Page 51 of Forced By the Alpha

He led the way back, the sounds of the storm feeding his anxiety. An entire pack of Rosewoods could surround him and wouldn’t notice until they were nearly on top of them. They’d drag Beth away, and this time, they’d never let her wander alone to where the White Winters could take her again. He’d never see his child.

Every snapped branch made him growl. Nothing else moved through the woods; no prey ventured out in the ferocious weather, and the eerie stillness grated on his nerves. He was on edge, desperate for something to lunge at or tear into.

Was it enough to keep Beth there? She’d asked about leaving, and the thought made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t even blame her for wanting to, not with the way she was treated by the pack. And he had his own guilt to shoulder. Kidnapping her, forcing her to be his mate. It sickened him now that he cared for her so deeply. Maybe even… but no, he couldn’t think the word. If he felt that way for her, his own guilt would undo him.

His fur stood on end. Devon skidded to a stop, pushing Beth to the ground just as he was blinded. A sound like gunshots peppered the air, and the tree in front of them lit up in red and orange, like a sword pulled from the fire.

Are you alright?His legs quaked, but his focus was all on Beth.

She gave a full-body shake.We should hurry home.

Practical as ever. He ran the rest of the way home on watery legs, pressing the limit of his speed and still she kept pace with him, never once dipping back. The open field surrounding the house gave him pause, and he hesitated on the forest’s edge. They would be the tallest thing out there, and the storm clouds overhead were black as soot.

We have no choice but to chance it,Beth said, breaking from the cover of trees for the field, knowing he would follow her. He did, face spattered with the mud she kicked up. Though the rain beat on their backs, it was the least of his worries, and he kept one eye up at the sky as if he could anticipate the lightning strike and, even if so, do anything to avert it.

Then they were under the house’s eaves, sides heaving with exhaustion, both wide-eyed and thrumming with energy, with the ecstasy of surviving. They took the stairs in wolf form, pushing the door open and running inside, their shaggy coats spraying water across the hardwood.

Jonah looked up from his book. “Are you going to shift, or should I get towels? God, you guys are filthy. Why did you go out on a day like today? I saw lightning strike a tree just past the edge.”

He sounded so like an exasperated parent, seeing their children come inside all covered with mud, that Devon barked a laugh. The adrenaline draining from his body left him feeling strung out, buzzing but exhausted. Beth seemed to feel the same. She rolled onto her back and shimmied on the floor, smearing it with mud and wet.

“Alright, both of you, out of here,” Jonah said, hands on his hips. “If you’re going to make a mess at least do it in your own rooms.”

Again, they took off, this time down the hall, crashing into Devon’s door. Inside, they finally shifted. Hair stuck to their faces, clothes sucked to their skin. Beth peeled hers off, then Devon’s, and they warmed each other in the shower until their fingers resembled raisins, and Beth’s head began to spin.

He wrapped her in towels and left her at the edge of the bed to get them cups of coffee, something to warm their insides, as well as the shower had warmed their outsides. She was dressed when he returned. Seeing her in his clothes, drowning in them, made his heartbeat quicken.

“How do you feel? Are you warm enough?” He handed her one of the cups, decaf for her, then turned on the fireplace in the bedroom. It flickered to life with a soft whoosh.

Beth clutched the mug with both hands and blew on the surface, sending the steam swirling away. “Tired, exhilarated,” she said, slowly, “maybe a little… sad? I wish you had told me about your brother. I wish I hadn’t heard it from Emma. It feels like yet another thing you kept from me, another thing you couldn’t trust me with.”

He spilled into the tufted armchair beside the fire, the tight leather creaking. He drank his coffee, wincing at the burning liquid on his tongue, but he needed it to calm his crackling nerves. “I’ve made a mess of things.”

What else could he say? She was right. He should have told her, and there was no going back to do it properly now, no reason for her to forgive him yet again. But he prayed that she would.

The storm continued to rage outside the window, lashing against the glass as if trying to get in. Thunder shook the panes. He wanted her to come to him, to curl up on his lap and tell him that all was forgiven, aching at the space between them.

“You have, but you were given a mess to start with. I think you’ve done your best with what you had.”

But it wasn’t enough. Devon finished her sentence for her, silently. The implication hung in the air. Was he the only one to see it there? She kept her eyes on her coffee. Devon wanted to cross the room on his knees and beg for her, but there was something else he needed to do.

“Beth,” he said. She looked up at the sound of her name or the strangled way in which he’d said it. His words came out in a rush, as if he hesitated, he’d never manage to get them out. “I will help you leave, if that’s what you want. I’ll fund the entire thing, and you won’t have to tell me where you go. I just want you to be safe. Happy. Even if it’s not with me.”

Her mouth, those perfect, kissable lips, parted in surprise. She rubbed circles on the side of the mug with her thumb. “And our child?”

Devon’s chest felt carved out, hollow. He forced himself to say the words, his mouth dry. “I know they’ll be safe with you. You’ll be an amazing mother, Beth. I can picture it so clearly.”

The fire did nothing to warm him in that moment. His blood felt like ice water, and he found that he couldn’t look away from Beth, that he hung on her lips like a man awaiting the drop of the gallows.

“Why would you let me go now? After everything you went through to get me here. After everything you put me through! Now you’d just let me go?” She was angry, or hurt, her knuckles white where she clutched her coffee.

“Because I love you.”

“Oh.” Her response was quiet, barely audible over the crackle of the fire beside him.

He barreled on, drowning the sting of her response in a deluge of words. “Please, I only ask that you don’t use what you know of us now against us. Don’t tell the Rosewoods that we’re eating ourselves alive, how few of us there are, how delicate this entire thing is. I could never forgive myself if my weakness spelled the end of the White Winters, even if it served me right.”

He wished he hadn’t emptied his coffee. The caffeine mixed with the fear pulsing through him, until he felt his heart would pound its way out of his chest. Unable to look at her, he watched the raindrops on the window. Antithetical to his feelings, the storm had begun to mellow.

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