“So the night you rejected me, huh?” That’s what he said when I asked him about the scars. He fully accepted his side of the bond just in time for the marks to be made permanent—right after I showed off my alpha side. “Funny. You weren’t so keen on mating me when you were telling me that you had no intention of going through with the Luna Ceremony. Then, surprise. Gem’s an alpha, and you have to have her.”
His dark brows draw together. “You don’t honestly believe that, do you? That I could be so cold? So ambitious?”
Why not? It worked for Shane.
“What’s that you told me?” I flick my free hand toward his sculpted chest. “Those are your marks now, right? Proof’s right there.”
Ryker glances down at his chest as if only just realizing he’s not wearing a shirt. “It’s the first time you marked me. Of course I kept them.” He looks back at me. “What’s it you said to me? Back in the basement?”
The moon fever isn’t just affecting you…
Oh, I was wondering how long it would take before he threw that in my face. Some part of me was holding onto the hope that we could pretend that moment of pure insanity didn’t happen. Ryker was chained up, I’d just been poisoned… we should get a pass, right?
One look at the determination etched into every line of his gorgeous face tells me quite simply: wrong.
I shake my head. “Know what? Forget it. I’m not doing this right now. Not with you.”
“Gemma—”
“I think you should just go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Oh?
“Fine.”
He can stay out on the balcony all night if he wants to. See if I care.
Moving away from the balcony door, I throw it open. I stalk back inside the apartment, slamming my half-drank can of ginger ale onto the nearest surface.
Just my luck, the sticky soda sprays out everywhere.
Grumbling under my breath, I start to storm toward the kitchen to grab a wet paper towel when I hear the predatory footsteps follow me inside. I cast my eyes toward the moon, then spin around.
Ryker’s leaning with the bulk of his shoulder against the now closed door. His arms are crossed low, highlighting his muscular form, with the whisper of a daring grin on his soft lips.
Luna, help me. Can’t he take a hint?
“Get out.”
“No.”
“This is my territory.” My claws come out with an audible snick. “Don’t push me, Ryker.”
“Did you know? When you go alpha, there’s nothing sexier.” His eyes flash, a come hither look lurking in their depths. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Why? So he can use my undeniable pull toward him against me?
It’s my turn to refuse him. “No.”
A soft exhale. He straightens, using the opportunity to step further into the apartment. “You’re wrong, you know.”
I quirk an eyebrow, careful to stay on my side of the room. “Yeah? About what now?”
“About when I decided to accept you. You think it was that night last year.”
“Of course I do.”
“Wrong.”
I’m not. “Ryker—“
“Gemma. I’ve always known who you were to me. Just like I’ve always known what you are.”
I gulp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You recognized me as your mate when we first met, didn’t you?”
Suspicion has me squinting over at him. “How did you know that?”
He holds out his hands, offering me his palms. “You’re like me in so many ways. We’re probably too alike, and it’s made me wonder if we’ll work. But I figure the good Luna wouldn’t match us up if we wouldn’t. And we fit. Luna knows we fit.”
Don’t blush, Gem. You have a half-naked Ryker Wolfson in your living room talking about ‘fitting’. Don’t you dare blush.
Clearing my throat, I look away from the heat in his gaze. Of course my eyes land on his bare chest—his bare chest and the five perfect scars I gave him.
The scars he stubbornly kept.
My hand slides up to my cheek. The marks were gone before I made it back to Muncie, but I can still sense them.
He glares at my cheek, almost as if he can sense the wounds that were there, too. And maybe he can because, with a strangled snarl, he tells me, “I’m an alpha wolf. A protector. Until I was sure you were safe, I couldn’t let myself have you. Not last year. Not two nights ago.”
“What about now?” I interrupt. “What’s so different about now?”
“I did a lot of thinking in that basement. If you couldn’t be safe from me, I have to accept that you might never be safe. At least not as safe as my overprotective wolf demands. But that’s okay. The world’s not a safe place, but I still know that there’s no better place for you than my side. You’re mine.”
