Page 37 of Ruthless Alpha
So intent was I on my pursuit that I almost didn’t notice their approach. It was only the flash of Rosie’s white fur out of the corner of my eye that made me stop, a waft of her wildflower scent from the opposite direction she’d set off in. She was cowering in Cole’s wake, sticking close to him, and I could hardly form a coherent thought through the cocktail of emotions that hit me at the sight. Relief and anger warred for dominance, but Iswallowed them both down, doing my best to remain impassive as they both shifted back to human form.
“What happened?” I demanded. Now that Rosie was human again, I could see angry finger-shaped bruises beginning to bloom on her biceps. I wanted to take her in my arms, to kiss her bruises and ask her who had done that to her, but she was clearly too distressed to speak, and it was Cole who answered me.
“I was keeping an eye on Harris—he was skulking around the widows’ dorms again—and he saw her high-tailing it north. Guess he decided she was more interesting than Nessa today.”
I was going to kill him. The next time I saw Harris, he was going to find out what his own intestines looked like. I was going to string his body up over the doors to the training hall. I was so angry that I barely heard the rest of Cole’s report: “I got there just in time, but you need to keep an eye on him and keep her inside.”
I didn’t appreciate him telling me what to do, but I was grateful enough to let it slide. He’d been picking up a lot of slack since Rosie arrived, and no one liked being on guard duty, especially when I knew he didn’t agree with my decision regarding Harris in the first place.
“Thank you,” I said, and Cole nodded.
“Just doing my job.”
I wasted no time rushing Rosie inside. Shivering from the cold, she didn’t protest as I scooped her up and carried her to my bedroom, bundling her into my warmest hoodie and tucking her against my chest, pulling my blankets over us. We sat like that for what felt like forever, waiting for her shivers to subside.
I had so many questions I wanted to ask her, needing to know why she’d left, if she was planning on coming back, and if she even wanted to be with me at all. She wasn’t ready for any of those questions, though. Cole might have arrived in time to stop anything too serious from happening, but Rosie was bruised and rattled enough that whateverhadhappened was more than she could handle. I could hold my questions until she was ready for them.
It was Rosie who finally broke the silence, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“I wasn’t trying to run,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to leave you.”
“I didn’t say you were,” I replied, trying to keep the relief from my voice. She didn’t need to know how deep my fear had run.
“I just wanted—I needed to get out of this house and—”
“You could have asked me,” I reminded her. “I would have gone with you.”
I didn’t mean it as a reprimand, but it made her pull away from me, scooting down the bed and pulling her knees up to her chest.
“I can’tthinkaround you!” she said. “I needed to be on my own.” Her eyes were full of tears, and I wanted to reach out to comfort her, but she clearly wanted nothing less. I felt utterly helpless, ignorant of what was wrong or how to fix it.
“Rosie, please tell me what’s going on,” I begged. “You’re killing me.”
Her lip trembled, her arms tightening around her knees. She looked like a pot set to simmering, her limbs beginning totremble again, and I was on the verge of leaning forward, sayingsomething,when she finally boiled over.
“I hate it here!” she blurted. “I hate that I can’t go outside by myself. I hate that I have to be afraid of every male who isn’t you or Jace. I hate that Cole only stepped in to save me today because I’m the Alpha’sproperty.”
The silence that followed was agonizing. I’d known all those things—I’d known them, and I’d thought that our mating would be enough to outweigh them. Clearly, I’d been wrong.
“No one will lay a finger on you once we announce that you’re my mate,” I promised. “You’ll be the Alpha Female, and you can go wherever you want.”
I thought it would comfort her, but her expression only hardened.
“And what about the other women?” she retorted. “Can they go wherever they want?”
Why was she asking me that? She already knew the answer.
“Theycan,but—”
“But what, Xander? But they might get beaten, they might get raped and killed, and no one gets punished for it because power is the only thing that matters here?”
Hearing those words come out of her mouth made my stomach twist. The disdain in her voice, the disgust that twisted her face, was more than I could bear, because she was right.
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” I insisted, but she wasn’t convinced.
“You’re the Alpha. If you want it to change, then change it,” She said, as if it were simple.
“Every male on the island would be against it,” I tried to explain, but Rosie only fixed me with her accusing blue stare.
