Page 39 of Alpha's Hated Mate

I brush a bit of her hair out of her face, and she stirs, looking up at me with a lazy smile.

“Want to go again?” she says, and I chuckle.

“You’re insatiable. You know that? We’re going to wear ourselves out if we spend the whole day in bed.”

“So what? All things considered, I’d rather be in here with you.”

She sounds like she’s joking, but she’s not. Not that I blame her. After that assembly, I wouldn’t want to go back onto campus again either.

“You’re my Luna now,” I say to her. “If anyone tries to hurt you, they know there will be hell to pay.”

She scoffs and lifts her head. “I just bear your mark. We’re not married. Not yet, anyway.” I give her a questioning look, and she asks, “What?”

“You are mine, Saffron. Regardless of any ceremony or ritual. By all rights, you are my Luna and I am your Alpha. End of story.”

She studies my face for a long moment. “Wounds heal,” she says softly. “Or can be hidden. If no one ever hears you declare it, no one would ever have to know.”

“You think I won’t declare it?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re missing the point, Aydan. You can say you’re committed to me all you want, but . . . but you saw how they were at the assembly. Imagine that’s your pack or maybe even all of Clarion. Are you really willing to stand up against the whole world just for me?”

Her blue eyes darken as she looks away, her fingers moving to the strands of her red hair hanging over her bare breasts. “I used to dye my hair when I was a teenager,” she says softly. “I had been bullied so much in my pack that when I was ready to go through my ascension, I dyed my hair in an effort to hide among the wolves from other packs.”

“Didn’t work, did it?”

She chuckles. “Not really. No matter what I look like, other wolves still pick up that I’m not like them. It’s instinct. It just ended up ostracizing me even more. One day, a group of females caught me on a walk by myself, and they beat me up . . . bad.Spent about a week with the healers after.” She sighs, her mind lost in the terrible memories of her past. “When I got better, I decided, fuck it. I was just going to be who I was. Didn’t make much difference, anyway.”

“You had no one to protect you? What about your parents?”

She shakes her head. “My parents died sometime after I was born. Some flash flood took them both from me before I was even old enough to remember them. So up until my ascension, my grandparents raised me, who were far too old by the time of my ascension to challenge any of the younger wolves for my honor. And after they died, I was sent to live with others in my pack. I bounced around from family to family until . . .”

She stops for a long beat before continuing. “The point is that I had to learn to stand up for myself all on my own. I did that by leaning into their fears. As long as they thought I was dangerous, they stayed away from me . . . most of the time.”

“That sounds . . . lonely.”

“It was.It is. Over the years, I’ve found solace in other Scarlets from other packs . . . mostly ones here at Moonhelm. But most regular wolves don’t want anything to do with me. That’s why I’m so close to Yarra. She grew up as a human, so when I met her, she never treated me like adirtyScarlet.”

My heart is heavy. Our upbringings couldn’t have been more different. I was raised to be revered, put on a pedestal by my pack as the presumptive heir . . . and she was made to feel like she was nothing. How is it that the Moon Goddess has chosen me for her?

“So,” she went on, “you may want me now, here at Moonhelm, but one day maybe ten or twenty years from now, you’re going to grow tired of fighting a world that doesn’t see me the way you do. And I don’t want you to waste your life with me, Aydan.”

She’s looking away from me, down at her hands twisting her hair. I reach out to her and brush her hair away, over her shoulder, revealing the mark that I’d just given her. Seeing it on her fills me with nothing but pride. There’s no one on earth that should wear it but her.

“I know what I’m facing being with you,” I say as my hand caresses the line of her jaw. “I’ve known it this whole time, and yet I can’t see myself without you. It’s fate that we’re here together.”

She snickers. “Don’t get all religious on me while we’re naked.”

That makes me laugh, and I say, “Okay, but hear me out. You’ve spent your life standing alone against a world that’s never felt it was meant for you. Maybe the reason we’re fated to be together is because it’s long overdue for someone to stand by your side. You don’t have to fight alone. Not ever again.”

“Aydan—”

“I am an Alpha. I was born to protect my entire pack. And now, that includes you. Thisismy life, Saffron. It would only be wasted if you weren’t at my side.”

A line of water appears in her eyes, and she looks away quickly. “Silver-tongued bastard.”

I kiss her, taking her in my arms again as she wraps herself around me once more. As we make love again, our connection grows deeper, stronger. I know I would give my life for her.

It’s morning, and it’s clear to me what needs to be done. We need to go into those woods and find the missing Scarlets and stop whatever is going on out there. But we’re going to need help.

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