Page 32 of The Alpha's Arranged Bride

She nearly dropped the plate in the bedroom when she turned the lamp back on and he sat up, his hair and beard even more disheveled, but deliciously.

She’d brought a plate of meat and cheese, pickles and olives, and two buns from the batch her mom gave her that morning, baked fresh. She set the plate down on the bed and sat on the edge. She watched Agnar’s eyes devour the food with more life than he’d shown for anything in a long time, but he compiled a sandwich with agonizing slowness.

There was something wrong with her for sure because she felt tingles all over her body watching him stick an olive in his mouth and chew. It was a good thing he didn’t make any noise as he ate, not a single growl of pleasure, or she would have combusted on the spot.

“Can I tell you about the boys’ school?”

Agnar stopped chewing. He stared hard at the plate, but then he nodded.

Prairie Rose slowly unclenched her fingers where her nails had bit crescents into her palm. “It’s just a big log cabin with an obstacle course behind it, and they have a huge field with trees in the distance. It’s at the heart of the pack lands. You would never know it was there if you were an outsider.”

“I was thinking about what they asked. About the training.”

She found his eyes on her when her head jerked up. “They know you love them, and they know you need time. We had a discussion about that this morning, and no one had hurt feelings. They were confused, but they’re not like regular kids. They know more about the world than some adults. They understand how pain and death change a person.”

He looked pained, but he finished eating. She let him have that quiet and was relieved when he finished everything. “I didn’t know they knew.” He turned and set the plate on the nightstand on his side. “About their mother, what she told them.” He turned back around to give her the honor of looking her in the eye. She saw how anguished he was. “Fuck, this isn’t a conversation I should be having with you.”

“I’m not offended. You were mated before. That doesn’t change how I feel.”

Fuck. Why had she just said that? She hadn’t meant for anything like that to slip out. They weren’t supposed to talk about feelings. He’d promised her there’d be none on his end and she’d promised him everything on hers but bringing it up now felt like breaking some kind of truce.

“It was arranged. Many matches in my pack are—were.” She thought he was going to let it go, but of course he wasn’t and of course he asked her with an expressionless dead face. “What… do you feel?”

The urge to lie and protect herself was sharp. Survival instinct was base and strong, and she ignored it with difficulty. He needed to hear this. So what if she was humiliated in the process? He was barely holding on. If he let go, she’d drag him back even if her nails pierced right through him as she struggled to keep him from falling into that abyss. “That this is right. That you’re mine. That I’m yours. That we were picked out for each other when we needed each other most. That Levi and Blake are part of my family now and I would do anything to protect them.”

For the first time ever, she saw how his eyes could come alive. They weren’t just gray. There were glowing flecks in them, a pale light blue that rippled around his pupils. “That’s your art. Like historians have their books or a playwright has his actors, painters have their canvas, this is what you excel at.”

“What?” Her breathing was wrong. Her heart was two steps away from tripping over itself and going summersaulting to the floor. She didn’t understand what he was talking about, but the way he looked at her, his jaw tight and nostrils slightly flared in intensity.

“Caring. The way you love people. I saw it this morning when I stepped out and watched you and the boys looking at that sunrise. They’re not yours, you’ve only known them a few weeks. Yet, I know you’d truly die for them. You’d do anything to make them happy. Fuck, you’d do anything to make me happy, and that’s an impossible fucking task. You’re stubborn. You won’t stop trying. Your goodness is your art. This is where you thrive. Where most others would fail and fail willingly. Where most have no idea where to even start.” His jaw ticked, he clenched it so hard. “Just give me two weeks.”

“Two weeks?”

“Two weeks and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

She ached so fiercely she nearly cried out. “There’s no time limit. You can take as long as you need.”

He studied her like it was his punishment to do so. Like she’d turn him to stone. Instead of looking away, he gave her all that naked emotion, everything he’d sworn he wasn’t capable of feeling. Everything he should have cut out. He gave her his soul in that instant. It was too much. She put her hand on his shoulder and curled her fingers over hot skin, muscle, scars.

