Page 26 of Wolf Unleashed
“Don’t you want to be with me, Maddox?”
Maddox thrust his hand through his hair as he shot off the log and paced. “Yes, damn it! I’ve been going crazy doing anything I can to distract myself from this pull to you. I never should have blood-bonded you, except it was the right thing to do.”
“For who? You or me?”
“I want you, Alyssa, but I never thought the bond would be so strong. What I had with Isabella doesn’t even compare. There are times I feel I can’t breathe when I know I can’t be with you. Normally, nothing would keep me from you, except the knowledge that if I leave here, you’re dead.”
“Explain,” Rafe ordered.
“My alpha.” Maddox said nothing more, hoping that would be enough.
“Your alpha wouldn’t go after her,” Rafe said. “He’s a bastard from what I’ve seen and heard, but he has no reason to go after her.”
“He doesn’t release shifters from their oaths. And he goes after those who run. He knows threatening me does nothing, but threatening Alyssa… He’d use her or the threat of hurting her to control me.” It was the truth, every word of it.
“That’s crazy. You can’t rule by threatening your people’s family,” Alyssa said, looking to Maddox and then Tiernan and Rafe.
“You don’t want to see the truth, babe,” Tiernan said softly, as if trying to ease the blow. “It’s been like this for generations with Maddox’s pack.
“And the rest of you allow this?”
“Packs don’t interfere with other packs,” Rafe said.
Bit by bit, the confidence Maddox felt across the bond wavered and then shook uncontrollably. Alyssa looked pale, and she started to sway until Rafe moved behind her and let her lean against him. It’s a position Maddox wanted, to be there for her, to hold her when she needed someone, but he had to let the other shifters take care of her, let her rely on them instead of him.
“You see what you’re doing to her, Maddox?” Rafe asked.
“I’m trying to save her. No different than you.”
“But you’re hurting her by staying away. She’s been having nightmares, and they’re getting worse. She’s not sleeping well. She needs you with us.”
“It has nothing to do with being separated from me. If it were, then I’d be having the same trouble, and I haven’t been. I feel the pull, but I can resist it. I’vebeenresisting it. And I sleep perfectly fine with no one expecting anything from me, no one telling me what to do, no one trying to control me.”
She winced at his words. “You think that’s what I was doing?”
Fuck, he shouldn’t be doing this, blaming her so she’d run from him and never look back, never care that she lost him. She deserved the truth.
Tiernan practically puffed out his chest as his hand slipped around her waist, very protective and loving. Rafe guided her to Tiernan’s embrace. That was new. The alpha heir relinquishing her without hesitating. They were becoming the pack—the family—that his angel craved and deserved. Maddox envied their freedom to touch her like that, to treat her with care while he badgered her like an asshole.
Instead of moving toward her as he wanted, Maddox reached down to his Novak genes to say what he knew his alpha would say in his place. “Of course you were trying to control me, Alyssa. You’ve been collecting a harem of shifters to be at your disposal. You were—”
A fist smashed into his face. He never saw it coming, but the force knocked him backward.
“Rafe!” Alyssa admonished, even as she ran to Maddox’s side and dropped to her knees.
“I guess I deserved that,” Maddox said, letting his head slam back against the cold, hard earth.
A shadow fell on him as Rafe stood over him. “Stop lying to her and stop being a dick.”
Maddox wondered how the shifter knew he was lying.
“Why would you say all those things, Maddox?” Alyssa asked, her voice gentle, but not hurt. Worried, if anything. Her hand rested on his thigh, sending the most delicious warmth through him.
“Because you can’t be here, angel.”
“I am here, and I’m not going anywhere without you. No matter what stupid stuff you spew trying to get rid of me, you belong with us, and I don’t give up. Face it, Maddox. We came for you. If this defiance of yours is some male pride thing because we didn’t come sooner, you need to know we just found out that your alpha arranged to get you back.”
The strength and determination coming across the bond floored him.Thiswas his angel, and he absolutely adored her. And he wanted her more than he wanted anything in his life.
