Page 27 of Alpha's Bullied Mate
“Is she…humming?” Jason asked me quietly.
And she was, much to my own annoyance.
God, I couldn’t be near her any longer.
I pushed off the door. I didn’t think I could handle seeing her walk out inmyclothes, inmyscent. It made a jealous and ugly thing rise up in me.
“Where are you going?” Jason asked.
“Out,” I growled. “Work.”
“What about—”
“Watch her like a fucking hawk,” I warned. “If she even moves one foot out of this bathroom, I want to know about it. She runs, tackle her. Do whatever it takes to stop her from escaping, but make sure no harm comes to her. I do not want a physically harmed captive, do you hear me?”
“Yes but how do we stop her if we aren’t to harm her?”
“You can prevent someone without pain,” I told him. “Or are you too weak for that?”
Jason scowled at me before it melted into a grin. “We got this, boss.”
“Yeah, see that you do.”
I walked off, calling goodbye to the rest of my pack. As much as I wanted to shift into a wolf again and outrun my own head, I needed the very human experience of a car that was as fast as my thoughts were, something physical to push to the limits. I still had an hour before needing to start work, and the backroads leading out of Oak Hill towards the other towns along the way to Atlanta would be empty enough.
Despite the crash, the SUV I drove, matching Jason’s, purred beautifully beneath my foot as I put the key in the ignition and started her up. I pressed the gas pedal, steeredtowards the backroads, and then floored it. I wove in and out of cars that beeped at me. But I needed this: speed, racing, power.
It made me feel in control of at least one thing. Behind the wheel… That was what I could handle. I could make sense of a car with its mechanics, but not Dakota. The faster I drove the more I left her behind.
I pressed on, gaining even more speed, running into a blessedly empty stretch of road. I was terrified of how intense my feelings were getting. Usually, I was good at shrugging off a woman. Feelings were nothing, like gnats buzzing about in the summer, annoying but easy to swat away with enough attempts. But not these. These feelings burrowed beneath my skin, refusing to let go.
Dakota Shields was only supposed to have been a high school crush, but thanks to my own pack’s mistake she had infiltrated my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Had they picked the right girl I’d have carried on living my life without Dakota’s presence messing everything up. But then…
“Then nothing,” I muttered, at my own doubts trying to tell me, but then I’d have never met her again, never known what that sort of desire might feel like that I’d felt in the woods. I half wished I’d given her back to Fenrys’s pack just to wash my hands of her but, in that moment, I hadn’t wanted to. Faced with Conall asking for her back, I couldn’t. I’d told myself it was purely to act out my plan against Fenrys, but I knew that wasn’t the only reason I couldn’t let go of Dakota. Plus, the humiliation of giving her back without achieving anything, not even one good fight, was too heavy to consider.
I comforted myself that it was due to avoiding humiliation that I’d kept her in the dark and lied about what Conall had said, soshewouldn’t leave, either. I kept tellingmyself that as I drove on and on. I didn’t realize just how far I’d gone until I hit the town lines and was brought up short.
You are now leaving Oak Hill.
I reversed and turned to go back when my boss text me.
A, you were due in work 15 mins ago. Where r u?
I sped up, racing into town. At least my work day would distract me from thinking about her too hard.
***
When I got home from work, Dakota’s voice from inside the house, light and female, surprised me. Then, I was immediately on guard. The only other time she’d talked to any of my pack was to trick Ryan. I ran into the house but paused out of sight. She wasn’t bound again. Instead, she curled on the sofa with a cup between her hands. The sight of her in my clothes did the very thing I’d been afraid to feel earlier. That flip in my chest, the swoop of my stomach, theweakness. I’d seen women walk around in my large shirts, barely covering their ass and very little else, and it hadn’t done anything to this extent.
But her relaxed nature with Ryan, whom she was talking to again, made me jealous. I’d never hear that soft, comfortable version of her. I hated that I never would. I was prickly, making her prickly side come out to fight, too. She was soft and good underneath all that ready-to-strike defense, and I missed seeing that.
I wanted her worst, but… I also wanted her best, too.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Ryan laughed.
Dakota gave him a peal of laughter back, and I wondered what Ryan had to incite it that I didn’t. How do I get her tolaugh without it being sarcastic? Then, I berated myself for those idiotic thoughts. I didn’tneedto make her laugh; I needed to make her talk.
Had I been thinking clearer, I would have used Ryan to ease Dakota up a little, get her to open up to him, but all I saw was jealousy clouding my vision as I pushed into the room.
