Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
“That wasn’t enough, though, was it? They didn’t leave her alone. You could have done more. You could have ordered them to back off. You could have shut all that shit down. But you didn’t.” No, he’d done the bare minimum … and then gone about his life without a qualm.
Zaire looked away, his jaw clenching.
“You sat back while a bunch of your peers—all dominants, all high in the hierarchy—bullied an unranked submissive who’d done nothing to deserve it. And then you fucking mated one of them. You claimed a woman who’d wanted to make Quinley miserable.” How exactly the black-foot could ever have brought himself to do that was beyond Isaiah.
“Back then, I didn’t know Quinley was my—”
“From the start, you let her down in every way possible,” Isaiah went on, striving to keep his cool when his cat urged him to rip this motherfucker apart. “And now you don’t even have the fucking decency to stay away and let her live her life.”
“I would if she was safe in this pride, but she clearly isn’t!”
“If that was the case, it would have not one thing to do with you.” Isaiah smoothly stepped forward. “Does Nazra know you’re here?”
Zaire’s eyes flickered.
“Thought not.” At this point, Isaiah would have felt sorry for her if it wasn’t for how she’d treated Quinley over the years.
“I want to know why the hell no one in this pride seems to give a shit about Quinley’s safety. Is it because she’s a black-foot? Or is it that she’s a submissive?”
“Unlike black-foot prides, we don’t think ‘submissive’ means ‘weak.’ She’s a valued member of this pride, and she’s under the protection of every single dominant. The only one standing here who’s ever looked down on her is you.”
Zaire’s head flinched back. “I have never looked down on Quinley.”
He was seriously going to claim that? “That’s bull, and we both know it. You’ve never viewed her as your equal. You see submissives as lesser shifters. Most dominant black-foots do.”
“How the hell would you know?” he sniped.
“Because she told me. She explained how it goes. Explained how obsessed you all are about status. Told me how the unranked and more vulnerable pride members reside near the border of your territory—they’d be the first to be slaughtered in the event of an attack, and everyone else seems fine with that.”
Shocked mutterings came from his pride members who were nosily observing from porches or front yards.
“The unranked are considered expendable, plain and simple. So maybe you get why I’m thinking you have some balls to act concerned over the idea that this pride might not be making her safety a priority. It was never a priority in yours.”
Zaire swallowed. “Black-foot prides operate differently—that is true,” he said, the words stiffly spoken. “But all our members are considered important.”
Havana huffed from her position a few feet behind Tate. “You sure have a weird way of showing that.”
Agreed. “The fact is, Zaire, that you never gave Quinley’s wellbeing a second thought before—”
“I didn’t know she was meant to be mine,” the black-foot upheld.
Isaiah shot him a skeptical smirk. “I don’t buy that. Not anymore.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Isaiah inwardly smiled at how Zaire stiffened. Bingo. “Hearing the shit you say and the way you say it … I think you figured out some time ago that she was right. But I also think you did your best to ignore it, because you cared about Nazra and were too set on being an Alpha of a pride.”
It was what the guy had strived for growing up, what he’d likely been groomed to be, what his inborn nature would have demanded of him. And with the way black-foots operated, he could never have ruled with a submissive at his side.
“Not true.” The hard protest held a shaky note that betrayed its lack of genuineness. “I didn’t know.”
His cat snarling at the lie, Isaiah forged on, “You bonded with Harlan’s daughter instead, who I think you do love. You thought you’d be happy with her; happy to rule alongside her. And maybe you are to some degree. But there’s a strain on your relationship. I’m standing close enough that I can tell your imprint bond is chipped at the edges. What caused it?”
Zaire’s eyes flared. “That’s none of your—”
“Let me take a guess.” Really, it seemed pretty obvious. “At some point, you realized your personality is better suited to a submissive than a born-alpha.”
The black-foot pulled in a sharp breath.
“You and your cat need things from Nazra that, being the complete opposite of a submissive, she simply can’t give. In the beginning, you may have been able to gloss over it. But it steadily began to eat at you and your animal, and you soon started to wonder if maybe you should have made different choices. Still, you stayed on the path you’d put yourself on.”