Page 29 of Wolf Claimed
She stopped climbing the stairs.
Rafe put his hand on her lower back, urging her to keep moving. “You’ll be fine, Alyssa,” he said in a soft voice.
She chuckled, a strangled sort of laugh. “Now I’mAlyssa, no longerMs. Monroe.”
“I’m trying to do what’s right here,” he said, though his words came out short. Even if Rafe succeeded at keeping her safe from the other shifters, Gallagher could drag her away at any minute, make her disappear completely so that even Tiernan, with all his scouting expertise, couldn’t find her. That thought terrified Rafe.
Alyssa barreled through the metal door on the third floor and shot off toward her room. Seconds later, her door slammed shut. Alphas made decisions that were necessary, not popular. She’d likely get a lot madder at him before he figured a way out of this mess.
“Tiernan, start securing the door and windows. Maddox, grab whatever supplies you can from upstairs before the others return.” Both shifters nodded and left. It was time Rafe had a long talk with Alyssa.
* * *
ALYSSA
Alyssa stopped inside her room.On her mattress sat a pile of pillows, blankets, and towels. And the duffle she had abandoned in Kingsley’s room weeks ago. Someone had gone out of his way to retrieve her belongings and a few extra items to make her more comfortable down here. But who? Tiernan? Maddox? Rafe? She honestly couldn’t say which, because when it came down to it, even though all three shifters were so different from one another, they all had hearts of gold. She just wished she understood Rafe better. He always seemed to distance himself from her. Not like Maddox, though. Maddox was still grieving for his mate. But Rafe hated humans, and he saw Alyssa as nothing more than another weak, useless human.
A moment after she closed her door, Rafe entered without knocking.
“Don’t any of you shifters knock?”
“No need to.”
“What if I were undressing?”
He got the most devilish gleam in those brilliant green eyes of his. “Then I’d count myself fortunate and enjoy the show.”
The way he spoke to her, with a seductive voice that wasn’t nearly as harsh as earlier, made it hard to think of him as the enemy.
“I can strip, make it easier for you to look me over,” he offered with a playfulness she’d never seen in him.
“You don’t seem mad anymore. What’s happened?” she asked, unable to shove her suspicious nature aside. Being cautious had saved her hide more times than she could count.
Rafe cocked his head, looking too enticing with how he filled out the tight black t-shirt and faded jeans. “Why would you think I was mad at you?”
“Aside from the fact that you looked ready to murder me when I came out of that interrogation room? Nothing. Except the way you tossed me around like a criminal, first shoving me toward Maddox and then practically dragging me back here. That isn’t the behavior of a friend.”
“I had to keep up appearances, to let the other shifters believe I could be impartial.”
“I saw it in your eyes, Rafe. Red hot anger.”
“I was mad, but not at you, Artemis.”
“Back to Artemis,” she huffed. “First you called meMs. Monroe, thenAlyssa, nowArtemis,as if nothing’s happened and this is just another day at training. Which is it, Rafe? Who. . . What am I to you?”
“You tell me,” he said as he stepped so close she inhaled his scent as if something deep within her needed that connection to steady her. “You’ve been hiding your true identity from me, from our pack.”
“We’re not a pack. We’re a team. A temporary team.”
“You don’t understand pack dynamics. There’s a natural order to things, a bond that keeps the pack together. It’s more than knowing your packmates will defend you at any cost, and that you’ll defend them. It’s a sense of community, presence. Belonging.”
“Meaning what exactly? You feel tied to me, Tiernan, and Maddox? You’d choose us over the pack that sent you here if it came down to a life-or-death situation?”
Rafe frowned, but said nothing. He couldn’t or wouldn’t answer her because she was right. For as much as he professed the four of them were a pack, they weren’t, not like the one he had waiting for him back home.
“We’re a team, Rafe,” she repeated, driving home the point that at the end of this program, they’d all go their separate ways. If she survived that long. “Or we were a team before someone killed Graves. Let’s face it, I’m nothing more to you and the others than a distraction, a release. What happened in that boathouse. . . Ah, hell, Rafe, it’s my fault. I never should have teased you like that.”
“Or you recognized what I’ve been trying to deny. That we belong together.”
