Page 12 of Ruthless Alpha
Her pretty blue eyes were swimming with tears, and I wanted to go to her, to ask her if she was alright, to apologize for losing my temper, to thank her for bringing me food. I had no doubt that whatever was in that box would be delicious, but Icouldn’t take it from her. If there was any gentleness on Ensign, it happened behind closed doors.
“So you thought you’d just go on a little jaunt through the male dormitories?” I sneered, hating myself with every word. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed, or worse. Cole, take her back to the house.”
I did my best not to look at her as Cole nodded and tugged her back toward the door, but the soft sound of her sobbing in the silence was enough to break my heart.
Chapter 6 - Rosie
The hand around my arm stayed firm as the Beta—Cole, his name was Cole—guided me through the maze of long, identical dormitory buildings. He said nothing to me as we walked, and nothing when he deposited me back on Xander’s porch. He didn’t need to tell me not to leave the house unaccompanied again.
The door closed with a soft thud behind me, but it sounded like a bullet in the silence. My hands were clenched around the untouched lunchbox as I stood, confused and devastated, in the hallway.
I had to do something. I had to stay on my feet and keep working. If my body stayed active, then my mind couldn’t work itself into a frenzy of anxiety. If I kept busy, I wouldn’t think about what it meant that females couldn’t go out alone on Ensign; I wouldn’t think about how coldly Xander had looked at me; I wouldn’t think about the blood decorating his face and his knuckles and his chest. I could only pray that his anger would fade by the time he returned, or he’d wear himself out in the ring, because if he wanted to hurt me—
I pushed the thought away. The lunchbox went into the refrigerator, and the now-cool cookies I’d left on the side went into an empty tin. I had already cleaned the kitchen pretty thoroughly that morning, but it wouldn’t hurt to go over it again, especially after I’d baked in it. The surfaces got another wipe-down, and the floors were swept again. The dishes in the sink were cleaned, dried, and put away. Then I moved on to the living room. Then the hallway and the stairs.
I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the bathroom floor when I heard the front door open, then close, and Istartled like a rabbit who scents a fox. There was no banging, no slamming. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? My uncle would always slam doors and smash crockery when he was angry, but I hadn’t yet learned what to be afraid of in this house.
Should I go down and greet him, or should I stay here? Would he be angry at the sight of me, or irritated that I ignored him upon his return? I stayed there, paralyzed with indecision, until I heard the tread of feet climbing the stairs, and it was too late. I put my head back down, resuming my frantic scrubbing. He’d definitely be angry if he came upstairs to find me simply sitting on the bathroom floor.
A shadow fell over me.
“Hey.” His voice was low, not angry as far as I could tell. That was good. Probably. I kept scrubbing.
“I brought you some clothes from the laundry,” Xander said. Not what I had been expecting. “Hopefully they fit—the Ensign females aren’t as—well, you can try them, and if they don’t fit, I’ll take you back tomorrow.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I risked a glance up and saw that, true to his word, he was carrying a cloth bag filled with various scraps of dark colored fabric. I should thank him. I should apologize. I should have done something, but the whole situation was so alien and unexpected that all I could do was keep scrubbing. Xander shifted in the doorway, uncomfortable, irritated, and I braced myself.
“I’m sorry about earlier, alright?” he said, which didn’t make sense. Was he not waiting for me to apologize to him? He’d been angry when he left, and my attempt to make peace had gone more horribly than even I could have imagined. What was I supposed to say to that?
“Will you—will you stop that?” Irritation was creeping into his voice now, and that made more sense. That was right. That was what I’d been expecting. He’d drop the act eventually.
“Rosie. Rosie, stop it.” His use of my name brought me up short; his voice was strangely soft as he rounded out the syllables of it. “Will you look at me?”
I had to do it sometime, I supposed. I couldn’t clean this bathroom floor for the rest of my life simply to avoid his scrutiny. With enormous effort, I ceased the forward-back motion of my arms, dropping the brush back into the bucket of soapy water. It must have taken a minute or so for me to work up the courage to raise my gaze to his, but Xander only stood in the doorway, waiting, utterly still. Was he simply trying not to spook me, or was he a predator waiting for his prey to come to him?
I would only find out when I looked at him. Sitting back on my heels, I took one final deep breath and raised my gaze to his. My owner towered over me, his face bruised and his knuckles split and bloodied. His black eyes were inscrutable as they pinned me in place, inspecting every inch of me.
“Have you eaten today?” he asked. Another unexpected question. I hated it. Why was he even asking? Why did he care?
“Yes,” I told him, and he frowned.
“You’re lying.”
“I had a cookie to check it.” It was all I’d eaten that day, sure, but it was something. I hadn’t lied.
Xander sighed, stretching out a hand toward me. What would happen if I took it? What would happen if I didn’t? In the end, I didn’t have a choice, because he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said,
“Take my hand, let me help you up.”
I’d never been on the receiving end of Alpha authority before. I’d seen hunters and rowdy young males cowed by Slade’s or Axton’s voice alone, heard the particular timbre of a reprimand that meant an order was undeniable, but I’d kept my head down too much to ever come up against it myself. It was a strange feeling, like my body was being moved against my will. Slowly, I reached up, letting a large, rough, bloodstained hand close around mine. My skin tingled, ever so slightly, and I shivered.
He pulled me up, gentler than I was expecting, but the moment I was vertical again, my vision swam. His hand tightened around mine, and another came to my hip. My breath hitched, my heart hammering, but he only muttered,
“Yeah, you need to eat. Come on.”
I let him guide me back down the stairs and into the kitchen—the bathroom still only half clean, the floor wet and soapy—his hand light on the small of my back. It was only once we reached the kitchen that he moved away, allowing me to stand on my own.
“Sit down,” he said, his voice laced with the same authority he’d used in the bathroom. As I took a seat at the kitchen table, he opened the fridge, rooting around for a few moments before bringing out potatoes and a couple of steaks. He began chopping the potatoes, filling a pot with water, and setting it on the stove.
