Horizon Ridge say yes, say yes

Akhlut was coming to sense that some of Jinx's criticism and indeed her own narrative of her time at Shearwater Bay might bear some truth and resemblance to his own situation at Horizon Ridge. The feeling that perhaps she was, in some part, right settled in his stomach like river rocks, and it made him feel sick and cold all over in a way that had naught to do with the chill of the late winter's morning. For the briefest moment his facial features faltered from their angry resolve and for a flicker of a second, the time it took to blink, his mask dropped to reveal his uncertainty and insecurity and regret, even, that it had come to this. Perhaps it truly was he who was splintering the pack, little by little. In the next instant, his features rearranged themselves to a semblance of solemn determination, however, as he fortified and cemented his resolve in his mind.

"I am not blind to the passion that fuels your words. I see that you sincerely want to see the Ridge safe and sound under the care of a capable leader." The words were earnest, but still given somewhat grudgingly; Akhlut tried to keep bitterness from flooding his words. He hated the way that this had all played out, and the wedge it had driven between himself and Jinx, who was still, as she reminded him, one of the first to claim allegiance to him. Yet where had that faith gone when his inexperience made him falter? He could not forget that her response had been an ill-chosen challenge instead of something more amiable, like an offer to lead alongside him. "The difference in opinion, then, is that I know that I can continue to strengthen myself as Alpha, and correct my mistakes, while you feel that I should step down and defer to the greater experience of another." Jinx, his mind supplied helpfully, for it mattered that it was Jinx who wanted to lead, to show him how it was done. Another, he might accept, but her? He never could, for reasons even he knew were ill-defined but nevertheless staunch ones. "I will take your words to heart, though you may not believe it of me," Akhlut said, his tone low and a bit unsteady, for he felt that the tension of the moment had not yet passed and the wrong words might set her anger ablaze again, instead of the cold distance that she had adopted.

"You think that I will falter and fail, and you'll be there to say 'I told you so.' I say that I will change and grow, and become the stronger leader you do not think I can be. When you realize that I have succeeded and that I am worth following, then we may speak of this again." Now he couldn't even bring himself to cast her out as ruthlessly as he had once intended. The Alpha swallowed hard to quell his own uncertainties, and said quietly, "I will not forbid you to stay, Jinx, but if you cannot tolerate my leadership, maybe it would be best for you to go. You will have a place to return to, if you desire it, when the wounds we've inflicted upon each other this morning have healed with time and the changes it brings on both of us."

It was the only thing he could offer, for in his heart he hated to cast out a woman who might have been his sister in affection if things had gone differently, and he knew that it was in large part his own fault that things had gone all to hell. All he could say was that when the passage of days months years had blurred their recollections of this morning well enough that the sting had gone out of the accusations flung from both sides, that he, at least, would be willing to give her a home once more. The dark alpha turned his head to look out over the sea, then realized his own avoidance and turned again to look at Jinx, to see the effect his words had on her, and to try and discern her true emotions in the matter.