Page 47 of The Alpha's Arranged Bride

Agnar

Even before he saw the bewilderment on the face of the poor guard who had been at the gate and received the courier and signed for the package, Agnar’s pulse accelerated. It was unusual to have someone knock on their cabin door first thing in the morning who wasn’t Castor, Briar May, or Prairie Rose’s parents.

It was a week since he’d gone to Casper and had his new braces made, but he hadn’t quite made an effort to reach out. He still hadn’t walked the boys to school or collected them at the end of the day, but he was always waiting for Prairie Rose the minute she stepped back into the cabin in the morning. They were quiet at night, usually because he slapped his hand over Prairie Rose’s mouth or balled up her underwear and stuffed them between her teeth to muffle the sounds, but during the day they didn’t have to worry about the boys overhearing them.

He didn’t know calm or gentle, He loved like a stormy sea and Prairie Rose was the shore.

It was a week of bliss, even by his standards. He’d never known there could be such joyto be found in another person’s pleasure. He’d coaxed Prairie Rose into orgasms pretty much every way possible. In return, she’d caused him to lose control more times than he’d like to admit to and had taught him gentleness in return.

He didn’t want to receive the box, but he didn’t have a choice. He took it and the guard went back to his shift at the gate, leaving Agnar standing there. His pulse kept climbing just holding the damn thing. It was clean and white. Too clean. Too pristine. Too white. There was no smell, but Rome would have been careful about that. He would have packaged whatever was in there, whatever body parts he’d chosen to send as proof the job had been done, in scent trapping packaging. If that shit was good enough to fool drug sniffing dogs, it was good enough to get past the Nightfall guards and delivered straight into his hands.

Agnar Phaethon and Prairie Rose Nightfall.

The fucking bastard put both their names on the box.

He tried to escape from the cabin, get that box the hell away from Prairie Rose before she could see it, but she was too fast. She was already there, sensing a disturbance in the air, a change in him. She’d come immediately. She placed a hand at his back, no doubt feeling the way he trembled. Not even her touch or her clean, fresh scent could still the horror he felt. It was like being thrust straight back to that day of smoke and darkness and carnage.

“Agnar? What is that?”

“Nothing,” he forced out, swallowing the acid climbing up the back of his throat. “Something for Kieran. They brought it to me by mistake.”

“No. Those are our names on it.” Her eyes flew to his face, and she paled after pointing at the box. It was stamped across the top and had a courier label on the side. It had actually been sent legit and not delivered via some shady messenger Rome found on the fucking dark web. “What is it? You know, don’t you?”

“I have an idea, and it’s not for you to see. It’s from your brother.”

She frowned. The way he was on edge clearly set her on edge. Her left eye twitched. “Which brother? Ugh, this is so like the twins. If this is some kind of sick joke, I’ll—”

“Rome.”

“Rome?” She stumbled back, but kept her hand anchored to him.

Her nails bit through his cotton t-shirt. Even in the fucked-up moment, those little crescent shapes indented in his flesh made his dick absurdly hard in his fatigues.

“What would Rome send us?”

“I need to get this to Kieran.”

“No!” She crossed her arms, stubborn as hell when she wanted to be. Far more stubborn than he could be, he was learning, but her digging in was for what she believed was the best. “You’re not taking anything there. You’re not leaving here until you answer me. What did you and Rome do? What did you make Rome do?’

“You know your brother, and you know that no one can make him do anything.”

Her throat worked convulsively as she blinked rapidly. “I want to see what’s in the box.” She didn’t, but she was trying to be brave. Trying to face the hard parts of her life at his side. He’d brought this to her. This and all the troubles. Her life must have been so simple before Castor. Before Pollux. Before Rome.

They couldn’t go back. They were all connected. They were all tied by strands to each other, to events beyond their control. How many more were yet to come? How many terrible and painful and how many joyous?

“If you don’t want me to see what’s in there, go into the other room and open it. I’ll wait. But you need to look before you bring this to Kieran. If Rome did this and it’s something that could hurt him or something someone else could hurt him for, then we need to protect him. He did this because of us, if not for us. Kieran might not need to know.”

“He’s alpha. We have an obligation to tell him.”

He privately thought he had an obligation to bury the box and spare anyone else more horror, but he knew she was right. He didn’t seriously think about getting rid of the evidence. What was left of the Phaethon Pack would need to know that Alexander was dead. They might not be able to go back, but that would bring some of them a small measure of comfort.

Or would it? He used to know everything about everyone in his pack. As alpha, they all came to him. He trained, he listened, he held meetings and councils. They celebrated together, shifted together, mourned together, went to war together, and most of them upheld peace together. He knew every single person from the newest baby to the oldest member.

He’d locked himself away in Wyoming. He hadn’t talked to a single person, Phaethon or Nightfall, unless they cornered him like Briar May had that morning.

He pulled a pocketknife out of his fatigues and slit the tape along the rim of the box. He’d seen so many grisly slights in his life, and was responsible for many himself, but the first glimpse of those pale, broken, bloodied hands in the layers of sealed plastic turned his stomach. He recognized Alexander’s gold ring with the flat top that he wore on his pinky like a fucking mobster. He snatched the piece of white paper out and rammed the lid back in place.

Bile burned up his throat as he fumbled with the folded page.

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