Page 35 of Cruel Alpha

I winced, aware I’d made my first mistake. While it was true that I’d never imagined a mate like her, it had never meant I didn’t want her. I’d always wanted her.

I must have hesitated too long, though, because she continued for me:

“You’d never imagined a mate as embarrassing as me.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t say it like that,”

“It’s true, though,” she said, as if it really was a simple fact of existence. I wanted to rip out the throat of every shifter who’d ever made her feel that way, myself included.

“I was never ashamed of you,” I insisted. “I swear. When I told my father, I really thought that he’d find a way to fix it, to make it okay. He’d be angry, sure, but then he’d come up with some plan like he always did when anyone in the Pack needed help. I was wrong. He told me that I could fuck you if I wanted to, but I was never to knot you and never to claim you publicly. He said it was better to be unmated than try to install someone like you as Alpha female. He said it would destabilize the whole Pack, that I’d have a mutiny on my hands.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he’d probably been right about that. Alyssa knew it, too; we both remembered the incident with Leonard at the market.

“Seeing you at school every day—it was like torture,” I continued. “I wanted you so badly. I could hardly keep my eyes off you. I was obsessed with the way you rolled the end of your pencil across your lips when you were thinking; I read all the books I ever saw you holding just to feel close to you; I wanted to know you so badly, but I couldn’t. I mean—I guess I could’ve, but that felt worse somehow. I wasn’t going to ask you to be some dirty secret. I convinced myself that if I made you hate me enough, then you’d leave. You’d leave Lapine and go somewhere else, somewhere that embraced you for who you were, and you’d be happy.”

Alyssa looked at me as though I was profoundly stupid, and I didn’t blame her. I was so close to done, though, so I powered on.

“The thing is, I was weak. My Heir’s Tour was incredible, but I missed you so much it hurt. I—fuck, this is embarrassing—I stole one of your sweaters right before I left. It was purple with little white flowers.”

Something that might have been a smile tugged at the edge of her mouth, and some of the tension left her body as she leaned forward.

“You bastard,” she breathed. “I loved that sweater.”

“I mean—I’ve still got it,” I confessed. “It doesn’t smell like you anymore, but I liked having it anyway. When I got back, when I saw you, I couldn’t help myself. I only wanted to see you at the party, but then you were wearing that fucking dress, and I… well, you remember.”

Alyssa nodded, and the tension was back in the room.

“I remember.”

“After, I knew I’d fucked up,” I said. I didn’t want to linger on the subject, and I rushed to get the words out. “I had to keep you at arm’s length, but I knew what you tasted like, how soft your skin was, what you sounded like when you came. I was so out of it, so distracted by the memory that my father noticed. I told him that I’d—that we’d—and he asked me if I’d knotted you. I told him I hadn’t, and he said that was good. He also said not to let you convince me you were pregnant anyway. He said witches lie, that they trap shifters with spells. I’d thought it was bullshit, you’d never do anything like that, but then…” I tailed off. If I remembered every second of that awful conversation in excruciating detail, I was certain Alyssa’s memory was even clearer.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice rasping with emotion.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I wasn’t sure I’d ever spoken so much all at once, and I felt chafed, raw, and empty.

Alyssa seemed no less affected by it, leaning back in her chair and simply breathing for a few long moments. I hoped it was a good sign, a sign that she’d listened, that she was processing my words and realizing I meant every one.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said eventually. “It’s—it’s kind of hard to believe.”

“I know.”

“Not that I think you’re lying,” she clarified, and relief flooded me. “It’s just—it’s so far from what I imagined.”

I watched her hands as she fiddled with the hem of her shirt, wrapping the material around the first joint of her finger, only to release it and repeat the motion. She was gearing up to speak again, so I waited for what felt like an eternity before she finally said,

“I think I’m going to need some time. The version of you I knew then—or thought I knew—it’s so different from who you are now, and even if Ishouldtrust you, I just—I don’t know if I can.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and my wolf protested at the thought of leaving. Now I’d had her again; every second that my hands weren’t on her skin was torture, but I swallowed down my desire.

“I get it,” I said. I might not like it, but I got it. I’d told her I would do anything it took to make it up to her, and I’d meant it. If she needed time, then I’d give her time.

Rising from the couch, I jerked my head towards the door, and she nodded. I wanted to lean in and kiss her, to taste her lips once more before I went back out into the cold, but I knew when not to push my luck. I was reaching for the handle when her voice made me stop.

“What was your favorite book?”

I turned back, confused.

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