Page 18 of The Alpha’s Chosen Mate

He’s holding my hand. Speaking to me now. The same voice from my dream.

It all comes rushing back, making my head spin—the embarrassing way I sobbed into Harrison’s chest in Mr. Martin’s classroom, clinging to him as I confessed my terrible fate. His dad arriving and accepting me into their pack to keep me safe. My wolf trying and failing to emerge again.

And Harrison’s dad saying I’m weak. Too weak.

“How are you feeling?” Harrison dabs my forehead with a damp cloth.

So many scents invade my nostrils: the water on the cloth, the detergent used to launder the fabric, a harsh antiseptic—and beneath it all, a clean, masculine, woodsy scent.

An incessant beeping pings against my eardrums. A chair scrapes across a tiled floor, and fabric catches on a faux-leather seat.

I grimace, overwhelmed by it all. “Everything is too loud and too bright and too smelly.”

Harrison chuckles. “You’ll get used to it.”

The chair scrapes again. He takes twelve steps. The unpleasant light that burns through my still-closed eyelids dims, and Harrison returns to his seat at my side.

I dare a peek out of my crusty eyes. The room is darker now and doesn’t blind me anymore. Like Harrison said, I’m in a hospital room, on my back in a bed, with several heated blankets on top of me to keep me warm. The only body part besides my face that isn’t covered is the hand Harrison was holding. My fingertips are already chilled from the loss of his touch.

He reaches for my hand. But those words—too weak—keep playing over and over in my mind, along with my failure to shift, and I tuck my hand beneath the blankets instead.

Those words echo through me, a taunting mantra of disappointment. They mock me, like they know I failed. Like they know my wolf is right there, close enough to sense but not close enough to be part of me.

I still can’t see her in my mind. I know she’s there. But that’s all it is. A feeling. A presence in my mind. Not fully realized, but there.

Will it ever be more than that?

Harrison clenches his jaw, but he rests his elbows on his knees. I do everything I can to avoid his gaze. The ache within me isn’t just physical. It’s not just in my muscles and bones. It’s in my heart. My soul.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

I remember it all now. The night of my fourteenth birthday, Alpha Justin came to my room at sunset and escorted me to the forest. Then, as the moon hit the highest point in the sky, my wolf pushed forward in my mind—spirited and ready and strong.

But before I could shift, before I could marvel at her presence and celebrate that I had something I never thought I’d get, he stole it all away from me. With a single command, he made me into what he wanted me to be.

Weak. Unworthy.

But none of it was true.

“I have a wolf.”

“Yes,” Harrison says.

“But I didn’t shift.” My tongue is heavy and thick in my mouth, adding to the dryness in my throat.

“That’s correct,” Harrison replies.

My vision blurs as tears flood my dry eyes. My breath shakes and I turn away, staring at the horizontal stripes on the wall. That fog-shrouded wolf in my mind gives the tiniest whimper before growing silent once more. I call for her in my mind, reaching for her with all my energy, but my failed shift—the second one I’ve experienced, I realize—has left both of us too weak to fully connect.

But she’s there. She’s mine.

A wolf. My wolf.

What else do I not know about myself? What if I’m more than a wolf?

No. I would remember that. Becoming a Crescent Lake member invalidated Alpha Justin’s commands—all of them.

A fire surges to life inside my veins. He did this to me. Alpha Justin. He’s the reason for the pain. He’s the reason I can’t shift—the reason I’ve never shifted. It should be as easy as walking for me by now, but he took that away from me.