“Excuse me?”
You think Ryker would’ve figured me out by now, especially since he’s convinced that I know him so well. That’s not a polite ‘excuse me’ where I’m asking him to repeat himself, and it’s not an incredulous ‘excuse me’ that’s giving him the chance to think about what he’s saying to me. No, it’s a warning that maybe he wants to stop right there before he goes any further.
He sets his jaw, the last glimmer of his humor fading as he turns his gaze into high beams. “You don’t want to hear this—”
Damn right. “Ryker. It was just sex.”
Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? I know. He knows, too.
Giving up any pretense that this isn’t an alpha fight—just different than any I’ve had before—Ryker strides the rest of the way into the apartment.
“What did you say?”
The hairs on my arm stand straight as a shiver courses down my spine. My wolf rises from her cozy slumber again, completely alert and paying sudden attention as his quiet question triggers my own alpha instincts.
Only, I’m not angry, like I was when I stormed inside earlier.
I’m burning up.
I can’t let him know that, though. He already chose placating Trish for some reason over telling me the truth once before and, despite everything that’s happened between us since he stalked back into my life, I can’t help but expect it’ll happen again.
“It was the pull of the moon,” I tell him. A couple days early, but the run and the chase with Ryker definitely hadn’t helped. “If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you, it might’ve been someone else.”
Might’ve been, though I doubt it. The underground room with the chains proves that Ryker has his own way to temper the need that came during every full moon. Maybe it’s worse for male alphas since I’ve always been able to deal with my libido with some brainless TV, a turn with my vibrator, and a gallon’s worth of Breyer’s.
Or maybe I want to believe it because, if I accept that he really stayed away for me, that Trish might’ve been as much a pawn in this as I was thanks to Shane… then I have to really begin to think that I don’t have a choice.
That we really are fated to be together…
Suddenly he’s right in front of me. Ryker grabs my hand, pulling me into his space. His territory. His warm skin is a furnace against mine, his breath tickling the tiny hairs framing my face. My head is tilted back, though I don’t even remember jerking it that way. It’s as if I can’t help but meet his dark gold eyes.
Before I can avoid him, his mouth is slanting over mine. I gasp, and Ryker takes full advantage of my open mouth with a kiss so deep, I swear he’s licking the back of my throat.
Then, almost as quickly as the kiss began, it’s over and the only thing keeping me up is his hold on me.
“It wasn’t just sex,” he growls.
I shiver. Whether it’s from the heat of his embrace, his demanding kiss, or his growl, I don’t know… hell, it’s probably from all three. “It—”
“No. It’s my turn. And I’m going to tell you that it’s never been just sex to me. Mating is for life. That’s what I want from you, Gem. What I’ve always wanted from you. Forever.”
Forever… forever… forever.
It echoes in my ears.
Forever…
“You can’t mean that.”
“Oh, but I can. You see, you’re my first. My last. My everything. Nothing will ever change that, and I’m done with letting you try to pretend it will.”
I blink. “But Trish—”
Ryker lets loose a rumble deep in his chest. “What about her?”
Am I really blushing now? As the blood rushes to my head, I can’t help it. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know what to believe. I thought you and Trish—”
Saying it out loud, I feel ridiculous. I went into a prospective mating with Ryker a virgin because that was my choice. I never blamed him for bedding someone—Trish or anyone else—because that was his choice. My issue had to do with Ryker bringing me to Accalia while still fucking Trish on the side.
But he said something about me being his first that morning after we were together. I ignored him then.
Something tells me that I can’t ignore him now.
“Me and Trish what?” Then, before I can answer, he nuzzles the edge of my jaw. “Let me make this as easy to understand as I can. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a ‘me and Trish’. It’s my fault for ever allowing you to think so. You won’t have to worry about her anymore. She’s gone.”
All I get out of that is: she’s gone.
I had to have heard him wrong. “What did you say?”
