Page 62 of The Alpha Wolf's Pregnant Bride

“Cyrus…” I murmur, though his unmoving form indicates that he can’t hear me. But it’s a natural reaction when a stray tear slips down my cheek.

He’d sustained injuries to his left side, his arm secured in a cast while his thigh was wrapped in bandages sticking out from the white sheet that covered the good side of his body. Wiping at my cheek, I drift closer and gently take his hand in mine.

“Please wake up,” I plead, lifting his hand to my lips, where I press a lingering kiss on his knuckles. My heart squeezes in my chest as the weight of what his unconscious form means to me.

I love this man.

I love Cyrus Rudolph.

The realization crashes into me with more tears flowing down my cheeks, a sob escaping my throat.

That’s why I’m back here.

That’s why I left. Both times.

I have always loved him; that’s why I’d been drawn to him from the very beginning.

As I sink onto the chair beside the bed, I stare at his face, etching the intricate details of his facial features to memory over the memories I already have of him. This time, fueled by the truth of my feelings for him, the image I cast into my mind is woven through my heart with thick, golden threads that tether my love to this man for eternity.

I should have recognized my feelings before, but they’d been distorted by all the bitter words he’d uttered in his own attempt to deny what he felt. I know he feels the same. I’m sure of it. Even if he’s not awake yet, I can feel that love pulsing through his veins as I clutch his hand.

“I love you, Cyrus,” I profess to the man who isn’t awake yet. Perhaps I dare to say these words right now only because he can’t hear me.

Everything that’s happened between us seems redundant now, leaving behind only the importance of our passion and the inability to keep away from each other.

That’s why he’d found me in the human world and why he apologized so gallantly when he admitted that he wanted me as his mate.

The nine years I spent away from the pack prove that I had wanted only him, unable to be with another man while I was away. Despite his mistreatment in the past, he made up for it last night when he came to me, when he found me and asked me to come home.

Home.

I never felt like any particular place was home. When I left Mysthaven before, I didn’t feel the grief of breaking away from a place that would have been considered “home.”

Instead, I broke down because I severed ties with the pack and with Cyrus. It broke me apart when I left a second time after forming a bond with him through the passion we shared on that mountaintop.

That’s when I discovered what “home” truly is. It’s the person I love and the person I shed tears for, praying to the Moon Goddess that he wakes up so that we may bask in the feelings we’d been denying ourselves for so long.

Chapter 18 - Cyrus

“Watch out, Cyrus!”Jarrod yells out in my mind. My ears perk up like a sixth sense, but my response time is too slow.

I’m hit, my wolf form crashing against the ruptured tree trunk. Whimpering when I hit the ground in a heap of broken bones, pain slices through me and shackles me to the floor.

My eyes widen when I see the pool of blood beside my head. Even when I lift my eyes, my vision is hazed with deep red spots while the ensuing fight continues in the empty parking lot.

Groaning, I can feel my weakened wolf slipping away, recoiling from the pain that grips me and keeps me entangled in its vile clutches. I can’t hold onto my consciousness any longer, my Beta’s voice fading as I shrink into human form.

The unbearable pain in my aching and cracked bones seizes my vision, and I don’t have it in me to fight anymore. As I surrender to the clutches of darkness that wrap their tendrils around my mind, I murmur Cassandra’s name before everything fades to black.

***

“Cassandra…”

I call out the name of the she-wolf who’d cast a spell on my heart, eyes faintly parting and burning from the brightness all around me. The pain I’d been feeling just now is gone, except for the dull ache in places in my body I haven’t fully stepped into consciousness yet.

Did I die and go to the Moon Goddess’s abode?

The striking awareness has me pulling my eyelids apart, only to see Cassandra’s face before my eyes.

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