Page 57 of Forced By the Alpha

Beth sat up, closing her book. “Who was it?”

Devon relayed the description Caleb had given him, leaving out his own suspicion of who it might be to see if Beth came to the same conclusion without his influence. Her face paled.

“That’s Adria.” She gazed downward at the bedspread, tracing the stitches dotting the quilt. “What was she doing on White Winter land? In a White Winter bar? She’s looking for me, isn’t she? Oh God, Devon, it’s so dangerous. If one of the pack catches her there, they’ll kill her!”

Her voice cracked with despair. Devon put his hands on her shoulders.

“I doubt she’ll be back in. She’s smart, your friend, right? She’ll know it was risky to do once, but twice is foolish. Maybe she was looking for you, but why? Why not respond to our letters? There’s been nothing.”

Beth thought for a moment, worrying at her lip until it was red. “Maybe Spencer is against it. Maybe he’s decided they won’t respond, and now Adria can’t without going against him. She might be trying to meet me without Spencer knowing.”

Devon wondered if she was on to something. He tried to put himself in Spencer’s shoes. Would he risk his mate, his child, on a truce with a violent and untrustworthy pack? Never. But he could imagine Beth wanting to give them a chance. After all, that’s exactly what she’d done.

He blew out a breath. “I could see that, but why not just leave her own message in the spot I’d told them to? If she can sneak out to White Winter territory, she could just as easily respond to our letter.”

Beth kneaded the quilt, clenching and unclenching her fingers around a handful of fabric. “That leaves evidence behind. I have to find a way to get to her, Dev, before she does something risky again.”

Devon wanted to give Beth everything. It pained him to say no to her, and he didn’t want her to feel like he was taking her choice away, but the risk was too great. He couldn’t stand the thought of her out there, vulnerable, where some harm might befall her.

“We can’t take that chance, darling,” he said, taking her hand in his. She looked up at him, doe eyes round with concern. “We did what we could by reaching out to the Rosewoods. Waiting is torture, I know it is, but you have to trust Adria. She knows what she’s doing. Maybe a response will come soon.”

Beth’s fingers were cold in his grip. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, magnifying her freckles, clinging to her jaw before dropping onto the quilt. He brushed them away and kissed her.

“There must be more I can do. Why would she chance it? She must know that she’d be spotted. That someone would tell the pack. But why?”

Devon had been wondering the same. “It could just be that she wants you to know she’s trying, so you don’t give up hope. You said she would know the letter was written by you, that she would know we hadn’t written it after murdering you or something, so I think we just need to have faith.”

It was easier said than done, he knew that. He had found it nearly impossible to hold on to hope that things would work out with his pack, with Beth, with Emma, but he’d held on with Beth’s help, and now it was his turn to do the same for her. Together, they would see this through. She just had to lean on him.

Beth lay back on the quilt, sprawling across the bed. He settled in beside her and tugged her close so she could nestle her head on his shoulder. It was his favorite way to hold her, the scent of her shampoo filling his nose and the heat of her against him, as if they had settled into a cocoon of only the two of them.

“I'll give it one more week,” she said, clinging to him. “Then we’ll have to do something. I don’t know what yet, but something.”

He tightened his grip on her, wanting her to know that he was there, and always would be. That was the trouble with loving someone. Their pain became your own, and the need to help them could overcome all reason. He would do anything for her, even if it put the pack at risk.

“One week,” he agreed, hoping it didn’t come to that. Silently, he begged the Rosewoods for a response to the letter, something that would come before the week was through.

She settled back down against him. “I realized something,” she said, as a chorus of birds swept by the open window, “that day you told me I could go, if I needed to.”

Devon’s heart thudded faster. He didn’t dare breathe, lest he spoil the moment.

She went on, and if she could tell his heart was near to bursting, there was no hint of it in her honey-thick voice. “I realized then that I loved you, I was just too afraid to say it, even after you did it first. But I’m not afraid anymore, Devon. I love you.”

He couldn’t find the words to respond, but she didn’t ask him to. She climbed her way up his body and straddled him, kissing his chest, his neck, and finally his lips. Above him, hair hanging down in a curtain, she looked a goddess.

His hands did what his mouth could not, moving up her stomach to the swell of her breast. Cupping it, teasing the nipple until she threw her head back, grinding herself into his lap. He worshipped her, his goddess, with tongue and fingers and, finally, when she was wet and dripping down her thighs, with his cock.

Sated, they lay in a sweaty tangle of limbs.

“I’ll have to say it more often, if that’s the response I get,” she laughed into his shoulder.

“Careful, darling. I’m not too old to rise to the occasion.”

“I love you, my old man,” she dared.

He rolled her over and showed her that he was a man of his word.

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