Chapter 72: TWO MONTHS

ASHER

When we got back to campus, Reed went straight to his room without a word and I followed because the rage pouring through the bond was so intense it made my chest tight and because Reed’s hands had been shaking on the steering wheel the entire drive because the blood on his split lip had dried dark and ugly and he hadn’t even wiped it away.

Something was very wrong.

Reed’s door slammed open. He walked inside and I followed, closing it quietly behind me.

Then I watched him fall apart.

He paced back and forth across the big space like a caged animal. His hands ran through his hair over and over until it stuck up at odd angles. His breathing was ragged and harsh.

A lamp went flying and it shattered against the wall.

Books followed, then his desk chair and everything within reach.

“Reed—”

“Don’t.” His voice was raw and sharp enough to cut through me and it did, because everything I wanted to say was completely gone. “Just don’t, Asher. I can’t—I can’t do this right now.”

I stood by the door, my heart pounding, watching this Alpha who was always so controlled, so cold, and so perfectly composed, completely lose it.

“What happened with your father?” I asked quietly.

Reed laughed but it sounded broken, and unhinged. “What didn’t happen?”

“Reed, please. Talk to me.” I pleaded.

“Why?” Reed spun to face me. His eyes were wild, desperate and red-rimmed like he was fighting back tears he’d never let fall. “So you can see how fucking weak I am? How I can’t even stand up to my own father? How I’m exactly what he says I am?”

“You’re not weak—” I tried to say but he beat me to it again.

“Yes, I am!” Reed’s voice rose to a shout. “I’m weak and pathetic and everything he’s ever said because I can’t—I can’t even—”

He stopped, his hands were shaking violently now. His whole body was trembling.

I’d never seen Reed like this. I never saw him anything but cold or possessive or cruel or rarely almost tender.

But this? This was devastation. This was someone breaking.

“Reed—” I took a step closer.

“Stop.” Reed held up a hand, and palm out. A barrier between us. “Just stop, Asher. Stop being kind. Stop looking at me like you give a fuck. Stop making this harder than it already is.”

The words hit like a slap and I froze mid-step.

Reed’s expression crumpled. The wildness in his eyes gave way to something worse, anguish and self-loathing.

“Fuck.” Reed’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”

“What did your father say to you?” I asked. My voice came out steadier than I felt.

Reed was quiet for a long moment. Then his legs seemed to give out. He sank down onto his bed and pressed his face into his hands.

The gesture was so defeated, so utterly broken, that something in my chest cracked.

I couldn’t stand it and I couldn’t stand seeing Reed like this.

I crossed the room before I could think better of it. My hand landed on his shoulder and Reed went rigid, every muscle tensed under my palm.

“Don’t,” Reed said. But his voice was weaker now. “I need to process this. I’m still— I’m still so fucking furious and I don’t want to—”

I didn’t move my hand, I just kept it there steady and grounding. Reed’s breathing was still ragged and his shoulders were shaking under my touch.

Then slowly, incrementally, he melted. The tension drained from his body. His shoulders slumped and when he looked up at me, his eyes were devastated.

“He knows,” Reed said quietly. “About you. About what you are and about the bond.”

My blood went cold, and the room suddenly tilted. My heart hammered hard in my chest.

“How—”

“He’s an Alpha. A powerful one.” Reed’s voice was hollow and empty. “He could smell it on me, he could feel the bond. He said—he said he knew the moment he saw us together.”

My hand was still on Reed’s shoulder and I could feel him trembling the same way I was trembling.

“And he gave me an ultimatum,” Reed continued.

“What kind of ultimatum?” But I already knew. I already felt the answer settling like lead in my stomach. Reed looked up at me. His eyes were red, devastated and full of something that looked terrifyingly like grief.

“I have two months,” Reed said. “Until the end of the semester, to break the bond, to end this and to get rid of you.”

The words landed like physical blows.

Each one carved into my chest, my lungs couldn’t pull in air properly and the room was spinning.

“And if you don’t?” I whispered.

“I lose everything.” Reed’s hands clenched into fists on his thighs. “The pack, my title, and my future as Alpha. Everything I’ve worked for my entire life. Everything I’m supposed to be.”

My hand slipped from his shoulder.

“And if I don’t do it willingly,” Reed continued, his voice dropping to something barely audible, “he’ll expose you. He’ll tell everyone at the Academy what you are. He’ll make sure you lose your scholarship, your future and everything you have ever worked for. He’ll destroy you, Asher. Completely.”

The floor was gone and I was falling.

“So that’s it then,” I heard myself say. My voice sounded far away and disconnected. “You have to choose either me or your future.”

Reed stood up abruptly and crossed to me in two strides. His hands came to my face, cupping it with a desperate tenderness that made my throat tight.

“I don’t want to choose,” Reed said. His voice was breaking and cracking open. “I don’t want to lose you. But I can’t—I can’t lose everything either. The pack needs me. They’re depending on me. My father—”

“Will destroy me if you don’t end this.” I finished for him. “I know.”

Because of course he would. Because that’s what Alphas like Thorne did. They destroyed anything that threatened their power, their control, their vision of what their sons should be and I was that threat.

“Asher—”

“It’s okay.” I pulled away from his hands even though it hurt. Even though my wolf was screaming at me to stay close to my Alpha. “We both know which one you’re going to pick.”

“You don’t know that—”

“Yes, I do.” My voice is calm now. Eerily calm. “You’ve made it clear from the beginning that I mean nothing to you. That this is just biology. Just the bond forcing us together. So when the time comes, when you have to choose, you’ll break the bond and we’ll both move on.”

The certainty in my voice was a lie. But I needed it to be true. I needed to believe it so the hope building in my chest would die before it destroyed me.

“What if I don’t want to move on?” Reed’s voice was barely a whisper.

The same devastating question he’d asked before. In his room at three that morning when he’d been soft and vulnerable and almost honest.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.

“You don’t mean that,” I said.

“What if I do?”

I stared at him. At this Alpha who’d declared war on me. Who’d humiliated me and blackmailed me and used me. Who’d held me through my heat and whispered that I was perfect. Who was now looking at me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

Who was being forced to choose between me and everything he’d ever worked for and I knew—with devastating certainty—that he’d choose the pack, the title and the future because how could I possibly be worth more than all of that?

“You have two months to figure it out,” I said quietly. “Two months to decide if I’m worth losing everything for.”

The words tasted like ash and then I turned towards the door.

“Asher, wait—”

But I was already moving. Already leaving before Reed could say something else that would make me hope. Make me believe he might actually choose me because hope was more dangerous than anything else. Hope would destroy me when Reed inevitably chose his pack.

I walked out of his room and closed the door quietly behind me and made it halfway down the hallway before my legs gave out.

I sank down against the wall, my chest heaving, and trying to breathe through the pain.

Two months.

Reed had two months to choose and I had two months to prepare for him to break my heart because that’s what would happen. That’s what always happened.

Alphas like Reed didn’t choose Omegas like me. They chose power, legacy and everything I could never give him.

I pressed my face into my knees and let myself break because I was in love with Reed Jackson and in two months, he was going to destroy me not because he wanted to but because he had no choice and somehow, that made it worse.

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