Page 12 of The Alpha's Forced Bride

Even shooting him another glare didn't make him stop. I probably should have said something. But I shouldn't have to say anything to get him to stop talking about my new mate.

Clancy kicked back and rested his arms behind his head, reclining as much as he could with that hunch in his shoulder and upper back.

“Would you cut it out?” I snapped at him. “Leave my meat alone.”

The way he looked at me was like I was a dog with a special bone that everybody wanted. But in many ways, that’s how I felt. Why wouldn't everyone else want what I had? If our records were correct, if the witch's journal was to be believed, then I was on the precipice of relieving myself of a curse that I’d been suffering from for ten years—that was certainly an enviable position to be in.

They all want what you have, my demon whispered. I tried to push away the sound of his voice in my mind, which felt like a fly buzzing around my ear. Clancy wants it the most.

I breathed deeply as I stared at my best friend. “Will you call Nora and tell her to come over?”

He nodded absently while reaching for his cup again.

Only five women, including Nora, were left in the group. They were older, and some of them were already mated or past their prime for reproduction. Shifter women who were possessed tended to suffer greater consequences, leading to more intense madness. It was crucial that we protected the woman downstairs who I had claimed as my mate. We had to protect her from suffering like the others. Her possession could lead to a greater downfall for our pack. If she really was my true mate and she got lost to a demon, then I would be cursed forever. I would never be relieved of my demon, and I would be forced to take one of two ways out, both of which were not exactly appealing to me right now.

So, I would do exactly what I needed to do, even if it didn’t seem moral on the surface. I would go downstairs to the basement and face her again because I needed to—because I had to talk to her, and because she looked a little lonely behind the bars of her little cage, kind of like an idle puppy who needed to walk outside frequently. My feet carried me without me having to think about it. I stood there with my attention completely focused on her.

“Tell me your name,” I demanded.

I went quiet for a second, watching her watch me, studying the way her black hair spilled over her shoulders. She was playing with it, twirling it between her fingers, folding it into a braided pattern, and then undoing it. Those strands were so much like silk, like a black sea that I could get lost in. The scent of her drifted toward me, that azalea soaked in sweet water. I wanted to taste its saltiness on my tongue. I knew of it from the sea, from previous lovers, from making love on the sand. I wondered whether or not that was something she had done.

And then I realized that her lips were parting. “Kiara.”

I blinked for a second as I took in her name: Kiara.

She told me her name, which was surprising considering the conditions of her captivity. She looked down for a second at her cot and folded her hair together again. She popped her head up. “Can I call my dad?”

I stepped toward the bars. “Why would you want to do that? You're old enough to be on your own, aren't you?”

She gave me a slight nod and then moved her eyes around the room. “You know, family worries about each other. You know that, right?”

I considered her statement for a second and then glanced toward the ceiling, where Clancy was undoubtedly continuing to lounge with his feet on my coffee table without a care for whether or not they were going to scratch the wood. “Yeah, I guess I understand that in some way.

“You guess or, you know?”

When I looked at her, I was met with an intense stare. That feistiness behind her blue-green eyes made me think of furtive ocean waves, feverish cycles, and a dangerous riptide threatening to drown me. I liked how she fought me just a little bit—not too much, but just enough. I enjoyed her snappy responses. It meant that she had a strength in her that would protect her if I wasn't around.

I smiled. “I think I know.”

She narrowed her eyes at me curiously before tossing her legs over the side of the cot and gracefully slinging her hair over her shoulder. “Well, you don’t sound very convincing.”

I gave her half a shrug. “I suppose I don't know then, because I don't have parents.”

The way her expression changed to one of concern almost confused me for a second. She was remarkably sympathetic for a woman who was in a cage.

She frowned apologetically. “That sounds kind of sad.”

Something happened to my heart then, a sort of twitch. A weird strum of strings inside that told me there was true compassion in the world. My demon usually made me forget that; it usually made me forget a lot of things. Typically, the way the demon made my thoughts twirl around made me forget that I existed half the time. Yet, when I stood here in front of Kiara, I felt like the demon was quiet.

Not entirely quiet, though—just enough that I could focus on something other than it for once. He was pushed so far to the background that if I wanted to, I could try and possibly succeed f at totally forgetting about his presence for the moment. I took a step toward the bars, and then another until my hands were layered with the crosshatch mesh cage door.

This movement seemed to invite her to do something similar, and she stood up, walked across the small space, and planted her feet firmly in front of me. Her bare feet were dirty, and the clothes she wore were torn from running through the woods. She was wearing a pair of loose jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt with some kind of logo on it. I had been so isolated from the rest of the world that I didn’t know whether it was a brand name or not.

I frowned at the threads she was wearing. “Did nobody bring you any change of clothes?”

She looked at me funny. “I don't know. Does it look like I got a change of clothes?”

“It isn't wise to be rude to your future husband.”

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