Page 13 of Ruthless Alpha

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This blood-spattered Alpha was making us dinner as if it were the most normal thing in the world. It felt wrong. What was he trying to do? Was he trying to put me at ease, trying to make me relax so I was—what? Easier to catch off guard? That didn’t make sense. If he wanted to hurt me, it wouldn’t matter if I wasstanding ready for him with a knife in my hand: he was twice my size and a born fighter.

If he noticed that I flinched every time he picked up a knife, every time a pot or a pan clattered on the stove, he didn’t show it. He kept his attention on his task until dinner was plated up, and he set the dish in front of me. Steak and mashed potatoes. I knew, theoretically, that I should be hungry—I’d eaten a single cookie in the last thirty-six hours—but my stomach was churning with anxiety, and eating was too vulnerable a task.

Xander didn’t wait for me before starting on his own meal. He’d given us the same size portion, despite the fact that he probably needed twice the calories I did.

“I don’t want it.”

“You have to eat something,” he countered, as if this conversation were casual. As if he were someone I should expect to care about me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to make sure you don’t starve yourself,” he said, as if the answer was obvious. It was far from obvious. It didn’t make any sense, and I wasn’t going to let him trick me.

“No, no, you’re trying to—I know you’re angry with me,” I insisted. I would never have dared to talk to my uncle like this, but I never needed to. He, at least, made it obvious when he was angry, and I knew how to handle it. I had no idea how to deal with this, and I couldn’t stand the uncertainty. “I don’t know why you’re pretending you aren’t. Just—just get it over with already. Or is this part of it? You want me to be scared?”

That made him stop. Setting down his fork, he said tightly,

“Of course, I don’t want you to be scared. And I’m not angry with you.”

It was so obviously a lie. His irritation was clear in every tense line of his body, in the purposefully even tone of his voice. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t keep waiting for him to break. I couldn’t live in this constant state of expectation. If he wasn’t going to break, then I would make him.

“Stop it!” I cried, “Stop lying to me!”

The plate was in my hand, and then it was in pieces on the floor—the splat of the potatoes as they hit the ground masking the satisfying crack of the porcelain. I stared at the mess on the floor, my breathing heavy, almost unable to believe I’d done it. The silence that filled the kitchen was deafening.

“Are you angry now?” I asked, not quite brave enough to turn and look at him. His voice was still low, even when he said, “No.”

“You’re lying,” I insisted. Every limb was trembling; I was too hot but still shivering; my breath rushed in my ears, loud and harsh. I flinched when Xander rose to his feet, rounding the table to stand over me.

“I’m not lying, Rosie, I promise.”

“Don’t do that,” I snapped back. “Don’t talk to me like you give a shit. Just do what you want to do and get it over with.”

His eyebrows twitched together, recognition seeming to spark something deep in the depths of his void-dark eyes.

“Are you—are you waiting for me to hit you?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. I flinched as Xander raised a hand to his dark hair, running his fingers through it, agitated.

“Fucking hell, Rosie.”

What right did he have to look so hurt, so offended? He still had blood on his knuckles from all the punches he’d thrown today. He was the Alpha of a Pack where females weren’t safe alone.

“I said don’tdothat,” I snapped back at him. “You don’t—you can’t—I just want to go home.”

“You want to go home?” he echoed, incredulous.

“Yes.” I wanted to be surrounded by trees again. I wanted to look out of my window and see green.

“You want to be on Arbor, where your own family treated you like a slave and sold you like an animal?” Xander said, his expression flat and disbelieving. “You want to be with the Pack who taught you to flinch when a male raises his hand?”

“Yes.” I wanted to be on the island where I was born. I wanted to walk the familiar paths and be reminded of those brief childhood years when I was happy.

“You’d rather be with them than here with me?” If I didn’t know better, I’d think he sounded hurt. But that was ridiculous. It was impossible.

“At least I could get away from them when I needed to,” I told him. “At least I could go outside without needing an escort.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Xander insisted, and I laughed, dry and humorless.