“She’s gone. I’ve kicked her out of the pack.”
“What? Why?”
He pulls back enough that I can look him in the face as he explains, “It was always coming. I would’ve done it after that the night you marked me.” Ryker takes my hand, sliding it between our bodies, laying it on his chest. “I thought I was the only one who knew you were an alpha. I didn’t care. I don’t care, Gem,” he says, cutting me off when I start to argue. “Alpha, beta, omega… if you were a gamma, I’d still want you. Because you’re mine. The moon only confirmed what I knew from the moment I first laid eyes on a scrawny fifteen-year-old kid and freaked out because she made me harder than I’d ever been before.”
“You were only seventeen,” I point out. “Everything had to have made you hard.”
“It was different,” he insists. “And when you’re seventeen, looking at your forever, it’s a little scary that she’s so small, so delicate, and, well, fifteen.”
“I might be small,” because, duh, “but I’m not delicate. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not fifteen anymore, either.”
A long, lazy look as he leans back and takes me in from head to toe. “Oh, sweetheart, I noticed.”
He thrusts his hips just enough for his erection to bump into me.
I swallow my moan before reminding him, “And you’re not seventeen.”
“But you still make me hard.”
You know what? It would be so easy to let him seduce me. To continue with this heated tease until I’m half-naked like Ryker and then, whoops, we’re both naked. Ryker asked me where Aleks was, and I purposely side-stepped the question. My roommate took off after our awkward conversation in the kitchen and he hasn’t been back since he explained that he needed to take some time to be by himself.
Translation: he needed to get the hell away from me.
With my luck, he’ll decide to show up again in the middle of me and Ryker fucking like bunnies in the apartment.
That, if nothing else, has me shoving him in the chest.
Like Aleks, I need some space. Just a little.
I know how to get it, too.
“You were telling me about Trish. Please,” I murmur. “It would be so easy for you to kiss me again and make me forget. But I have to know. Please, Ryker.”
It amazes me how different things are. I remember when, once upon a time, I choked out a please and Ryker accepted it as his due.
Now?
He just nods, and says, “Trish knew. She knew you were a born alpha. When she told me a few months before my Alpha Ceremony, I pretended I didn’t know, then I acted as if it was impossible. She had proof, Gem. It caught me off guard, and when she said she’d tell everyone if I didn’t keep my distance from you, I thought I could keep you separated until I could figure out where she was getting her information from.”
“And then you became Alpha,” I guessed. “And you had to take a mate.”
Ryker sighs. I get it, too. The only way an Alpha gets the gig is by taking over for the last one. He could’ve challenged his father for the position, or he could’ve waited for him to die. And then his dad had his accident, and suddenly Ryker was stuck.
“Right. And the whole pack thought it would be Trish because she was obvious that that’s what she wanted. Even after the moon said otherwise, even after I made my choice, she kept pushing. I had to keep her quiet until I could figure out how she knew the truth.”
Obvious is an understatement. Up until Ryker told me that he didn’t actually choose Trish, I was convinced he had.
Even then, I was having a hard time believing he really wanted me.
I still do.
At least we both know now how she learned the truth about me. That was Shane, the same bastard who kept throwing Trish at Ryker, hoping he’d take her and leave me available for Shane to swoop in and steal me away.
As if.
“I don’t get it, though. Why did it matter what she threatened to do?” Hell, after a lifetime of guarding it fiercely, I gave up my own secret for Ryker’s sake. “She blackmailed you over nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Ryker responds fiercely. “Do you think I don’t know what would happen if it got out that you were an alpha? How many challenges I’d have to fight to get you? I’m a calculating bastard, sweetheart, and I didn’t like those odds. I had one thing on my side. I knew you were meant to be mine. I always knew. I was hoping you knew it too, since it’s an alpha thing. I was hoping our bond was strong enough that, if I was forced to reject you to keep your secret, you’d forgive me eventually.”
Right. And what did I do instead?
