keeping distance between us and we sat in silence for a long moment.

“How’s your shoulder?” Reed asked finally and I immediately touched the mark he’d left two days ago. “It’s fine.”

“I was too rough.” He said and the words hung in the air between us.

“You’re always too rough,” I said quietly and Reed flinched.

“I know.” He admitted, followed by more silence.

I didn’t know what to do with this version of Reed. The one who looked tired and uncertain and almost vulnerable. The one who’d asked me to come instead of commanded it.

“Why did you call me here?” I asked.

“I told you that I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to be alone.”

“You have plenty of friends you could call—”

“I wanted you.” Reed’s voice was soft. “Is that such a crime?”

Yes,it was because every time Reed wanted me, every time he touched me or looked at me or said my name, I fell a little bit deeper and he felt nothing.

“Reed—”

“Come here.” Reed patted the space beside him. “Please.”

Please!? Reed never said please, which was suspicious to me but nevertheless I moved up the bed slowly and sat beside him, my back against the headboard, leaving a few inches of space between us.

Reed turned to look at me. His eyes were gray again. No darkness, no possessive edge, just gray and searching and impossibly sad.

“Can I ask you something?” Reed said.

“Okay.”

“Why do you hate me so much? I know I have asked a thousand times but I do keep feeling that you keep hating me more and more each day.

”

The question caught me off guard.

“What?”

“You hate me.” Reed’s voice was matter-of-fact. “I can feel it through the bond. Especially after—after I touch you. After I claim you. I can feel how much you hate me.”

My throat was tight. “Reed—”

“I’m not asking you to stop hating me. I just want to understand why.” Reed’s hand came up, he hesitated for a second and then cupped my face with a gentleness that made my chest ache. “What did I do to make you hate me this much?”

His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. The touch was so different from the rough, possessive claiming. It was tender and careful like I was something fragile.

“You do know why I hated you Reed. You ’re a bully,” I said quietly. “From the first day I saw you, you were terrorizing Scott. Making his life hell just because you could. Just because he was weaker than you and couldn’t fight back.”

Reed’s hand stilled on my face.

“You used your power to hurt people,” I continued. “To control them, to make them afraid and that’s why I hated you for it. I hated everything you represented. Every Alpha who thinks being strong gives them the right to destroy anyone weaker.”

“I remember,” Reed said softly. “You stood up for him. For Scott. No one ever did that before.”

“Because everyone was too scared of you.” My voice was shaking now. “Everyone except me and that’s why you targeted me because I wouldn’t bow down, I wouldn’t submit and I wouldn’t let you turn me into another person afraid of Reed Jackson.”

Reed’s thumb started moving again. Slow circles on my cheekbone.

“You’re right,” Reed said. “About all of it. I was a bully. I did use my power to hurt people and when you stood up to me, when you refused to submit—” He stopped and swallowed hard. “It made me obsessed with you. With breaking you and with making you just as afraid as everyone else.”

“And you succeeded.” The words tasted bitter. “You declared war on me, humiliated me, blackmailed me and used my secret against me. You made me submit to you over and over until I—”

I stopped before I said too much.

“Until you what?” Reed’s other hand came to my face. Cupping both sides now. Holding me like I was something precious. “Asher, until you what?”

“Until I started forgetting why I hated you in the first place.” The admission broke something in me. “Until the lines got blurred. Until I couldn’t tell anymore if I was submitting because you were forcing me or because some sick part of me wanted to.”

Reed’s breath hitched.

“And now?” Reed’s voice was barely a whisper. “Do you still hate me now?”

“I don’t know.” Tears were burning in my eyes. “You’re still a bully. You’re still using your power to control me. You’re still everything I hated from the beginning but you’re also—”

I stopped. I couldn’t finish.

“I’m also what?” Reed’s thumbs were brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were falling.

“The person who held me through my heat. The person who looked at me with something soft in your eyes. The person who’s being gentle with me right now even though we both know you’ll go back to being cruel tomorrow.” My voice cracked. “And I hate that I can’t hate you anymore the way I used to. When it was simple. When you were just the bully and I was just the person who refused to submit.”

Reed’s forehead pressed against mine.

“What if I don’t want to be that person anymore?” Reed’s voice was rough and raw. “What if I don’t want to be the bully? What if I—”

He stopped, his jaw clenched and then he shook his head and the vulnerability disappeared like it had never existed.

“Never mind.” Reed stood up. “You should go.”

The whiplash was devastating.

“What? Reed—”

“I said you should go.” Reed’s voice was now flat and empty. The tenderness from moments ago is completely gone. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have called you.”

“Reed—”

“Go, Asher.” Reed turned his back to me. “Please just go.”

The please broke my heart and I stood up on shaking legs. I walked to the door. My hand was on the handle when I turned back.

Reed was still standing with his back to me. His shoulders were tense, his hands were clenched into fists and through the bond, I felt it. The war happening inside him. The same war that was happening inside me.

Want and fear and something deeper that neither of us could afford.

“Reed—”

“Go.”

I left, I made it halfway back to my dorm before I had to stop. I sank down onto a bench and pressed my face into my hands and finally let myself admit the truth.

I was in love with Reed Jackson.

Completely, utterly and devastatingly in love. With the bully who’d terrorized Scott. Who’d declared war on me. Who’d humiliated me and blackmailed me and made it clear I meant nothing.

I was in love with my tormentor.

The realization made me want to scream.

How did this happen? How had I gone from hating everything Reed stood for to falling in love with him?

Maybe it was the heats. The way he’d taken care of me. The moments of tenderness mixed with the violence. The way he looked at me sometimes like I was something that mattered.

Or maybe I was just broken. So completely destroyed by everything Reed had done to me that I’d developed some sick version of Stockholm syndrome.

Either way, the result was the same. I couldn’t love him. I couldn’t love the person who’d spent months making my life hell. Who used me and discarded me and made it clear I was nothing more than property but it was too late. I already did and it was going to destroy me.

I sat on that bench as the sky started to lighten with dawn and let myself break completely because I was in love with Reed Jackson.

The bully, the tormentor, the Alpha who would never love me back and there was no way this could ever end in anything but devastation.

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