Page 14 of The Alpha's Arranged Bride

He shoved the plate away, nearly turning the mug onto its side. The coffee splashed, but the mug didn’t tip over. The urge to rest his head there on that dark wood surface was so great he nearly gave in.

“You’re tired. You’re in pain in every possible way. You were attacked last night by your own pack, betrayed by your own beta. You’ve sweated and bled and given everything for people who seem ungrateful, who can’t share in your vision. I know it’s hard, but I also can see how much you love your pack. Being alpha isn’t about power for you or you would have taken what you wanted by force by now. You would have continued the warring.”

She crawled towards him. Fucking crawled. It wasn’t the way he would have liked to see a woman like her do it, but it still stirred something primal in his gut and made his already hard cock throb violently.

“Agnar.” One small palm pressed down on his knee. Wet, night sky eyes stared up at him, the fires of those distant specks shining bright against the backdrop of her diamond tears. “You can do whatever you think is best. Send us back to my pack and I will ensure your sons are loved and that they thrive there and that they’ll always know what you sacrificed for them. Come visit them. Show them that you love them more than anything. You’ll always be welcome. Or let us stay. Renew your faith your pack when you’ve had some time to heal and rest and let the disappointments and betrayals fade from your mind and heart. Your body is battered, but so is your spirit. Just take a few days to decide. I am your true mate, even if we don’t love each other yet, and I can’t bear to see you hurting like this.”

He tried to be mocking, but it came out all wrong. Strained. Near breaking. “You can’t bear it?”

“We’re connected. Through our own choices or something bigger than ourselves, or both. So, yes. I can’t bear to see you in pain.”

“You’re wrong. I’m not hurting. There is nothing that can break a warrior, but a man’s greatest asset isn’t his strength. It’s his brain. A good alpha knows when to make tough choices, and last night has proven to me how dangerous it is here, despite my best efforts. My sons will not be collateral damage. That’s my decision. I don’t feel anything else. I can’t. I told you that I will never love you and I meant it. You might have saved my life, but that will never make me care for you past the promise I made to keep you alive. Get off your knees. You’re making yourself pathetic, and that’s something I can’t stand.”

He had to resort to cold cruelty. That hardness was the only thing that had kept him going and kept him alive in the past. There was no room in his life for sentimentality or tenderness. He’d learned that long ago, and he had to stand by what worked. The tear in his chest only confused and tangled him up, and he needed to be clear headed.

She scrambled up sharply, but she surged forward, and for once, he was caught off guard. He was too slow after the night of tortures and a morning that made him sick at heart, a morning that nearly brought him to his knees despite any of his avowals to be hard and strong and unmovable. He was shaken, that was the straight up fucking truth.

Prairie Rose grasped his shoulders, digging her nails into his bare skin, pressing down on the bite marks and claws marks and injuries there. He didn’t make a sound, just weathered her fury. She wasn’t finished. She came at him like a tempest breaking over him, and she was one hell of a storm, her own fury half unleashed.

Her soft, honey dipped, rose petal lips crushed against his with a violence he was unprepared to find in so small a woman. She bit down hard, drawing blood like any wolf in a rage. Her tongue didn’t ease the sting away. She didn’t have time, had it been her intention. He collared her and shoved her back, holding her practically against the table, his thick fingers pressing against the pale column of her throat. The woman turned her neck up and closed her eyes, offering her throat to him.

His fingers never closed in, never so much as cut off her breath. He’d never hurt anyone who wasn’t an enemy, in the heat of battle, and he certainly wouldn’t hurt someone weaker and smaller, any female, any child, even any male from his pack who hadn’t challenged him. He’d never harmed anyone in training. Ever. He’d end himself if he ever harmed his own mate.

A dribble of bright red glistened on her bottom lip. His blood.

His body roareddespite the pain, the injuries, the exhaustion.

He let her go and she stepped back with dignity. She didn’t lick the blood away. She left it there, glaring at him like a slap that turned the rest of his blood into a molten current in his veins. Only sheer control kept him from panting. From grasping her. From setting her down on that table and tearing her dress off and burying his tongue and fingers and cock inside her sweet, tight cunt as she begged and begged and begged him to do it.

“Let me know your decision tomorrow morning,” she had the nerve to whisper before she walked out of the kitchen. Her head was bent over, hands clasped in front of her waist, but it might as well have been held as high and regal as any queen’s.

Chapter 7

Prairie Rose

So far, things were not going well.

The endless thoughts that kept cycling through her brain, begging her to analyze every single moment since she’d arrived in Arizona and all the events leading up to her mating and new life, kept her awake. Either Agnar was so exhausted that his body had finally given in to the rest he so desperately needed, or he could lay his troubles down and find oblivion quite easily. If it was the latter, he had far more practice than she did.

She hadn’t meant to bite him earlier, and certainly not hard enough to draw blood. She was painting the wrong image of herself. He probably thought she was the most sex-starved woman he’d ever met, with a fetish for blood like a vampire.

Her cheeks burned in the dark. She stared at the wall, rolled as far as she could to the one side of the queen bed. Given her mate’s size, it didn’t leave much room between them. She listened to his deep breathing as she blinked into the dark. There were innumerable reasons why she couldn’t sleep, but none of them were the reason. She couldn’t just go to sleepwith Agnar’s intoxicating scent of mint and leather, sweat and herbs and potent male tugging at something primal inside her, every single time she drew a breath.

The room was unfamiliar, but she slipped out of bed anyway. She had so much to learn about how an Earthship even worked. She knew that it took energy from the sun and ran on solar power, and also that it recycled rainwater. The boys said they drank from the well, but the toilets flushed on water that came off the roof. Also, that same water was channeled and used for the massive indoor garden that ran along the back of the house. She’d never seen so many plants indoors. She liked how the walls were often curved, how it looked like a whitewashed cave.

She’d noticed the bar on the front door. As she walked silently along the cool floor to the bank of windows that faced out to the open desert that looked entirely black at the moment, she figured that the glass had to be made of something stronger than regular windows. Probably bulletproof.

There was zero moonlight coming in and she could make out no stars at all. She’d spent the rest of the day inside. After Agnar briefed them, he’d gone back out, leaving her with the boys. She wasn’t going to tell them anything and betray Agnar’s trust, so instead she’d insisted that they show her the house and explain everything to her. They knew so much about how every system worked. They could name all the plants inside, all the herbs, and tell her what they were used for, both in cooking or medicine.

They weren’t like any other kids she’d ever met.

She’d spent no time at all seeing her actual home. She was astounded at how dark it was past the windows. Were there no other homes behind them? Were they all in front? She wished she could have spent even just a few minutes getting her bearings.

What does it matter? You might be gone soon enough.

The Earthship wasn’t an up and down deal. It sprawled lengthwise across the desert. Their room was on one end and the boys’ rooms were down the hall on the other. The kitchen and living room were situated right in the middle.

She wasn’t sure how anything was supposed to go. After cleaning up dinner, the boys spread out a chessboard. They’d played with each other until she begged them to teach her as well, which they did with as much skill and patience as they’d explained everything to her all day long. They seemed to know their own bedtimes. Their father never had to come out and tell them to wash up and brush their teeth. They said goodnight to her at eight and took themselves off down the hall.

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