My Alpha Told Me to Stop Needing Him. So I Disappeared novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: What He Hid

Corbin sat up against the headboard an hour later, with a glass of water in his good hand and his color almost back.

I stood at the foot of the bed with my arms crossed.

Ewan was in the hall.

He had said he would stay there, and I had heard the floorboards creak when he sat down.

"You can ask me anything," Corbin said.

"I want to know why you didn't tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"That something was wrong. For two years." I kept my voice level. "Tobias told me you couldn't shift after I left. The healer says it started long before. You knew."

He looked at the water.

"My wolf went quiet the winter after Jonah died," he said. "I could still shift, but it was slow. Then slower. Then one morning I called him and it took a full minute."

"And you said nothing."

"I'm the Alpha." He rubbed his face with the cast. "If the pack smells weakness, someone challenges. If you smelled it, you would worry. I thought it would pass."

"I'm your wife."

"I know."

"I'm the one who would have taken the surgery off the calendar and sat with you."

"That's why I didn't say it," he said hoarsely. "You always came running. I didn't want to be a man you had to run to."

I felt something crack, low in my chest.

"You told me to stop needing you," I said.

"Because I was ashamed of how much I needed you."

He looked up, and his eyes were wet.

"I don't expect you to forgive that. It's the stupidest thing I ever said. I thought if I pushed you away, it would hurt you less when I fell."

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