The Alpha’s Forced Mate
Chapter 15

Blake

Thank the gods we had the best shifter doctor in Beaufort Creek. Veronica would have faded into the darkness were it not for the capable hands of Dr. Windsor. I owed her my life for the favor she’d given me, for extending my time with a woman who I was certain was my match in every way. Nothing would take me away from the bratty and compassionate woman who had stolen my attention.

But pack matters would always attempt to do so in some way.

A couple of days after the incident, Jermaine had the whole pack locked down. No one was allowed to visit or leave. While Tanner complained about his stay being extended, he wasn’t exactly opposed to the suite I offered him in the mansion. He had been more than content to stay there with his paintings.

Without any participants to distract me, I was left to my own devices. Two days without Veronica. Two days of her turning down my requests for her company. I must have read a dozen books in the library when I finally ran into her on the second-floor balcony near the office rooms.

Warm wheat skin blushed with coral tones from the afternoon light spilling over the balcony. Her cheeks flushed when she noticed me approaching. She turned away, gripped the cement railing, and exhaled loudly, hardly hiding her disdain.

“You couldn’t get enough of me a couple of days ago,” I teased. “Now you’re avoiding me.”

“Can’t a girl rest?”

I sighed. “I did tell you to take your time.”

My gentle tone drew her attention. “Yes, you did.”

“Have you been taking your time, Nica?”

Pain flashed over her face, along with a medley of warring emotions like confusion, l**t, fear, desire. She seemed to feel it all at once. Then, as if it never occurred at all, her face drained of emotion.

The fierce red-headed vixen returned.

She nodded curtly. “Yes.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“This place is a maze.”

I raised my eyebrows and tried not to smile too wide. Was she giving me an opening? Or was I imagining things? “You want a tour?”

“No, I just…” She shrugged and squeezed the railing. “It’s a big place.”

“Well, if you’re going to live here, you might as well know where everything is, right?”

She pursed her l!ps. She was spending too much time with my mother. “I guess.”

“If you want to go home, you can—”

“No, it’s fine!”

The drastic shift in her countenance alarmed me. Part of me was surprised by how quickly my wolf responded to the slightest hint of her stress. Without much prompting at all, he was at the prowl, ready to pop out and defend her. It was what a mate was supposed to do.

But I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet.

“We’ll start with the third floor,” I said while gesturing to the open door, “and work our way down.”

“My suite is on the second.”

I nodded. “I’m aware.”

She pointed to one of the black cameras hanging above the doorway. “Are you watching me in there too?”

“No, I specifically told Jermaine not to do that during the trials.”

“So, it’s free game now, huh?”

I chuckled and folded my hands behind my back. The gesture came from watching my father give so many tours of his own. Our people loved hearing the history of the mansion and the passage of the Haydens from Europe. It was easy to mimic his stance, demeanor, and tone while delivering a tour to Veronica.

Some habits never seemed to die.

“I assure you that you have all the privacy in the world,” I told her. “I’ll never violate that.”

“You seem less of a bad boy today. Something going on?”

I shrugged. “I’m just being hospitable.”

“That didn’t seem to be your thing during the first trial.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit that wasn’t my best idea.”

She peered over the railing of the third floor balcony. We were pretty high up. Carpeted stairs occupied the space below in a dizzying spiral tunnel.

“How can you stand it?” she whispered. “All this space with no one to fill the rooms?”

“You get used to the silence.”

She frowned. “But what about your pack? Why do you live in this huge house while they live in a city at the end of your driveway?”

I nodded. “You explored the town.”

“Yeah, well, you want me to live here, so I thought I would check it out.”

“And what do you think?”

She wrestled with her response as she rubbed her arms. I noticed her favoring her right hand more than her left. Without thinking, I turned her gently toward me and peeled back the sleeve of her shirt.

She gasped but didn’t retreat.

Irritated flesh sat underneath the fabric. That dagger had done a number on her skin, practically destroying it. “Dr. Windsor said you would need physical therapy.”

“Yeah, it was pretty gnarly.”

“What made you jump in front of me?” I cringed while fixing her shirt. “How did you manage to do it so fast? I don’t even remember seeing you.”

She shuddered and took a step back, pressing into the railing of the balcony. A three-story fall threatened her—yet she seemed more afraid of answering my question than of death.

“It was the right thing to do,” she managed to reply. “Instinct.”

“You want to protect me.”

She flinched and blinked away tears while swallowing repeatedly. “Don’t question it.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“So, take your own advice.”

I grabbed her hand. “Why won’t you take mine, Nica?”

Round, heavily damaged eyes observed me from mere inches away. Her plump rosy l!ps parted and a shudder escaped her, the sound making me feel like I was about to lose my mind if I didn’t do something to comfort her.

Before I could even think of a solution, she slipped away. She put several feet between us. She disappeared beyond a golden door. Irritation propelled me after her and sent me barreling into the sitting room.

It wasn’t anything fancy. Plush carpet covered the ground between walls set with bookshelves. Dusty old music players and various historical artifacts sat in curios along with enough paintings to put the Louvre to shame.

“Why do you keep doing that?” I asked with exasperation. “Why are you running away from me?”

“Why do you want to keep me here like a prisoner?”

I frowned as I shut the door behind me. None of the servants needed to hear this. They talked too much. And all that talk would get back to my mother.

As kind as she was to Nica, I knew just how she would react to this situation.

