Page 81 of Sold to the Alphas

I leaned over and kissed his forehead softly, my fingers brushing through his hair, trying to find some connection, some tether to hold onto. I couldn’t give up on him. I couldn’t lose him before we even had a chance to be together.

A day passed. Then two. The other alphas brought me food and told me to bathe, but I couldn’t leave him. A second away from him would have been too long.

Marshall and Finn brought news to the bedside when they paused between their duties. The casualties were limited, and neutral territory was back under control.

I barely processed the updates. I was focused only on August.

I felt like I was falling into madness. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand the stillness, the ticking of the clock, the waiting. I wanted him to open his eyes. I wanted him to be okay. I wanted to hear him speak.

It was almost a week before I heard it.

“...Elisabed?”

46

August

The haze of unconsciousness finally began to lift. My head felt heavy, and the soreness in my body was overwhelming. I blinked into the dim light, the room still spinning around me. My throat was dry, and there was a metallic taste on the tip of my tongue. My eyes flickered toward the corner, and I spotted her.

Elisabed.

I drew a shaky breath and said her name.

It was enough. She was at my side instantly, her eyes wide with hope, anger, and relief.

“August,” she breathed, her voice shaking. It only took a heartbeat before she was in my arms, clutching at me like I was the only thing that could tether her to this world. She was crying now, quietly, as if afraid to let out the full weight of it.

I sat up slowly, the world tilting beneath me. Somehow, I was strong enough to pull her into my lap, sitting her in between my legs. I ran my hands up her back, trying to offer her some semblance of comfort, even though the rawness of my body betrayed me.

Her sobs were muffled in my chest, and I tried to steady her, running a hand through her hair. “What happened?” I asked, trying to distract her, to focus on something that wasn’t the pain in her eyes or the way she was clinging to me as though I could slip away at any moment.

She didn’t answer right away. Her breath hitched, and it was several moments before she could gather herself enough to speak. “You...you’ve been out for a week. You were...you were nearly dead, August. I thought you were gone...”

Her voice broke again, and I felt the sharp sting of it deep in my chest. I couldn’t even explain why I went after Raol in the first place and was so desperate to fight him because I didn’t even think before I did it. I just reacted. I pushed her and everyone else away and nearly lost myself to it. When the pact broke, my feral wolf acted the same way, dragging me away from the main conflict to fight enemies in the woods alone.

“Elisabed, I—” I started to say, but she was shaking her head, cutting me off with a desperate, “You can’t keep doing this to me, August.” She pulled back a little, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but she didn’t hear me. She was moving now, away from my chest, her hands gripping my arms tightly.

She told me everything—about Finn and Marshall, how they helped her bring them back from the madness, how they all searched for me and found me barely alive in the woods. She was speaking so fast, the words spilling from her in a cascade. I could hear the edge of her frustration with me in every sentence. The anger and hurt were thick in her voice as she explained how the other two alphas helped restore order after the chaos. They’d managed to hold things together, and the new leadership was in place.

But when she started to explain what happened with Raol, I felt the fury I’d been fighting rise again. I gripped her tighter, fighting the tremor that coursed through me.

“Raol...” she whispered his name like a curse. “He...he’s dead,” She was struggling to explain, but I didn’t need to know.

“I wish I could have done it for you, Elisabed,” I said. “I would have done it slowly and painfully and made that bastard regret everything he ever did to you and your sister. That’s what he deserved, and I should have done it.”

Elisabed’s eyes flashed with something I didn’t expect. “What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, her voice fierce with a mix of hurt and frustration. “You’re going to blame yourself? You’re going to carry all this weight on your own?” She shook her head, her hands gripping my shoulders. “You’ve never trusted me, August. You never let me in. Why won’t you just—” Her words caught in her throat, the anger in her eyes giving way to raw emotion, and I saw it all. The cracks in her heart.

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand seeing her like this, broken, torn between the anger at me and the love I’d failed to returnfully. She was everything to me, and I’d been pushing her away. But I couldn’t do that anymore.

“I know, Elisabed,” I whispered hoarsely. “I know I’ve hurt you and don’t deserve you. I never should have kept you at arm’s length. But please...please don’t leave me.”

She pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes, her breath coming fast. “Why, August? Why won’t you just...let me in?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. Not one that made sense. I couldn’t explain it. Not when it’d been this way for so long.

But I couldn’t keep running anymore.

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