I didn’t want to hurt him. Nor did I want to embarrass him any more than he probably already was. Not in front of everyone.
“I can take care of myself,” I told him quietly.
“I know,” he retorted. “But you shouldn’t have to. I don’t know them. I don’t know what they’ll do—”
“I do,” I said. “I know them. I’ve known them for a very long time.”
“Not what they’ve become,” he said. “People change, Ox. You know that. You knew them a long time ago. You don’t know what they’ve done in the last three years. Where they’ve been. What they’ve seen.”
“Do you trust me?”
He blinked. “Of course I do. You’re my Alpha.”
“Then you have to trust me on this,” I said, trapping him neatly. And probably a bit unfairly.
He took a step back, glancing between me and the other pack. Joe stood between his brothers, not making a single sound, just watching. Waiting. He was letting me handle this, but I also knew he was trying to figure out just how close the bond between Robbie and me was.
Robbie scowled at me. “That’s not how this works.”
“Maybe. But nothing about us is how normal things work. We’re not like everyone else. And then there’s the fact that he could have killed you.”
“I can handle myself.”
“He’s an Alpha, Robbie.”
“But—”
“Stop,” I said, my voice deepening the smallest amount.
He flinched.
Carter and Kelly whined.
“Go,” I said. “All of you. Run. Robbie, stay here.”
He groaned.
The others left, Mark and Elizabeth shifting back into wolves. She pressed her nose against my hand before she followed Mark into the trees. Carter and Kelly waited at the tree line for Joe, who hadn’t yet moved. They glared at Robbie, daring him to make a move.
“I’ll be right behind you,” I told Joe.
His eyes flashed red before he turned toward his brothers and disappeared into the dark.
“You love him,” Robbie said as soon as they were out of earshot.
“Does it matter?” I asked. “He’s an Alpha invited here tonight and you attacked him. What the hell were you thinking?”
“He shouldn’t have been—”
“Robbie. That wasn’t for you to decide.”
He looked hurt at that. “How am I supposed to protect you if you—”
“He gave me his wolf. When he was ten years old. Did you know that?”
Robbie made a choked noise, face slackened by shock.
“I didn’t know what it meant. Not at the time. But he gave it to me. The day after he met me. Because he knew. And when I found out what it meant, I tried to give it back. I tried to tell him he was wrong. That he’d chosen the wrong person. That I wasn’t good enough for someone like him, someone brave and smart and kind. And he wouldn’t hear any part of it. Because I was it. He’d already decided that I was it for him.”