Page 56 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

As darkness settles, I wrap my arms around his hips. “Do you have any other stories about him?”

I feel him smile against my hair. “I do.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Yes, pup. I can tell you.”

15

“Lexa?”

My eyelids flutter open. Shay perches naked on the edge of the bed. “Shay?”

“I’m going to check something out. Stay here.”

Instantly I’m wide awake. I don’t remember falling asleep, but during one of Shay’s stories about Daniel, I must have drifted off because it’s morning, and I’m naked in bed with fresh sheets covering me to my neck.

Shay must’ve made up the bed and tucked me in. “I’ll come with you.”

He kisses my brow. “Sleep. I won’t be gone long.”

“What do you need to check out?”

He gazes down at me for so long that I know he’s thinking about lying. “Shay?” I sit up and rest my head against the headboard. “Tell me.”

When he releases a long sigh, my tension rises. “I heard something.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure. It’s why I need to investigate.”

My eyes search his face. “Could it be Ewan? Maybe the fighting is over.”

Slowly, he shakes his head. “It’s not Ewan. This is something else.”

I study him for another minute, and then I shift to the edge of the bed. “I’m coming with you.”

Before I can get out of bed, Shay grips my arms and stops me. “I need you to stay here.”

“Shay,” I say in a steady voice as I can manage, “the last time you walked out of that door, you came back with a half-dead wolf. You’re not going alone.”

My voice breaks at the end, which ruins all my intentions of being the steady partner I’m trying to be.

“That won’t happen. I’ll—”

“No,” I interrupt. “I’m going with you.”

It’s not in my nature to argue back. It never has been. But this is too important, too big to say nothing and just agree. My nightmare of Shay’s dead blue-green eyes warns me what could happen.

For several seconds, Shay doesn’t speak. “It’s important that I go alone, Lexa.”

“And it’s important that I go with you.”

Silence falls again, the tension ramping up because I’m not backing down, and it looks like neither is Shay.

His brow creases in a frown. “Pup, I—”

“I’mnota pup,” I interrupt as panic grips me that Shay’s about to walk out and never come back again. Or I’ll find the body of a white-gray wolf with dead eyes hours from now.

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