Free Jade Crew: Fallen Bear (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Ridgeback Bears Book 7) by Amelia Jade

words.
    “Dammit,” she swore. “This is why I don’t get close to people, and why I don’t let them get close to me.”
    Evan was torn in multiple directions. On one hand, he was mad at her accusation. On another, he wanted to go to her, to hold her, to wipe away her tears and tell her it was okay.
    But most of all, he was broken. He realized she was right. One hundred percent right. It wasn’t the other Alpha’s fault. Evan had started the fight.
    “Holy shit,” he whispered, looking up at her, knowing his face was filled with horror. “How could I have been so blind?”
    She looked at him, her eyes still glistening with liquid, though no more tears tracked down her cheeks. Even as he watched, her expression altered subtly, turning into a look of rigid stone as she locked her feelings up, pushing them away. Her eyes of hazel cleared even as they hardened in his direction.
    “There is a good man in you, Evan. But he’s buried beneath a lot of issues.”
    He nodded slowly, still trying to come to terms with the fact that it was all his fault.
    “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his apology directed as much at Victoria as it was at the memory of Emily, two women in his life that he had wronged.
    He wanted to argue the issue, to protest his innocence, that it was all the fault of another. For so long that had been the mantra of Evan Mosier: he had been victimized by others. Despite what others may have said to him, not once had he considered himself to be at fault. It should have been entrenched in him that he wasn’t at fault. Every fiber of his being should be screaming out to contradict what Victoria was saying.
    And yet, not a single ounce of him actually felt that way. Was that indicative of the importance of Victoria to his life? He shook his head vigorously, trying to clear it of thoughts as he worked at sorting out the shattered pieces of a life he had thought was finally being put back together.
    “What is it?” she asked tentatively. She must have recognized that there was a lot going on in his head.
    Still, he could tell by how unsure her voice was that she wasn’t certain about wanting to speak to him right then. Not that he could blame her; she had already fled an intimate moment with them. There was more going on in her head than she was letting on as well.
    “Fuck, we’re all kinds of messed up, aren’t we?” he said with a weak laugh.
    She smiled. “No argument.”
    “What do we do now?” he asked.
    “I think we both have a lot of thinking to do.”
    “Yeah. And amends to make, I think.”
    “You’re taking this rather well,” she observed. “You didn’t even try to argue with me.”
    He gave her a sad smile. “I think, deep down, that part of me knew that you were right. I didn’t know it, and it took you calling me out for me to realize that it had been there all along. I did fuck up. I’m to blame for her death, and the others as well.” He paused to clear his throat. “It’s not easy for me to admit that, and it’s going to take a lot of time, and a lot of apologies to her before I can forgive myself. A lot of apologies,” he said a second time, thinking once more of the bright life that had been snuffed out by his actions.
    “Hopefully she can forgive me.” He looked up, meeting her eyes squarely without flinching. “Hopefully you can as well.”
    Victoria glanced away. “I don’t know Evan,” she said in a whisper. “I just don’t know. This is all happening so fast. I can’t keep up with it. Now the revelation of your past. I know there’s a flame between us—I’m not blind. But I don’t know if I can give it any fuel from my end.” Her head dropped. “I just don’t know.”
    “I understand,” he said after a moment, lacing his fingers behind his neck as he looked up at the sky, hoping for some sort of guidance.
    “I think I need to be alone for a bit,” she said at last.
    His heart plummeted, taking his hopes and dreams with it. There was no anger in