Page 27 of The Alpha's Broken Oath

My wolf is panicking so much that I can feel her rioting inside my head. We’ve never been able to handle enclosed spaces for too long.

Did I use this same elevator to come and leave the office for all the years I've worked here? Yes, but that was different from this.

Being trapped here inside this elevator without it moving reminds me of how my family died. I’m trapped the same way my parents and Jake were caged in our burning house with no way of saving themselves, and the reminder of how they died makes my body leap into panic.

“Winter, hey? Stay with me, baby,” Deacon begs.

I bite my bottom lip in my mouth, venting out my fear and anger at him. ” Don’t call me baby. Not right now, Deacon Cross.”

His other hand moves to my right arm, and he caresses me, never leaving me to die in the darkness alone.

“You hate me calling you baby when we are mates?”

My heart pulses in my mouth. This is how I die, isn’t it?

“This is all your fault. You… did this!”

You self-entitled prick of an Alpha.

“I did.” Deacon takes the blame more easily than I’d expect him to, and that only fuels my wrath—wrath that’s coated with nothing more than terror.

“You should have let me leave. I wouldn’t be in this…this darkness if it wasn’t for you.”

I wouldn’t be too far away from my babies if he didn’t make me work overtime. And all for what? Some fucking reports that didn’t even make sense?

“Keep talking, Winter. Focus on me, you got that? I want your thoughts on me and not on the darkness, baby.”

Reaching out for his chest and grazing the rippling muscles underneath his shirt, my body moves on its own accord to Deacon, and soon enough, I’m hugging him.

“I hate you.”

Patting my head and acting like I said nothing, Deacon’s hand comes falling on the back of my head. He hugs me so tight, like he knows I’ll break if he doesn’t catch me.

“Hate me as much as you will, Winter, because I’ll love you enough for both of us,” he says that in a voice like nightshade, one that’s cloaked with determination and certainty. How wrong he is if he thinks me hugging him in a moment of weakness means I’m accepting him and his so-called love.

The Goddess, who’s been watching me on the precipice of a breakdown, somehow remembers us when a beeping sound bounces off the walls, and light fills the space we are in, blinding us temporarily. I lift my cheek from Deacon’s chest as if mere contact with him will burn my skin off.

Lifting my head to look up at the numbers on the elevator nearly paralyzes me. The numbers are not moving. The elevator is not moving.

“Winter.”

My lungs clench, and Deacon’s concerned eyes do nothing to assure me things are going to be okay.

“The lights are back, meaning things are okay, but why isn’t the elevator moving?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Deacon tries to explain.

“I can’t breathe, Deacon. I can’t stay here one more minute, or else I’ll die before anyone notices we are trapped in here. We’ll die here. We’ll run out of air, or the elevator could snap, and we would fall to our deaths. I would never get to see…” I restrain my words with a harsh bite.

Rubbing my chest only makes breathing more difficult, and I can almost feel my panic attack winning.

“Fuck, Winter. I’m right here. No one’s dying because I’m here with you. Look at me,” Deacon’s voice hogs my ears, and it almost sounds like a saving grace.

I look at him. I look at those dark onyx eyes that are all concerned about me, all lasered on me, and my wolf chooses to seek solace in him rather than face this nightmare.

Unlike the naive girl who kissed him like she believed the world was theirs and they were but star-crossed lovers blessed by the Goddess, the woman who kisses him now does so because she’s scared, and he’s the only thing that feels safe.

One kiss on Deacon’s lips turns out to be both a nightmare and a curse.

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