Page 40 of Alpha’s Wife

I want those things, but they also make me feel like a fool, and a traitor all rolled into one. Because he is the monster I was brought up to fear, and I’ve given myself to him willingly. Given him my bond magic. Anything that happens next is my fault, too, all because I couldn’t resist him.

I force myself to get up because lying here and thinking about Ronan isn’t something I can afford to do this morning. Especially because it will only confuse the situation even more. So I head to my room and pull the tablet out from under the pillow. The message I was expecting is waiting for me on the screen.

Selene,

We’ve been talking to our mates and the people in the harbors. They’re frightened—some families are sending their little ones to stay with family on the mainland, just in case. Nobody here wants this.

Tristen let something slip after the last council. They think Ronan isn’t just raiding anymore. They think he’s been moving people and supplies—that he’s building toward something, and that he’s closer than they thought. It’s frightened them, and they don’t seem in the mood to talk anymore. I think they’re preparing to fight. Their first duty is to protect the people here, but there is a lot of sympathy for their half-brothers in the packs; they remember their mother and have been talking about the situation. Ralph was a real piece of work, but if you can stop it on that end, then do it, because I fear what will happen if they come face to face here.

Delete this once you’ve read it.

E

I read it twice, delete it, and sit there with my heart racing.

Closer than they thought. Preparing to fight. I don’t need her to spell it out. If the island strikes first, out of fear, Ronan won’t hold back, and then there’s no stopping any of it.

So I write back, careful, the way I always am, because I’m not trying to betray any of these people. I give her more information about the settlement here, the families, the school, everything Ronan and Ryder have built out of nothing. I tell her to talk to their mates and tell them the full story of their brothers, and not to see them as monsters but rather as men damaged by Ralph and seeking retribution. But that they’re not irredeemable.

But I don’t give her anything that could be used against him. I don’t confirm that I know Ronan has a foothold on the island because I’ve heard about the families that have moved over there, and the witch that fixes the wards. I’m not trying to help them beat Ronan. I’m trying to save him from himself.

I also don’t tell her that the reason Ronan may escalate now is that he has the bond magic. The thing that has changed the most is me; I’ve gifted him the one thing he needs to go from being a threat to being the one man who could beat them all. If they knew that, they might move on the offense even more.

Then I put the tablet away and try to get through the day, knowing it’s going to be one of the last calm ones for a while. The tension is already building in the air as the docks get busier, and all eyes are on the island.

I try, but I can’t settle on anything all day. I go through the motions, but I can’t shake the helplessness I feel. I check the tablet several times, once when I come back from the clinic at lunch because I can’t think about anything else, and as soon as I get back in later. I almost send Emily another email, but then I realize I have nothing new or helpful to say, and every message sounds like a risk. So I make some food, clean things that are already clean, and watch the light crawl across the water toward evening and toward him coming back.

When I first sent the email to Emily, I thought we really might be able to stop this, but now that he has my bond magic, I’m not so sure. His pain is real, and it needs to go somewhere. I’m not sure the alphas on the island really appreciate what Ronan and Ryder went through, what their mother went through, and how much all this has cost them. I’m not sure they appreciate how much he needs to hate them.

By the time I hear his boots on the porch steps, my stomach is in knots. I feel guilty about the emails; I shouldn’t, because he kidnapped me and wants to start a war that will hurt people, and yet I can’t help it.

When he walks in, I can tell his wolf is riding high on whatever he’s been doing all day. He smells like the sea, and he crosses straight to me, arms snaking around my waist as though it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Missed you,” he says into my hair, and goddess help me, my body leans into him almost instinctively. He’s warm, and he smells like salt and cold air and a long day’s work, and for a moment I let my forehead drop against his chest and feel exactly how much I missed him all day, which feels like another small betrayal, missing the man I’m actively working against.

Then I make myself step back, just enough to put some air between us and clear my head.

But he notices. Of course, he notices. I feel him go still, that hunting stillness wolves get, and when I glance up, his eyes are already on my face.

“What?” he says, nothing sharp in his tone, just watchful.

“Nothing.” I turn toward the coffee pot, so I don’t have to look at him. “Long day.”

“Mm.” He doesn’t move. I can feel him behind me, all that new power humming around him, and I know he can feel me, too. That’s the part I keep forgetting—that his wolf easily reads me, that he can likely hear my heart going too quickly from clear across the room.

“You still writing to that coven of yours?” he asks, keeping his tone almost deliberately light. “On the tablet I gave you.”

The floor drops out from under me. He gave me the tablet himself, and he knows I write to Maren. I’m sure he hasn’t been checking it, but for one horrible second, I’m sure the truth is written all over my face.

“Every other day,” I say, and thank the goddess it comes out steady. “Maren worries. She thinks you’re a monster who’s going to get me killed.”

His mouth twitches, almost a smile. “I can see why she’d think that.” He steps in closer, close enough that I have to tip my head back to meet his eyes, and brushes his thumb along my jaw, slow, almost tenderly, except his gaze is doing something else entirely—it’s reading me. “You’d tell me if something was wrong.”

It isn’t a question.

“Of course I would,” I say, lying straight to his face.

So then I give him a different truth to try to hide what I’m really thinking. “I don’t like you getting hurt,” I say, glancing at a fresh bruise on the side of his face that’s already healing. “You go over there every day and come home with some new injury, even when you haven’t been fighting. I don’t love watching you hurt yourself over this.”