Page 14 of Alpha’s Wife

The whole field stops, and my betas hover, feeling useless. Most of them have been through similar shit themselves and seem equally frozen. So am I. I don’t know what to do. I know how to make a wolf harder, more successful, but not always how to comfort one.

She does, though.

She’s off the bench and running with my guard trailing after her before anyone else can react. There’s no obvious magic this time; she just drops onto the ground beside him and starts talking, low and soothing. I watch as she breathes with him, showing him the rhythm of the steady beats until he begins to match it. She doesn’t touch him until he reaches for her, and then she lets him grip her arm as a drowning man reaches for something solid. And she just sits there until the worst passes.

It takes a while, and she doesn’t rush him or turn it into a performance. A couple of the recruits drift closer to check on him, and she glances up, saying something that makes them laugh. One reaches for Finn’s hand and hauls him up as he laughs, too. Suddenly, the field starts to move again, and the noise returns, and everyone just seems glad Finn is back up rather than questioning why he was down in the first place. Exactly what he needs.

I don’t move. I just watch, and I tell myself it’s because the field will take its cue from me, and they need me to be calm. But that’s not why.

I just don’t know what to say.

When Finn can breathe again, she walks him off the field herself, over to where Royce is still bleeding by the bleachers. I can hear her talking to him the whole way, making him laugh, distracting him. The guard runs over and tells me that she insists on taking them both to the clinic. I nod, and can’t help the warmth that settles as I watch her helping my recruits as the others return to sparring. It’s like her magic has settled over the entire field, and she’s barely even aware of her effect.

I find her there an hour later because my wolf insists we check that she hasn’t taken the opportunity to run. That’s what I would have done.

She’s there when I walk in, dressing one of Royce’s wounds in the little side room off the entrance with Dax talking to him about not squaring up in fights he can’t win. She and Dax start arguing over which is the best way to set Royce’s shoulder while his wolf heals it; Dax’s healer ways, or the methods her coven apparently used. Neither notices I’m there until Emma comes through with some supplies for another patient and catches me watching. She laughs in a way I don’t appreciate, but says nothing. Instead, she points to the cot in the corner where Finn is asleep as if to tell me not to cause a scene and wake him up. As if I would.

Suddenly, Dax tells Selene something, probably one of his outrageous stories, and points to the scar on his hand. She laughs, really laughs, with her head tipped back and nothing held back. Emma instantly shushes them, but it’s too late. I’ve heard what Selene’s true joy sounds like, and I realize I want more of it. I’ve heard her laugh before, but it’s controlled, doled out dryly between barbs; rationed. Here, she’s giving it away for free.

I watch as she so easily and naturally interacts with and cares for my wolves. The ones no one else wanted, the ones I created this pack for, and she’s doing it without even being asked. For the people who are technically keeping her prisoner.

I stand in the doorway longer than I should and find that I can’t take my eyes off her. I don’t entirely understand the strange feeling in my chest, but my wolf does, and I tell him to stop it. I don’t want to hear it. Acknowledging that feeling would be far too dangerous, and I need it to stop.

She looks up and catches me staring. For a second, we both freeze, but she’s not glaring, for once. She simply lifts one eyebrow at me as if daring me to say something, and then goes back to talking to Royce, laughing with Dax, and thoroughly ignoring me. I have a feeling that whatever point I thought I was proving by bringing her down today has failed miserably.

“You’re staring,” Ryder says, appearing behind me. I didn’t even hear him approach, which tells me just how distracted she’s making me.

“I’m just making sure she doesn’t try to escape,” I reply dryly.

“She looks too busy to run,” Ryder says.

“People run when you least expect it,” I tell him, and it’s true; I know she’s constantly looking for exits. I’d do the same in her place.

Ryder is quiet for a moment, watching me watch her. “I saw what happened at the training ground today,” he says, “The bond magic. Imagine what she could do if she actually wanted to.”

“She’ll never want to do it,” I tell him, my voice flat. “But that’s okay, I don’t need her to want it. Well, she just needs to want it just enough to be willing.”

“Ronan,” he says my name the way he always does when he’s about to say something I won’t like. “You can’t take your eyes off her. Don’t be someone you’re not.”

I turn and look my brother dead in the eye so he knows exactly how this is going to be—how I am going to make this be. “She’s just a tool I haven’t been able to use yet, but I’ve seen how good it could be,” I tell him, my voice dropping low, darker. “So yes, I watch her, because she’s valuable. But that’s not a feeling; that’s just common sense. She’s going to bond with me, I’ll take what I need, and then I’ll take the island. I won’t lose any sleep over how she feels about it because I didn’t build all this to go soft over a witch. Don’t mistake me for a man who would go soft for anyone.”

It’s ugly, and I don’t care; it’s meant to be. It’s the kind of statement that ends a conversation. I watch as Ryder studies me for a moment, the way he often does. He obviously sees something and decides not to push it.

“If you say so,” he says quietly and walks away.

I tell myself I won, but it never matters. Ryder has a way of making me feel like shit. I shake it off, though; I always do.

Chapter 7 - Selene

It’s been almost a month, and with increased freedom of sorts, I find myself drifting back to the clinic.

No one asked me to, but whenever I turn up, Emma and Dax find something for me to do, and the guard that follows me everywhere, Tom, just makes himself busy in the background. I think Emma knows I need something to do, and our shared appreciation for herb magic means there’s always something to do or talk about. I think it reminds me of home, of my coven, and I think Emma knows that.

By rights, the settlement should be pretty grim. Everything I know about rogues tells me this place should be a lawless hellhole. And yet, although it was clearly built by people who started with nothing, cabins built plank by plank, misshapen in places, added to over the years with power lines strung between them and generators keeping the lights on, it has a quality to it I didn’t expect. Somewhere along the way, these people must have decided surviving wasn’t enough. They made it beautiful. There are flower boxes under the windows and rows of neat little gardens; the paths are swept clean. Despite the wildness of the fog-wrapped coastline, this is a haven that people have willed into being, and it shows at every turn. And that unsettles me because it doesn’t fit the narrative I need to navigate my situation.

This morning, Emma has me helping her by holding a dressing infused with herbs while she stitches a gash on a boy who fell off the roof of his father’s workshop before school this morning. He’s too young to shift and heal, so the dressing will help. He watches me the whole time, wide-eyed.

“Are you really a witch?” he asks. “Can you fly?”