I glanced over at Matteo and the moment he returned my gaze I dropped mine like a skittish child. From the corner of my eyes I saw Matteo roll his eyes as he reached over an collected my hand into his.

Immediately my eyes fell to our interlocked hands, what were we doing? I internally sighed but it was after seeing Matteo's suddenly concerned expression I realized that it hadn't been so internal after all.

"Is getting to know each other really that terrible?" He teased me with a good natured smile.

Why, yes it actually was terrible but now I was in the same boat as Matteo. My wolf depended on me salvaging this relationship and that was everything to me. I wanted to be a werewolf more than anything else in the entire world so I could more than handle this.

There was another part of me, perhaps the logical side that reminded me I hadn't found Matteo all that terrible when we were madly making out with each other. I was always making excuses for my behavior, explaining away why I was slowly letting my walls down around him.

I hated that part of me mostly because I knew it was right, I was a hypocritical and indecisive little b:tch.

Was it so bad that I found myself intrigued by Matteo, my mate, my captor and adversary?

I offered him up the best smile I could forge in that moment, "It's just a lot to process." It seemed like I'd been giving that answer a lot lately.

"By Devin's account, we've got a couple more days worth of traveling which means we have the liberty to take this slow, you've got all the time you need to process." Matteo assured me and gave me an affirming hand squeeze.

He could tell I wasn't convinced. "My favorite color is brown." Matteo informed me as we lazily walked through the woods, taking our time to return back to the rest of the group.

"That's awful." I let out a soft giggle.

"It is not," He defended quickly, "Not like sh:t brown but more like..." Matteo trailed off in thought as he searched for the best way to explain it, his eyes resting on my brown hair and I felt my face heat up.

Nervously I tucked my hair behind my ears, "Mine's yellow."

He quirked an eyebrow at me, "And you thought mine was bad." I elbowed him in the side and kept walking, tugging him along behind me as I moved on.

"Alright, I have a question for you." Matteo asked from behind me, "What's the story behind your name? Because, Olive is quite the name."

I playfully scowled over at him and he quickly raised his hands in innocence, "In the best way possible, of course."

Nice save.

I cleared my throat, there was no profound explanation behind my goofy ass name but I didn't want to share the real story behind it because that would mean talking to Matteo about my deceased mother and I could barely do that on my own. "My dad just really loved olive martinis so he decided to name me after his favorite alcoholic vegetable beverage."

To my relief instead of pressing me over the details Matteo just chuckled, easing my nerves. "I don't think olives are a vegetable, Olive."

I was skeptical but honestly who the hell really cared what was an olive anyways? He accepted my version of events and that's all that mattered.

"My turn." I wasn't really interested in delving into the intricacies of my family or rather lack of family, I was keen to change the subject and shift the attention away from me as quickly as possible.

I could ask him a similarly meaningless question, I mean how could my favorite color and the backstory to my name be beneficial for the both of us anyways? Instead, I decided to pick from the thousands of unanswered, pent up questions locked in my head from the course of our time together.

"What happened at Grace Pack?" I asked suddenly, my hazel eyes searching his for an answer.

He immediately stiffened and recoiled from me ever so slightly, "You're going to have to be more specific than that." Matteo's tone was cold and distant, almost making me regret asking.

Almost.

I shot his a quick glare, "You know what I mean."

Matteo shook his head, "Really, I don't. I'm going to need you to be more exact about what you want to start a fight over because that's where this conversation is going to go, we both know that."

"Why did you kill everyone? I hated those people more than anyone and yet I still can't get those images of their bodies out of my head. Why did you test all of us at the school? Why'd you let them hurt me like that? Why didn't you kill me the moment you saw me if you really hated me that much?" It all came tumbling out, all of my turmoil and confusion, all of the things that kept me from falling into Matteo's arms wholeheartedly.

He pinched his brow, dropping his hand dramatically after a moment and I resisted the urge to to roll my eyes. "This is only going to be counterproductive, I'm not going to be apologetic and you're only going to be upset. Why do you want to do this, it's just going to drive both of our wolves farther ap--"

"Just stop." I raised my voice above Matteo's, forcing him to break off in the middle of his sentence. "I need to get to know you, I need to get to know why you are the way that you are and why you do the things you do." I took a shaky breath, "I'm not doing anything with you, for my own sake, until I know exactly who you are."

Matteo sighed, "We went after only those who were conspiring and working with Lysander, which we learned fairly quickly was the entire population of your pack. Your alpha was not your leader, it was all a front. Lysander was the puppet master controlling everything, he took a vulnerable pack and made it his cash cow." He rubbed his jaw as he looked off into the distance, "We resolved to take in as many compliant, innocents that wanted to join which incidentally turned out to be only the youths of the pack as every adult wolf was involved to some extent or another with Lysander's operations."

"I watched my innocent classmates die right in front of me, when are you going to stop lying to me?" I called him out on his bullsh:t, this was his one moment to come clean about everything and he kept trying mislead me.

He shook his head quickly, "Compliant, is the key word." Matteo's dark eyes boring into mine, "We gave instructions and those who chose to blatantly defy them immediately became threats to my pack's livelihood, no matter the age."

I turned away from him, trying to hide my reaction of disgust but he caught me again. "You wanted this, Olive."

Matteo pressed onwards, "I sent my beta to handle the school while I stayed with my other fighters to handle your alpha and the rest of the pack. It was only after I'd finished that I was able to check how the sorting was progressing." He frowned, "It was regular procedure to inspect all of the prospective members, the process was completely routine and I will stand by it."

For some bizarre reason, Tiffany's b:tchy face popped into my head. Was she and everyone else who'd managed to survive the initial attack truly alive and well in Malice? "So where is everyone? What happened after you took me?"

"They were given the option to either join us or be against us." Matteo explained carefully but I knew what he was implying but his net words surprised me. "Wisely, everyone made the decision to join."

I didn't know if I should be relieved or irritated that I could potentially live to see Tiffany again. However, I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders with the knowledge that the majority of my peers were to an extent safe.

I thought Matteo was finished, we'd both grown quiet and I figured that it was the end of our supposed bonding session. But he spoke up once more. "When I found out that you were my mate, I was angry..." He dragged both of his hands through his hair and turned to me with a foreign sense of urgency in his eyes, "I resented you because you were not supposed to happen, Olive."

I sputtered angrily, "What the f:ck is that supposed to mean, you 'resented me because I wasn't supposed to happen'?"

Matteo stood in front of me and squared his shoulders, "I didn't think you were ever a possibility because I already had a mate once before you, Olive."