He dropped his head, his chin tucked tight to his chest. “I was never afraid of the outside world, but now truly I know that humans are not the greatest evil or threat out there. Why would they want to wipe out the other when we’re perfectly capable of doing that job to ourselves? That night, we walked, and we hid. Some of the children were so traumatized they couldn’t shift. Some of us, too injured. We walked through our land and enemy land and then I had to go to a motel in the middle of nowhere while the others hid, shower and clean up. I had no cash or ID on me, but it was easy enough to get into the city while they stayed locked in that motel room. I remembered all my credit card numbers and promised the cab driver a big tip if he would wait for me at the bank. I told the clerk I’d been attacked, and they’d stolen my wallet and everything on me, Given my appearance at the time, it was a plausible story. They gave me a new card after verifying me through their endless identity questions and I was able to withdraw enough cash to get two rentals to get us here. If Alexander had wanted us dead, we would have been. No, he wanted us alive, to live with the memory of this day for the rest of our lives. It wasn’t a warning. It was a punishment for having good intentions.”

“You need to hear it again.” She tilted his chin up, and this time, she couldn’t keep the tears locked inside. Not when he still looked so ruined. “The cruelty of others is not and will never be your fault. No one here hates you. No one. You can’t let this define you. You can’t let this be the only thing you are.”

He let out a ragged sigh. She remembered thinking his body was like a poem, even if his soul had no romance in it, but now he was more like a wordless lament torn from a shattered soul, sent straight up into the stars. “I want to be a good man for my sons. I want to be more than just the person who teaches them how to survive and how to kill, but do I know anything more than that?”

“Yes!” Prairie Rose exclaimed. His shoulders sagged slightly forward, like he needed that assurance so badly despite his avowal never to need anything at all. “You can and you will.” His hand came up and draped over hers. She felt the few fingers that refused to work properly. They stayed in the air, but his palm was large enough to cover hers anyway. “I think you need to sleep. How many weeks has it been since you allowed yourself any rest? I have herbs to help with that. Brooke Wind taught us all about that so we could grow and dry our own for healing when needed. I know you don’t want them and wouldn’t want anyone to know, but it’s just me here. You’re safe in this cabin. In this pack. Safe enough to rest for a few hours. I promise.”

She was sure he’d say no, but when he dipped his head like he’d been defeated, her chest almost collapsed.

She made the herbs for him in the kitchen, mixing them into hot water to make an infusion. She strained them out after. She found him still sitting up, his head bowed, unconsciously giving her the back of his neck. That’s where she put her hand. She draped her palm over that vulnerable space, thrusting her palm beneath his surprisingly soft hair. His neck was soft too, with little downy hairs because he didn’t just shave the sides, he must shave the back of his head beneath the long hair that usually fell to cover it.

She held him tightly there while she brought the cup to his lips. He let her stroke his neck a few times, let himself have that comfort, before he took the cup and drained it in one long pull. He thrust the cup back into her fingers and then he reached up behind his neck. She thought he’d throw her hand off, but he pressed down hard on it instead. His body shook while he breathed in and out.

He kept breathing and she stayed there, her whole body tensed, until she felt the way his body started to slacken as the herbs worked.

Brooke Wind didn’t mess around with what she gave them or what she’d shown them. They relied on the power of plants for healing most times, as far as that would take them before they needed the supplies she somehow procured from hospitals or some doctor who sold them black market style. Maybe she had an actual card to get her into some doctors only store where she bought it or ordered it. Prairie Rose had no idea and she’d never even thought to ask Brooke or Zora.

Agnar said nothing as he repositioned himself, shifting back down to the pillows. She moved away to let him get comfortable. She slipped in beside him, onto her side of a bed she’d never in her life shared. She turned off the lamp and waited.

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