Page 33 of Alpha’s Wife

“You’ve known him a long time,” I say.

“Since he was a boy. I’ve always lived on this coastline, and I knew their mother.” She opens her eyes, and there’s something sharp and knowing in them under all the tiredness.

I think of Ronan saying what Ralph did to their mother, to them. It makes me so sad, thinking of them being small and without a settlement like this to rely on. It’s even more impressive that they built it themselves to give others what they didn’t have.

“She raised them alone,” Ada goes on. “Little cabin out along the coast, wind coming straight through the boards. There was never enough of anything out there. I don’t think those boys were warm a single winter.” She shakes her head slowly. “But that woman. She was always singing. You’d hear her halfway down the path, singing, those two at her feet. She made them feel rich on nothing at all. I never did work out how. She was a good woman, and so beautiful, even though I could see the sadness.”

My throat tightens.

“What happened to her?” I ask, though I think I already know.

“Fever. It was the hardest winter, when the boys were seventeen.” She says it plainly. “Took her inside a week. Nothing to be done; we had no place like this then, no healers really, just guesswork, and she was so thin, of course. Never enough food. There were only a few of us there when they buried her. I never would have imagined they’d build all this, and now here I am. They’ve always been so good.”

The look on my face must be incredulous, because Ada starts laughing again, then breaks into another round of coughing. “Well, not always good, I’m sure.” She laughs between coughs. “But they are good men; their mother would be proud. Of all of this. They found room for me, wouldn’t hear of leaving us down the coast when they started building, and I’ve been here ever since. He’d give you the coat off his back, they both would. But they don’t know how to ask for help. They’ve never asked anyone for anything.”

I don’t say anything for a moment, but I’m thinking about yesterday morning and the way he let go of me the second I pulled back. He didn’t argue, and I thought it was all strategic, but maybe it runs deeper. Maybe he doesn’t know how to maneuver actually wanting something, or someone, because he expects people to leave. Maybe he’s less in control of this situation and me than I realized.

And I’m the one going behind his back and talking to the island about him.

I immediately tell myself that’s different because I’m trying to stop a war from starting. But I’m also telling a story that’s not mine, but is very much my business—especially if he means to try and use my bond magic. But I don’t think Ronan will understand any of that if he finds out. I think he’d see it as a betrayal, colluding with the very people he thinks were part of causing his pain. Maybe he’s right, but that doesn’t mean I can risk starting a war, not if there’s something I can do to stop it.

“Get some rest, Ada,” I say as I realize she’s dozing off, and I hope she doesn’t notice that my voice isn’t quite steady.

She’s already halfway under, the warmth of my bond magic and her tiredness pulling her down together. I stay until she’s properly asleep and tuck the blanket over her thin shoulders, then go back to the pile of laundry that’s still waiting for me because I need something to do that doesn’t require thinking.

Emma finds me there a while later and drops a stack of towels beside mine. “You’ve gone quiet,” she says. “Ada talk your ear off?”

“Something like that,” I admit.

She studies me for a moment and then bumps my shoulder gently with hers. “He’s worth it, I think. Tell me to mind my own business, but he’s a good man, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” she tells me, and for a minute, I don’t even know where to look. “Don’t blush, girl, it’s clear you have some kind of bond. I know you’re a witch, and you don’t have the same bonds wolves do, but it’s there. You glow when he’s around. That’s rare.”

“I know,” I say, and I mean it, and that’s the whole problem.

Because I do know. I’ve known for a while. He’s not the monster I grew up thinking of whenever people talked about rogues, and everything I learn about him makes it harder and harder to hang on to the fact I’m supposed to be hating him, stopping him, fighting him, and trying to escape.

Am I even trying to escape anymore?

I start folding the towels Emma brought and don’t even let myself finish that thought.

Emma doesn’t push. She simply picks up the clean laundry I’ve finished sorting and adds, “For what it’s worth, you both look at each other the same way. Like he can’t work out why he feels the way he does, because he’s never felt it before. I’m old, but I see it all.” Then she walks away before I can even answer, which is a kindness, because I don’t know what to say.

Tom walks me back up to the cabin that evening, talking the whole way about his late wife’s prize-winning runner beans and the neighbor they used to have who cheated every single year at the village show, and we laugh about how he’s still holding a grudge. I let his voice wash over me because it’s easier than dwelling on my own thoughts. He waits until I’m inside and the lights are on before he waves and heads off to his pups, the way he does every night. The cabin’s dark, and I can tell Ronan has been out all day. I know where, instinctively; I know he’s ramping up his plans against the island and has probably been at sea all day. He’s got fast boats in the harbor now, so the crossing is short, and more seem to arrive every day.

I should be glad he’s gone, because things feel simpler when he is.

Instead, I leave the porch light on and sit up in the dark living room with a blanket and a book I barely actually read, listening for his boots on the steps, worrying about a man who kidnapped me, held me prisoner, and made me start liking him despite it all.

He’s spent his whole life braced for people to leave, and I’m increasingly finding that I don’t want to.

But I’m also the one keeping a secret that would prove him right.

Chapter 16 - Ronan

The porch light is on when I come up the path, and I know she waited up, which both surprises and warms me.

I shouldn’t be glad she’s awake, though, because I’m in no state to see her. Tristen’s betas were waiting for us when we reached land—it was an ambush, with real numbers for once instead of the token watch they usually deploy with so many harbors to patrol. They’re clearly rattled, but they’re also getting more organized. They’re still losing, though, and they know it, so they came at us in the dark, hitting hard, but unprepared for how hard we’d hit back.

I got every one of my men out. That’s the part that matters. I put myself between one of my younger recruits and a wolf twice his size, blocked him, and took a set of shifted jaws to the shoulder for it, along with a gash down my ribs from another. But we hurt them more and left the shore together, gone before they could close the trap. We won despite the odds, because I was the only one injured, as it should be if I’m the one leading them, while they had multiple casualties. But even though I’m on dry land now, I can still feel the fight running through my veins. I shifted and healed the worst of it; the rest will take care of itself overnight.