Madeline’s POV
Seth dragged me to one of the patrol cabins in the middle of the forest.
I could feel the anger rolling off him in waves.
“Seth, I…,” I spoke, but he interrupted me.
“Don’t even start, Madeline,” he growled as he slammed the door shut.
He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Do you have any idea what couldn’t have happened?” he asked, gritting his teeth. “You don’t have your wolf yet. You wouldn’t be able to defend yourself. You would be dead the second you stepped one foot over the border. Why would you try to leave, Madeline? Why?”
His voice was trembling by the time he finished speaking. His face was a mixture of anger and fear.
I gulped and guilt washed over me.
“Why, Madeline?” Seth asked again after I didn’t respond.
I tried to take a deep breath, but the lump in my throat was preventing me from doing so. I couldn’t think of an answer. I didn’t know what to tell him. I couldn’t tell him the truth.
“Madeline…” Seth spoke but stopped abruptly.
His eyes widened and his breath got stuck in his throat. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. What the hell happened?
He approached me so abruptly that I didn’t even see him move. He grabbed my chin gently and lifted my head a little.
Oh, shit. He saw it.
“What the hell happened?!” he shouted as he bent down to take a better look at my split lip. “Who did that to you?”
I gulped and tried to force my brain to work. It felt completely useless, though. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with an answer.
“I fell,” I mumbled, knowing immediately that it was the lamest excuse possible.
Seth looked up and growled.
“Don’t lie to me, Madeline,” he said sternly. “Someone did this. Who was it? Was it Mike?”
My eyes widened and I shook my head as best as I could because he was still holding my chin between his fingers.
“No,” I said and my heart raced. “It wasn’t Mike. No one hurt me. I fell.”
Seth growled again. He let me go and stood up straighter.
“Is that why you tried to leave?” he asked sternly. “Is someone hurting you? You tried to escape them, didn’t you, Madeline?”
Shit.
He was right about everything and I hated it. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him that his Luna and his future Luna were hurting me for months now.
So I just shook my head.
Seth groaned in annoyance. He ran his fingers through his hair and started pacing around, keeping his eyes on me.
“Goddess, Madeline, you didn’t want to leave because everything is great,” he said angrily. “You tried to leave because something happened.”
He looked at my lip and gulped.
“Someone hurt you, Madeline, and I want you to tell me who it was,” he continued. “I want you to tell me who it was so I can rip their head off their body.”
A shiver went down my spine. He would be punished if Alpha Dimitri heard him talk about his mother and his mate like that. I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t let him get hurt because of me.
“No one…,” I spoke, but Seth interrupted me again.
“Don’t, Madeline!” he exclaimed, pointing a finger at me. “Don’t lie to me!”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“I fell and I bit my lip, Seth,” I mumbled.
His eyes widened and he stopped pacing around. He clenched his fists and furrowed his eyebrows.
“Why are you lying to me?” he asked. “I can protect you, Maddie. I want to protect you. I need to protect you.”
My heart skipped a beat. The softness in his voice made me shiver. No one in this pack cared about me as much as he did and I couldn’t let him get hurt. I couldn’t let anything happen to him. I had to protect him too.
I looked down at my feet and closed my eyes.
“I fell,” I repeated quietly. “I fell and I bit my lip. No one hurt me. I want to leave this pack because I don’t belong here. I want to go back to my old pack.”
He didn’t respond, but I heard him approaching me slowly. He wrapped his arms around me and placed a kiss on the top of my head.
“I can’t let you do that, Mads,” he mumbled. “I can’t let you leave. I would die if something happened to you, Madeline.”
He placed a finger under my chin and lifted my head slowly. I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me with so much love in his eyes that I almost teared up.
“I will protect you, Maddie,” he whispered. “I will always protect you.”
He glanced at my lips and a wave of heat washed over me. His arm around my waist tightened. His jaw clenched and he gulped.
“You don’t have to tell me who did it,” Seth said quietly, making me furrow my eyebrows. “But you have to let me protect you, Maddie. You have to stay with me and let me protect you.”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. Seth lifted his hand and caressed my cheek gently. He looked at the cut on my lip and frowned.
He let me go and approached one of the cupboards in the small living room.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Taking care of your lip,” he mumbled and turned around.
I saw a small medical kit in his hands.
“You don’t have to do that, Seth,” I protested. “I am fine.”
Seth rolled his eyes at me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the couch. He sat down and made me sit next to him. I watched as he opened the kit, and took out a clean gauze and alcohol. He put a little bit of alcohol on the gauze and turned toward me.
“You can stay with me, Maddie,” he said as he started dabbing the gauze on my lip, making me flinch a little.
I furrowed my eyebrows at him.
“You can come live with me,” he explained. “It will be easier for me to protect you if I can keep my eye on you at all times.”
I was just about to tell him that he didn’t need to do that when the cabin door burst open and a very pissed-off Alpha Dimitri barged inside.
