Page 14 of Ruthless Alpha
“I don’t want to get used to it,” I said. “I want to go home.”
Something in Xander’s expression shuddered. His black eyes, which had previously tried to consume me, now seemed to look straight through me as if I weren’t even there. His mouth set into a hard line, and his voice was hoarse when he said,
“Well, we don’t always get what we want.”
Then he left me in his ruined kitchen to clean up the mess I’d made.
Chapter 7 - Xander
“So they want something that adjusts with the shift?” Jace asked, his voice distorted and crackling through the radio. I needed to get a new one—the single island radio on Ensign was older than I was.
Despite the distraction of Rosie’s presence, I still had a job to do for Sam, and our on-island engineers were not sounding hopeful about the possibility of delivering. Opifex, however, were the experts on innovation, and Jace was one of my closest friends. He might not be Alpha yet, but he was the smartest person I knew, and if anyone was going to help me keep my promise, it was him.
“Yeah, human to wolf,” I confirmed. “It would be great if it could go back as well, but I think the initial shift is the most important.”
“Got it,” said Jace. “Sounds fun. Dad needs me around for the rest of the week, but I can run over on Monday.”
“Sweet. Thanks, man.”
“Any time.”
I could have let him go, could have waited until he arrived to break the news, but that was the coward’s way out.
“Wait. I should probably uh—I should probably tell you something.”
“Ominous,” Jace replied.
“Nah, it’s just—” I took a fortifying breath. “So, you remember when Arbor was auctioning off females?”
A burst of static came down the line—Jace must have scoffed.
“Kinda difficult to forget that.”
“Yeah. Well, they’re still at it, only it’s their own females now, and they’re selling to other shifters. They showed up at the market while I was on Telaxis, and I sort of—I sort of bought a girl.” I cringed as I waited for his response; Jace’s silent disbelief lasted only for a beat before he said,
“Dude. What the fuck.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I rushed to explain. “I was on Telaxis and this guy came up to us and—she looked so frightened and she was filthy and I couldn’t—I couldn’t stand the thought of some awful guy buying her and…” I trailed off, not wanting to have to repeat that I’d literally given a man a hundred pounds of steel in exchange for a person.
“So you bought her instead,” Jace finished for me.
“Yeah. We’re technically uh—married. You know, like Ethan and Julia were.” We were nothing like Ethan and Julia. Ethan and Julia were mates. Ethan and Julia were in love. “She’s staying with me until I figure out… something.”
I had no idea what thatsomethingwas. I couldn’t just abandon her to the unmated female dorms—not when she was so afraid and such an easy target—but I couldn’t keep her here with me forever.
“And?”Jace prompted.
“And what?”
“I can tell there’s an ‘and,’ Xander.” For a moment, I almost felt chastened, like a schoolboy being told off by his teacher. Jace was eight years my junior. When had he learned that particular trick?
“And she hates everything about this island,” I admitted. “And she’s scared all the time. And she hates witches. And shehates me.” That last one bothered me more than anything else, even though I knew it shouldn’t.
“To be expected, really,” replied Jace, sounding disturbingly unbothered. “She’s Arbor. Why is it a problem?”
“I just—I don’t want her to hate me,” I said. That was true enough. “I want her to be happy.”
“She could be happy somewhere else,” Jace pointed out. “Ferris, maybe. Or Argent. You’d still have achieved your goal of making sure she didn’t end up as some creep’s knotslave.”
