“I can’t believe you’re pissed at me for what happened,” she said.
“You instigated the whole thing. It was bad enough that you had so little respect for the pride as to start a fight in our own damn hangout. That the person you targeted was under my protection only made it worse. It meant she should have also been under your protection.”
“She struck first,” Ashlynn defended.
“Yeah, devils tend to do that. You knew that when you provoked her,” Tate accused. “You were counting on it so that she’d later get the blame for whatever occurred.”
Generally, pallas cats didn’t pick fights. They didn’t bother you so long as you didn’t bother them. So it might have been easy for people to believe that Havana had been the one to start that shit if Ashlynn hadn’t spent hours shooting her challenging glares.
“You were looking for a fight,” Tate added. “And when Havana didn’t give you one, you took it to the next level and confronted her.”
“No, I just wanted to chat with her. That’s all. I heard about the Gideon situation, I reassured her that our pride would take care of it and that you’d take it seriously. If I’d been her, I’d have wanted that reassurance. I was being nice.”
Tate exchanged a look of disbelief with Luke, who was leaning against the countertop shaking his head. Beside the Beta, Farrell rolled his eyes.
“When I introduced myself, I could tell by the look on her face that she’d heard of me.” Ashlynn’s eyes briefly lowered. “I guessed she’d heard some highly negative things, which she confirmed. We talked a little about you. She’s bitter that you don’t care for her. She blamed me for you being so closed off and for you ending the fling, claiming it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t come home. She thinks you got rid of her for me. She said a lot of snarky things and then challenged me to a fight. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen. I’m sorry that this happened at the Tavern, but I can’t apologize for not backing down. I’m not a person who’d walk away from a challenge.”
“Maybe you should have made an exception last night, because she quite clearly overpowered you.”
Ashlynn jerked her chin up. “She only won the fight because, hesitant to have a brawl in my pride’s hangout, I didn’t use my full strength.”
Tate snorted. “It wasn’t a fight. She didn’t even injure you. She played with you. And then she topped it all off by humiliating you while you were unconscious.” His cat still thought the whole thing was fucking awesome. Tate agreed.
The twin flags of red staining Ashlynn’s cheeks darkened. “All I did was try to talk to her. I don’t even know how things deteriorated so fast.”
“Maybe she didn’t appreciate you trying to get Tate’s attention by embarrassing her,” suggested Luke. “It seems clear to me that you wanted to weaken her in his eyes so that he’d lose interest in her, only it didn’t work out that way.”
“I know you’re angry with me for hurting your brother in the past, Luke, but I think it’s unfair of you to side with a female who isn’t even one of us,” said Ashlynn, prim and haughty. She looked at Tate. “You’re not even giving me the benefit of the doubt. You’re just pinning the blame on me.”
“Because you are to blame,” Tate stated. “Almost every word you’ve spoken here was a lie.”
“It was not! I’m telling you, she wanted the confrontation. She was sure you’d dumped her for me, and she resented me for it.”
Tate leaned forward. “Havana would have no reason to blame you for my ending the fling, because I didn’t end it. She did.”
Ashlynn’s face went slack. She rallied fast. “That’s not what she said when—”
“Let me be very clear,” said Tate, his voice dripping with frost. “I don’t care how embarrassed you are by how last night ended for you. You will not retaliate. You will not contact her—not even to apologize. I don’t want you talking to her. She won’t want you talking to her. She doesn’t exist for you. Understand me?”
Ashlynn’s eyes narrowed to slits, and her upper lip curled back. “If she matters so much to you, why haven’t you let her past those walls of yours? Huh? Tell me that.”
His cat bristled, and Tate straightened in his seat. “I let you return to our pride, but I can just as easily throw you back out. I don’t owe you any explanations for anything. Very few people have earned the right to question my choices—you’re not one of them. All you are to me is a member of my pride. But the behavior you displayed last night makes me wonder if you truly consider yourself one of us.”
She frowned. “Of course I consider myself a member.”
“Really? What you did wasn’t fair or loyal to your pride mates. You let them down. You let yourself down. You sparked conflict and violence in the place we go to wind down; a place we hold celebrations and so is, therefore, special to many. You didn’t care that your behavior could taint that. You cheapened yourself in their eyes and mine.
“Maybe being alone for three years made you forget how being part of a pride works. We support each other. Protect each other. Respect each other. We work together as a community of sorts. If you don’t feel that you can do that, you are free to leave.”
“You wouldn’t care if I left?” she asked, her voice small. “You wouldn’t care if I was alone again?”
“Not in the way you want me to. I don’t say that to be cruel. I say it because you’re not hearing me when I say I don’t want you. Nothing you could say or do would change that. Nothing. Forget about pointlessly trying to win me back. Concentrate on being a productive member of the pride. The alternative? You leave. If you need time to think about what you want, take it. In the meantime, keep your head down if you know what’s good for you. Now get the fuck out of here, and do not bother Havana Ramos again in any way, shape, or form.”
Ashlynn’s eyes sparkled like chips of broken glass. “Yes, Alpha,” she said through gritted teeth.
Tate sharply tipped his chin toward the door.
She pushed to her feet and stalked out of the room with her head held high. Moments later, he heard the front door slam shut.
Farrell took a seat at the table. “That girl has some nerve. I think you got through to her, though. She heard you loud and clear when you said you’re not interested in rekindling your relationship with her.”
“Agreed,” said Luke. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if she later managed to convince herself that you only said these things in anger. She always seemed so confident that she could change your mind, though I have no clue why.”
Tate sighed. “It was always her biggest weakness.”
“What?” asked Luke.
“She gets tunnel vision when she wants something—doesn’t see anything but the end goal, so she doesn’t properly see the other aspects of the situation.” It was no doubt why she’d tried pursuing a grieving Koby. “She doesn’t acknowledge the hurdles, which means she never manages to overcome them and just doesn’t know when to stop.”