Page 64 of The Alpha's Forbidden Secret Baby

Chapter 19 - Rayla

Xander’s alpha eyes glowed as he left the house. He’d refrained from showing her the extent of his anger because he didn’t want to scare her or cause her any more guilt. He had seen her shame when she saw him and he knew she felt guilty about what she’d done.

Seeing her lying there in a barn with her hands and legs tied and struggling to put up a fight had been hard for him to take.

What was worse, seeing the villagers she’d known all of her life, gathered in the barn as they talked and laughed, plotting and scheming on ways to torture her until she relented and told them where Abel was so they could mete out even more torture on him had been even worse.

Xander had wanted so badly to rip their throats out so they could never speak again. He wanted to find everyone who had dealt a blow and rip their hands clean from the shoulders, and then rip the legs off of those who had kicked her so they would never be able to inflict pain on anyone ever again.

It was only because his friends had arrived on time to stop him that he had managed to calm himself long enough to go along with the actual plan that he’d set into motion.

Having Murdoch, the vampire, with him had been another reason why he’d managed to calm himself. Together, he and his friends had made quick work of the crowd. He was just about to grab Rayla before he realized that she wasn’t there with the rest.

He was plagued by panic as he wondered where she was and what they had done to her. Surely, he couldn’t have been too late. He would have felt it if they had killed her. She wasn’t connected to his wolf just yet, but he would have felt it in his heart anyway.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he remembered the feeling of his heart in his throat as he prayed for her to be okay.

Xander sped toward the stalls, checking them one after the other for where she could be. He had been about to give up and go search elsewhere when his ears picked up on the sound of mocking laughter. He grimaced as he realized that the owner of the voice had been the same man who had stood on the podium and made terrible comments about his family.

His jaw ticked in anger and he approached the stall, ready to rip apart the head of the man who was mocking her.

‘Calm yourself, Xander. You cannot hurt him and break the treaty.’

Even now, he hated that he had to think of the pack instead of pouring his wrath on the human that had threatened what was his and still threatened to ruin the family he was trying to build.

He walked into the stall and stopped when the sight in front of him had his blood boiling.

The sound of car horns blaring behind him pulled him out of his memories. He did not realize that he had suddenly stopped in the middle of the road.

In the time since he rescued her, he had tried to get the image of the man approaching his woman with his pants down and his cock hard from his head. He had tried to take what was his.

Xander punched the wheel, bending it as the realization that things would have been so much worse for her had he not arrived on time filled his head. How scared she must have been, trying to fight a man who was almost twice her size as she reconciled with the fact that there would be no help from any of the villagers because they did not consider her to be human anymore.

He drove off with the thoughts of murder still brewing in his head. Dialing back on the force with which he punched the disgusting man had been a last minute resort. After all, killing one man would have meant nothing, especially with the memories of the villagers wiped. He could have made it seem like he’d left the village to live elsewhere, but he knew Rayla wouldn’t want that.

He smiled. Even in that moment when she was scared, he knew she would have preferred if she left him alive. Her question after the man slumped to the floor was enough to show that he was right.

Xander pulled into the barn. The people were still on the floor unconscious. He looked at the bodies in disgust. They had so easily tagged her a monster and been ready to kill her and a little boy just because they happened to be different than what their little minds could ever comprehend. It would be so easy for him to kill them all where they slept. He looked away from them and back at Murdoch who was staring at him with a knowing look.

“Your dark thoughts are like a mask on your face, my friend. Very visible for all to see.”

Xander sighed. The place he needed to be was in a room filled with the people who had tried to hurt the mother of his children, but he was the alpha as well as the man whose woman had been hurt. It was his responsibility to see that everything went smoothly.

“Thank you for this, Murdoch. Don’t forget the man in the stall,” he spat out with venom causing Murdoch to chuckle.

“I am done with everyone here. I was merely waiting for you to arrive.”

“Thanks, Murdoch.” He clapped the vampire on the back, in appreciation for what he did. Things would have been a lot messier if he didn’t have him to help with this.

“Anytime, Xander.”

Xander conjured the shadows to take Murdoch back to his home before returning to his car. The ride home gave him enough time to think about how to go about handling things with Rayla.

Why didn’t she come to me?

He tried to think about it from her point of view and the reason why she had chosen to fix things herself instead of allowing him to deal with it. She was his responsibility and he would have handled it immediately, especially as it also affected him too.

For the past two weeks, he had been trying to get her to open up to him and tell him what was bothering her. He’d thought that at the right time, she would open up to him; instead, she had decided to handle it all on her own.

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