And I didn’t want her to interfere.

“Nica,” I said gently. “Please stop pulling away from me. It hurts.”

I stepped toward the window even though I was dying to leave the room. Somehow, it was hotter in here than it was outside. Was that just me?

“How can it possibly hurt?” she challenged with a shaky voice. “We’re not meant for each other.”

I shook my head as I swept back the curtain. “How can you say that? How can you reach for me and shove me away at the same time?”

“How can you still want me when I do that?”

Good question. Part of me didn’t know. Another part of me didn’t want to know. It was a confusing mess with her at the center, a radiant and nebulous star intent on blasting me to pieces.

And I gladly stood in the line of her fire.

I took a deep breath and flipped around, keeping her in my vision. “You wanted to know why I don’t have the pack live here.”

Confusion passed through her features and gave way to resolve. She bowed her head, allowing a fiery lock of hair to slide over her face that she made no move to push away. “Yes.”

“When I was a teenager, my parents took me to this beach festival,” I explained as I crossed the room. I paused near an ancient chair, leaning against the back of it. “Ferris Cove—an odd little space situated on the coast. It was a festival run by my best friend’s parents. The Kanes.”

She studied me carefully but remained quiet.

“They were running this festival to raise money for a local charity that helped runaway kids. It had become a huge problem in the area.”

More of her studious attention was given to me. Her shoulders relaxed and her posture relayed more openness than it had in several minutes.

I glanced at the fireplace behind her. “It was Jermaine’s first event in a security position. Tanner’s family was just attending the event. Neil was slinging drinks behind the bar with a fake ID. We were just kids.”

“I don’t see your point.”

I waved away her statement. “I snuck away from my parents because it was just plain boring. Beachside bands playing cheap covers of The Beatles and crap like that.”

She chortled.

As the scene came to mind, I rounded the chair and sank slowly into it. “The others had much the same idea. Neil just wanted to have a cigarette in peace without some overdressed old lady scolding him for it. We found this cave.”

She crossed her arms and wandered to the seat across from me. When she sat down, the energy in the air settled. It wasn’t as hot as it had been when we initially walked inside.

I licked my l!ps and sighed. “Long story short, we got stuck in this hidden chamber used by bootleggers back in the day. They used to smuggle alcohol through the chamber to get it into town without any of the cops knowing about it.”

She nodded, her arms slowly relinquishing their hold over her chest.

“It was neat at first. We just walked around exploring,” I went on. “Until it got too late and the tide started coming in. We were risking death at that point.”

“What did you do?”

I chuckled. “What any teenage wolf would do—I shifted.”

Her features froze.

“I know,” I whispered. “Never change in front of humans, right? And I had no idea these guys were shifters too. I just wanted to get them out of there.”

“You risked your life.”

I nodded. “I did. And it ended up being okay, so my parents didn’t scold me too much after that. We worked together to get out.”

“Are you all still friends?”

“Jermaine is my head of security. Tanner stays whenever he pleases. Milton lives with his family and Neil is in town, but he keeps to himself a lot.”

She bowed her head. “I see.”

“So to answer your question, Nica,” I said, “yes, I would have them all stay with me if I could. At the end of the day, it’s what I want.”

“What’s stopping you?”

I gestured around. “Mom likes her sh!t.”

“F**k her sh!t. Do what you want.”

“Rebellious, are we?”

She sneered. “I didn’t grow up without parents to get judged by some well-off, snooty wannabe bad boy.”

“That’s unfair.”

“No, what’s unfair is you sitting on a gold mine here while your pack lives off scraps at the end of your driveway!”

Rage shot me toward her before I could stop myself. “You’ll think twice before saying something like that to me again.”

“Or what? You’ll hurt me?” She puffed up, rising to her feet even though she was practically shaking at this point. “You’ll lock me away in a tower until I agree to be your wife? There’s nothing you can possibly do to me, Blake, that I haven’t already done to myself!”

The passion, the fury, the f*****g lvst swirling in those yellow-gray crystal balls. The scent of her was so deeply intoxicating that my c0ck pointed directly at her. We’d gone from zero to a hundred in a split second—and there was nothing I wanted more than to pin her to the carpet and nail her into the floor below.

Her pupils exploded as her chest heaved. The angry artery beating ceaselessly in her throat beckoned me, one little bite away from claiming her for eternity. She wouldn’t have a choice then. And it would put an end to this pointless dance.

Several seconds passed in heated silence. A minute stretched on. And then two minutes. After five minutes, the two of us sank away, the air boiling between us like magma. I couldn’t get enough of her. And yet I couldn’t get rid of her either. She wouldn’t leave. But she wouldn’t have me.

Why was she doing this?

Ultimately, my brain told me to turn away even while my heart was squealing like a wounded pig. I waved over my shoulder. “Have it your way, Nica.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“When you make up your mind,” I growled while whipping open the door, “I’ll stop calling you that. Until then, get used to it.”

She huffed and flipped around. Though I couldn’t see her, I knew her face was lobster red. I knew the corners of her mouth were digging into her jawline. She was pouting so hard that I could hear the strain of it. Any minute now, she would start throwing a tantrum. Just like a brat.

And I couldn’t wait for it to happen so I could put her in place.

The more she defied me, the more I wanted her. Nothing would make the sickness go away until she gave me what I needed. More than anything, she was what I wanted.

I just needed her to make up her mind.