Page 84 of The Alpha Under My Bed

His scent thickened. My breath hitched.

“How I own you. Just like you own me.”

He moved closer, and I sucked in a sharp breath, the words hitting something deep, something primal, something that made heat pool low in my stomach despite the war raging in my mind.

My vision blurred. The weight of his presence pressed down on me.

I was losing.

I was losing so fucking badly.

And Mal?

He knew it.

Because I wasn’t running anymore.

I wasn’t even trying.

And I was fucked.

Twenty-Two

ELEANOR

I needed to run.

Every instinct screamed at me to stay—to turn back, to crawl into Mal’s bed and let him drown me in his scent until my mind stopped spinning. My body ached for it, my bones vibrating with the desperate pull of the bond. But I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

I shoved my trembling legs forward, forcing them to move, ignoring the searing protests of my muscles with every step. I was sore in ways I’d never felt before—utterly wrecked, my body unraveling at its core. Mal had made sure of that. But the physical pain was nothing, nothing compared to the storm tearing through my mind. The raw, burning betrayal split my chest open, raw and jagged, leaving me breathless.

My heart pounded against my ribs, a frantic rhythm that matched my ragged breaths as I stumbled toward the door, throwing on the first clothes I could find, my hands shaking too much to steady myself.

My vision blurred, edges of my world swimming in and out of focus, everything too sharp, too overwhelming. The apartment smelled of him, ofus, of the bond we’d forged in the dark. It clawed at me, whispering that I was making a mistake—that I was running from something inevitable. I clenched my teeth, yanking open the door with more force than necessary. The cool air of the hallway bit at my skin, too hot with the burn of my emotions.

I wasn’t making a mistake. I was saving myself.

The elevator was too far. I needed the stairs. I took them two at a time, my breath coming too fast, my legs trembling as I forced myself downward, step after shaky step. The closer I got to the exit, the louder the bond screamed inside me, tugging at something deep, warning me that I was leaving something vital behind.

I ignored it.

I hit the lobby at a full sprint, barely registering the shock in the doorman’s eyes as I flew past him. I couldn’t stop. Not now. The city swallowed me whole the second I stepped outside, the cool night air sharp against my sweat-slicked skin, slicing through the fog of Mal—of everything I needed to escape. The scent of gasoline and damp pavement hit me like a slap, grounding me, breaking through the lingering haze of him.

I gasped for air, my lungs burning like I’d been drowning.

Where do I go?

I had no plan. No direction. Just the instinct to keep moving. To put distance between us.

I turned down a side street, my mind racing, desperate for an escape. I could find a hotel. A friend. Hell, I could disappear. But even as I thought it, the bond pulsed again—loud, furious, impossible to ignore. A visceral reminder that Mal would find me. He always found me.

I squeezed my eyes shut for half a second, shaking my head against the thought. No. Not now. Not yet.

A car rolled up beside me, the tires on wet pavement making my skin prickle. I barely noticed it at first, too lost in my panic, my mind spiraling.

Then a voice—too familiar, too casual, too wrong—cut through the night.

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