We stood breathless in the echo of our rage, locked in a stare that scorched the air between us.
Atlas's chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven movements, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His eyes shimmered—not with fear, not even with pain—but something hotter, deeper.
Fury. But I didn't back down. I couldn't. Not when my blood still burned with suspicion and betrayal. Not when I could still feel the sting of his secrets wrapped like thorns around my pride.
He had kept so much from me. He had lied—and even if it was to protect himself, I couldn't unfeel the crack of that truth. But then… He broke. His voice cracked through the tension like lightning splitting the sky.
"What do you want from me?" he demanded, his tone sharp and trembling. "What exactly do you want, Draven?" I blinked. His words shook me more than I wanted to admit.
"Do you want me to tear my soul out and throw it at your feet? To turn myself inside out just so you can trample what's left?"
My breath caught. He wasn't shouting anymore, but his voice struck harder than any scream.
"You want the truth?" he whispered, fire and pain flaring beneath the surface. "Fine." His hands trembled at his sides.
"Should I tell you first about how my pack—my own family, my blood—treated me like a defect from the day I could walk? That I was never enough? Always compared. Always weaker. Always less."
He took a step forward, his voice rising. "Or should I describe how they made sure I knew I was the shame of their bloodline? The mistake they couldn't get rid of?"
Each word felt like a blow. Not from him—but from the truth he was bleeding in front of me.
"Perhaps you want to hear how my own father started 'visiting' me at night? How the older I got, the worse it became? How my mother—my own mother—just looked the other way?"
My stomach dropped. Atlas's voice cracked again, and he pressed forward, his steps like thunder.
"Should I tell you how my brother used to laugh while he tried to kill me? How he nearly drowned me in the swamp during a so-called training session just because he was bored? How his friends watched and cheered?" His words blurred into fury, his tears spilling freely now.
"Or do you want the part where the only person I ever trusted—Evan, the man you saw with me—the person I thought was my mate, chose him over me? Chose power over my love? Left me to rot while they paraded their bond like it didn't matter whose life they stepped on to get there?"
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. "I had to run away. Because if I stayed, I would probably end up dead. One way or another. So yes, I ran." His voice broke completely now, a sob catching in his throat.
"I ran to survive. And for the first time in my life, someone gave me a chance to earn something for myself. A place. A name. A reason to believe I wasn't just a mistake with legs."
His arms wrapped around himself, like he was the only thing holding himself together. "And then you—" He stared at me, eyes shining with tears and heartbreak. "You look at me like I'm still a threat. A disaster. An enemy."
The silence afterward felt crushing. He stood there, panting, his cheeks streaked with tears that caught the light, his body shaking like he might collapse under the weight of his own words, under the burden of finally speaking his truth.
I had wanted the truth, indeed. Demanded it. But not this. Not this brutal, harrowing unraveling. Not this raw exposure of every wound he'd ever suffered.
Guilt hit me like a blow to the chest, stealing my breath. I had forced him to bleed his story into this room. Demanded honesty and then stood like a judge when he gave me pain I never deserved to hear, trauma I had no right to demand.
"I— Atlas," I stammered, stepping forward, hand reaching out instinctively, desperate to close the distance. "I didn't know. I couldn't have imagined—"
"No," he said bitterly, voice hollow as he wiped his face with the sleeve of his uniform, smearing the tears across his cheeks.
"You couldn't. Because you never asked.” Truth painfully lodged in my chest. “You only demanded. You never tried to understand—you just wanted answers, consequences, proof. You wanted me to bleed for your peace of mind. You wanted me to justify my existence, to prove I wasn't the threat everyone else said I was."
The words struck like physical blows, each one deserved. I tried to reach for him, tried to pull him into the comfort I had no right to offer, knowing I'd forfeited any claim to give him solace.
Something inside me ached to protect him, to shield him from everything he'd just relived for my sake, from the memories I'd forced him to drag back into the light. But he stepped back, putting distance between us.
A cold barrier returned to his face—one I hadn't seen since the day we first met, the walls I'd finally broken through slamming back into place. He straightened his spine, steeled his expression, and said in the formal tone of a soldier addressing his superior:
"Am I dismissed now, Alpha?" The title felt like a slap. Like a door closing between us. I hesitated. Then nodded once, too stunned to say a word, too ashamed to speak.
He turned and walked out of the room without another glance. When the door closed behind him, the silence hit harder than his voice ever had.
Sirius exploded in my mind before I could even sit down. "You fool. Idiot. You broke him! You took everything fragile and beautiful about him and crushed it under your suspicion and pride!"
I dropped into the chair behind my desk, elbows on my knees, hands buried in my hair, trying to steady my breathing.
Sirius wasn't wrong. I had been a complete asshole. Worse than an asshole—I'd been cruel in ways I couldn't take back.
I had taken his silence and carved it into suspicion. Taken his trauma and used it like a weapon against him. Demanded honesty while offering none of the trust I'd expected in return, none of the safety he needed to bare such devastating wounds.
The memory of his tears—of his voice shaking as he asked me why I believed his brother over him—gnawed at me with every heartbeat, guilt settling deep in my chest.
I had made him relive hell. Every moment of abuse, every betrayal, every instance where the people who should have protected him had failed him. And he still stood his ground. Still told me the truth, even when it ripped him open and left him exposed.
And I… I had just stood there. Like a goddamn coward. Frozen while he shattered. Sirius growled again. "Fix this. You have to fix this." But I didn't know if I could. Or if he'd ever let me try. Or if I even deserved the chance.