I almost tore his heart out of his chest, and then I bolted. Thanks to Aleks’s fang, I managed to hide from Ryker for over a year.
Whoops.
I duck my head, pressing my lips to his chest. I kiss the nearest mark. I think it’s from my pointer finger.
Looking up at him again, I give him a crooked grin. “Aren’t you glad that I didn’t rip this out when I had the chance?”
“Why? It’s yours, Gem. It’s always been yours. Take it if you want. I gave it to you a long time ago.”
I blink. “Ryker—”
A shadow darkens his ruggedly handsome features. “I know where Shane is.”
My jaw clicks shut. Okay. After that solemn declaration, I didn’t expect him to change the subject so quickly. But, yeah, he’s definitely got my attention.
“What? Where?”
Ryker lifts his hand, smoothing the top of my hair. “You want to know why I kicked Trish out? For the same reason that I’m gonna need a new Beta. He’s been two-timing me, just like she’s been using her jealousy to turn her against our pack. Shane wanted you, and she wanted you gone. It’s why she’s been sneaking around my cabin when I wasn’t around, and why Shane broke you out of the basement the night of the full moon. Someone else was giving the orders.”
“You don’t mean…” I can’t even finish my thought.
All the same, he nods. “They both gave their loyalty to a new Alpha long before you came to Accalia for the first time.”
My stomach sinks. I don’t have to ask, I can already guess I know the answer, and still—
“Who?”
“Wicked Wolf Walker.”
Luna damn it!
“I fucking hate that guy,” I mutter.
“Yeah, well, get in line. I don’t know how he knew about you”—wait, he doesn’t?—“but he’s the one who told Shane about the rumors that the Lakeview Pack was hiding a female alpha. He figured out it was you somehow, and he passed the intel onto Trish. He pushed me to mate her, knowing that I didn’t want anyone but you.” Ryker’s eyes shift, more of a deep amber this time. His canines lengthen just enough that his fangs bite into his bottom lip as he grins. “When I get my claws in him, he’ll understand why Betas don’t interfere when it comes to the Alpha couple.”
He said when I get my claws in him… “I thought you know where he is.”
“I do. He made it through Muncie,” he tells me, “and he’s now the acting Beta of the Western Pack.”
My birth pack.
With my sociopath of a sperm donor.
Shit.
I sag. I didn’t mean to, but this is just too, too much. It was one thing to know that Shane was out there plotting against us; I figured since there weren’t any rumors of another wolf getting caught by one of the local vamps. But to hear that he’s actually with my sperm donor, working with him?
Not even Ryker’s confession that Trish got the boot makes this any easier to swallow.
I might’ve sagged into him, but Ryker’s strong enough to support us both.
“I won’t let them get you, Gem,” he promises me. “Just like I know you’ve got my back. We’re in this together. You and me.”
Seriously?
“I—”
With his hand a possessive brand on my back, his erection still a hard length of steel against my belly, Ryker dips his head to steal another kiss before I can get another word out.
Which is a good thing since, as soon as he starts kissing me, I completely forget what I was going to say. He even manages to knock Shane and Trish and my monster of a father out of my head if only for a few seconds.
Whoa.
I’m out of breath, eyes bright in a mixture of affection and need, when Ryker breaks the kiss. With his free hand, he cups my chin before running the edge of his wolf’s claw against my bottom lip. It’s probably swollen—it’s definitely tender—but the gentle caress has me just about creaming my poor panties.
“Ryker…”
“You’re mine,” he whispers. He rests his forehead against my hairline, forcing me to meet the possession in his molten lava gaze. “I want you, and I won’t let anyone have you. You’re strong, sweetheart, but we’ll be stronger together. So make it easy on me, would you? Will you accept me as your mate? Will you say yes?”
“No,” I tell him. And then I give him a coy smile as I throw my arms around his neck, dragging him even closer to me so that I can kiss him this time. “But ask me again tomorrow.”
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