Page 23 of Ruthless Alpha
“Jace was still here,” Rosie said, pointing unnecessarily at Jace himself, who was staring at his breakfast like it contained all the secrets of the universe, and he simply had to figure them out.
“Well, yeah. I wasn’t going to leave you by yourself, in case something—I just didn’t think you’d want me around.”
“Oh. That’s, uh—that’s considerate of you.”
Considerate?If I’d proved anything in the last twenty-four hours, it was howinconsiderateI really was. I’d all but forced myself on her during training, and here she was calling me considerate. Was she truly that afraid of me, or was she just an angel? I feared it might be both.
“You know what—” Rosie and I both jumped as Jace stood up abruptly “—Jace doesn’t still need to be here now that Xander’s back. I’m just going to go… somewhere else. Thanks for breakfast, Rosie!”
Neither of us spared him a glance as he fled from the room, too busy stewing in the silence that I was too cowardly to break. Apologizing for what happened would mean acknowledging that ithadhappened; it would mean having to watch Rosie tell me again that I was her owner and I could do whatever I wanted with her. The thought made my stomach churn, but I had to do it. I had to get it over with.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I blurted. I should be looking her in the eye, but I wasn’t brave enough for that. Instead, I let the words tumble out of me, disjointed and insufficient. “I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that. I wasn’t thinking, but that’s not an excuse, and I promise that it won’t happen again because I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable here—”
“Xander.”
“—and I know I promised that I didn’t want anything like that from you—”
“Xander.”
“—and I didn’t mean to lie, but you’re so—”
“Xander. Breathe. You don’t have to apologize.”
“No, I do—” I tried to insist, but Rosie’s voice hardened as she said,
“Will you let me finish?”
It was kind of adorable, being chastised by the sweet-faced girl in my kitchen, still covered in flour from making pancakes.
“Sure,” I agreed. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize because I think it was, uh—I think I made it pretty clear that was what I wanted. You didn’t take advantage of me.” A pink blush was growing over her cheeks, and it was so pretty, and my heart soared for a moment before she continued, “But I think it shouldn’t—it shouldn’t happen again.”
“Right.” It wouldn’t be fair of me to tell her that I desperately wanted it to happen again, now that I knew she wanted it too. Things might have become a little easier between us over the past weeks, but I knew she still viewed me as her owner. If she agreed to it, I would never know if it was because she felt the same insistent pull that I did, or if she was simply keeping me sweet.
“And maybe I should train with a different weapon,” she added.
“Huh?” It had been a long night of little sleep, and I really wasn’t certain I’d heard that right. Were we still having the same conversation?
“A different weapon,” Rosie repeated. “I think I should train with something… else.”
Okay. So I had heard her right. I still couldn’t make sense of the statement.
“But that sword is perfect for you,” I said, and it was Rosie’s turn to look sheepish.
“It’s maybe—it’s maybe too perfect,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?”
Rosie sighed, wrapping her arms around her middle.
“I feel like—this is going to sound so stupid—I feel like itknowsme? Or it’s encouraging me, somehow? And that’s great for sparring, because honestly, I’m not good at it, I’m just doing what it suggests, but it also—I think it wants us to…” She trailed off, giving me a significant look, and all the pieces dropped into place.
“Itwantsus to—” I echoed, too shocked to think of anything else.
“I told you it was going to sound stupid,” Rosie whimpered, collapsing into a chair and hiding her face in her hands.
“No. No, it doesn’t sound stupid at all,” I rushed to console her. “I just—I should probably tell you something about that sword.”
