Page 47 of Alpha's Bullied Mate
“Wolfie,” I groaned. “You don’t want to keep doing that.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not,” I answered through gritted teeth. I’d just fought another shifter because he’d insulted her. Been sexually suggestive, and I’d grown possessive. I’d done it with my pack. After Sam had commented on Dakota’s legs, I’d wanted to rip his head off, and he was one of own.
Dakota’s hand slid higher up my leg, and I swerved around cars, stepping on the gas. Soon, we arrived at the house. I parked up, gripping the wheel tightly. “I need you to get out the car and walk into the house.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t… Trust myself around you.”
Dakota giggled—actuallygiggled. “Maybe I want to see you lose control.”
“Dakota,” I pleaded, my voice strained.
But she was already rolling her eyes and getting out of the car. She swayed her hips as she walked upwards, and I undressed her with my eyes. When she’d disappeared inside, I rested my forehead on my knuckles and breathed in deeply. I knew why a male shifter suddenly became stupidly fierce and protective of a female. I thumped my head on the wheel several times.
“Get your shit together,” I muttered to myself. “Come on. Comeon.”
I didn’t trust myself not to be stupid and mate with her tonight. I needed her as far away from me as possible. I needed her on top of me. I needed her everywhere.
Breathing in the fresh air, I sucked in a few deep lungfuls and headed inside. I tore off my jacket and waistcoat and only just noticed the bleeding gash soaking my shirt. But as I went to take it off and head into the bathroom, I glanced in my room, where Dakota was leaning on the dresser, the new panties she’d bought sliding down her legs. I stopped, and when she met my gaze, she smiled. It was the devil’s smile, and I was ensnared.
But then she saw the blood, and her eyes widened.
“Aidan,” she murmured. “You’re bleeding. Let me help.”
And, for once, I gave in and let her take me into the bathroom. She unbuttoned my shirt slowly, and although I wanted to make it sensual, she did it carefully, methodically. She grabbed a small towel from the shelf above us while I propped myself against the bathroom cabinet. I let my head fall against the mirrored cupboards nailed to the wall, watching her with lowered eyes.
“You’re good at this,” I mumbled as she cleaned the small gash—a jagged cut, like the shifter had worn some sort of sharp edge on his ring—and searched for a roll of gauze. With my heel, I tapped the cabinet behind me, and she got out the gauze and tape.
“My brother used to come home bleeding a lot,” she told me. “I would patch him up. Bruises, cuts, gashes, anything. One time, his eye swelled up. I took him to the hospital at two in the morning to get it looked at.”
“He was a fighter?” I asked.
“Not intentionally,” she answered me. “He… He was at the bottom of his pack. He wasn’t treated very well, got into fights with them, they fought back every time. Pinned him, threatened him.” Dakota blinked as she took her time wrapping the gauze around my ribs. Her eyes flicked to mine. “He left that pack the week after I graduated.”
“But… Wouldn’t that mean he would have left town as well?”
She gave me a tight, watery smile. “That’s exactly what it means.” A piece of her suddenly slipped into place.
“Why’d you leave Oak Hill?” I asked her again.
And once again, she asked, “Why do you hate Fenrys so much?”
He was the last person I wanted to talk about, but, for once, the truth rose on my tongue. If what I suspectedwastrue, and Dakota was my mate, then I needed to see how it felt to be open. I sighed.
“When I was fifteen, my dad was part of Fenrys’s father’s pack in Silverlake Valley,” I told her. “I grew up with all of them. Fenrys, Conall, Lyna. We were the next generation, the pack to take over our parents. But my dad got betrayed. One of the other shifters in the pack had plans to assassinate Fenrys’s father. But he blamedmydad. Nobody believed my father, nobody believed me, not even the friends I’d grown up with since we were kids in the fuckin’ sandbox.” I shrugged, like it didn’t hurt. Like it didn’t burn anger through me so thick I choked on it.
“Nobody ever spoke up for us, even if they believed us,” I said. “So easily, the Randons turned on their friends. Turned on theirbrothers.While the shifter who had the plans got off with it because he blamed my dad. We were banished out of Silverlake Valley. Nobody ever said goodbye, kept in touch,nothing. That shifter was proud guilty a few weeks later after the actual attempt failed but still nobody invited us back. Nobody apologized. They turn on their own for the sake of the majority.”
My jaw clenched hard. “That’s why I don’t trust him. He’s not his father, but damn, he would have learned his ways. At the very least, as two alphas now, he could have offered me an olive branch. Formed an alliance. And you know what, Dakota? I think I’d hear him out. I hate him but I’d hear him out because nobody ever gave me the goddamn time of day to hear me out, to hear my father out. We had to start again. We had to lose family, friends, everyone and everything we loved, all because a few people were too cowardly to make anyone else think twice.”
When I stopped talking, stopped confessing, my chest heaved, and Dakota had finished bandaging me up. She let her palm rest against my bare stomach, tracing over the ridges of muscle.
“We all have our secrets,” she murmured quietly. When she lifted her head, she nodded. “I don’t know Fenrys the way you do. I haven’t ever experienced that side of him. He was charming when I met him. Honorable. Loyal. He would do anything for his pack. But I can hear where you’re coming from. Aidan, I’m so sorry that happened.”
“I was so angry, Dakota,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers. “I was so angry for the longest time. At him, at his father, ateverything. I couldn’t like anything because I was convinced it’d be taken away or would leave me. It was… It was why I bullied you. Pushed you away and pulled you back in. It was why I did it again the other night. I’m terrified of feelings. But I’m also tired of running.”
