Page 24 of Forced By the Alpha

Emma laughed over the rim of her cup. “With all that adrenaline? Not a chance. Sorry you missed out. We could’ve used you out there.”

She was flirting with him, leaning close and letting the strap of her cami slip off her shoulder. Caleb cleared his throat.

“Adrenaline?” Beth asked, cutting in. She avoided talking to Emma whenever she could, and their fight yesterday had only doubled that desire, but clearly, something had happened last night.

Like a cat finding a three-legged mouse, Emma turned to Beth with a smirk. “Oh, yeah, didn’t they tell you? We ran into the Rosewoods last night. Gave them a real thrashing. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of them didn’t make it through the night.”

Beth dropped her mug. It shattered on the counter, sending porcelain and coffee flying. Caleb leaped to his feet, swearing.

“Seriously, Em?” Jonah scowled, yanking a towel off the oven and tossing it to Caleb.

Emma lifted one delicate shoulder, not bothering to hide her pleased smile. “What? She’s one of us now, remember? Ourluna. She should know what goes on, don’t you think?”

“Sure, but how about some tact?”

The two of them descended into bickering. Beth felt a rush in her ears. She backed away from them, skin tingling, and ran out of the kitchen before they could stop her. Someone called her name, Jonah, she thought, but she ignored him and took the stairs two at a time. She wasn’t heading for the outdoors.

She kicked open the door to Devon’s bedroom. He was asleep, but jolted awake at her entrance, sitting up in bed. The blankets fell to his waist, revealing that he slept, at least on the top half, nude. His chest was shadowed with muscle. Her eyes trailed down the dark line at the center of his stomach until they reached the blankets, and her mouth went dry.

“I prefer a gentler wake-up, most days,” he said, gruff with sleep. He rubbed his eyes and peered at the window as if gauging the time, then stretched his arms up overhead.

She tried not to watch as the blankets dropped a little lower, but her body heated just the same.

“Did you attack the Rosewoods last night?” She reached for the anger that had driven her up to his rooms and found it, just beneath the desire that woken at the sight of him.

He groaned and threw the covers off. Beth clenched her fingernails into her palms as the question was answered—he slept entirely nude. She wasn’t surprised at his lack of shame, his unhurried movements as he pulled a pair of sweatpants from his drawers on over his naked body. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until he turned toward her again and caught her looking.

His sweatpants, a light grey, left nothing to the imagination. She could see the shape of his cock beneath them and found it only slightly less distracting than the sight of it a moment ago. One of his eyebrows lifted with the corner of his mouth. He was smirking at her.Smirking. She could have smacked him. But that would have involved touching him, so she stayed across the room and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Did you?” She asked again, wondering if he was going to put a shirt on now.

It seemed the answer was no. He sat down on the edge of the bed, shirtless, sleepy eyes looking up at her.

“I didn’t attack them, no.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw.

“Emma said you did.”

“And you’re still believing anything she says? You’re smarter than that, Beth. We didn’t attack them. We found them on our territory, and they attacked us. We fought, yes, but it was out of defense.”

Beth mulled over his words. She found it hard to believe that the Rosewoods had been the aggressors, but then, if they’d been looking for her, they might have been in the White Winter territory, and they might have attacked first, knowing they’d need any advantage of the vicious pack. Still, the White Winter territory had, until recently, been part of the Rosewood territory. They’d stolen it, like they’d stolen her.

“Was anyone—“ she choked on the words and tried again. “Was anyone killed?”

He frowned. “No, did she say someone was? We backed off, we let them go. There were some injuries but nothing that looked fatal.”

She wanted to believe him. He looked sincere, his hands open on his legs, his gaze serious.

“They just want me back,” she said. “If you let me go, they’ll leave you alone, they won’t enter the White Winter territory again.”

“I can’t do that. You’re our Luna now, and the northwest territory will belong to the White Winters before the new year.”

Beth gasped. “The entire northwest territory? Where will the Rosewoods go?”

He dropped his gaze to the floor. She watched a muscle work in the side of his jaw. “Away. I don’t care where. I just need them gone. We need space to grow, and they’re in it. We don’t need to kill them. We just need them to leave.”

“And if they won’t leave, you’ll kill them?” Beth said, horrified. She hadn’t realized the extent of his plans. He didn’t just want to carve out a space for the White Winters. He wanted to expand, to take over, to dominate.

She’d been starting to think he was more than that, more than his reputation. The realization smacked her in the face. The White Winter pack wasn’t just a small band of rogues, directionless, taking whatever they wanted when they saw it. Maybe they had been before, but she could see now that they were on the cusp of something.

---