Filed to story: Luna Lovette and Alpha Kodak Story
“Because an SUV wouldn’t have been much good as somewhere to live over the past six months.”
“You’ve been living in the Winne-thing?” she asked, shocked. He nodded. “So when you said you’d spent six months looking for me, you meant it literally?”
He gave her an odd look. “Of course I meant it.” Realization quickly dawned on him. “You thought I meant I’d had other people tracking you for me.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “You’re an Alpha; you have shit to do.”
“Not anymore, remember. I gave it up the day I found out you’d left. I’ve been searching for you ever since.” Casting a glance at her, he saw her skeptical look. “You don’t believe I gave up the position?”
“I believe you’ll go back.” She wasn’t sure about the rest, but she was pretty certain about that. “Living without your pack and your land is hard.”
“Living without you is harder.”
Instead of sounding soppy or pathetic, it had instead come out sounding cutely possessive and protective.
“Besides, if you want the truth, I don’t much like company.”
That had her double-blinking in surprise. “You don’t like company?” she echoed disbelievingly. “You’re a shifter.”
“People annoy me. I like being alone.” Yeah, he knew that was odd for a shifter-they craved contact and thrived on it. But he’d never felt the same satisfaction from social contact that the rest of his kind did. Then, after spending five years of his life in juvie where there were no such things as space, privacy, or quiet, he’d eventually come to crave those things as opposed to social contact. And he wasn’t good at bonding anyway.
Shaya was about to question how the hell someone who liked solitude could have acted as an Alpha when she caught sight of something in the side mirror. “Is that Derren in the SUV behind us?”
Nick sighed tiredly. “Yes.” He’d noticed his “bodyguard” minutes earlier.
Turning in her seat, she regarded him through accusatory eyes. “Aha. You said you’d left the pack.”
“I have.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t still have a bodyguard,” she pointed out impatiently. “Which means you’ve only been telling me all this to fool me into mating with you.”
“Sorry, Nancy Drew, but you’re wrong on that one. I’ve been trying to get rid of Derren for years.”
“Why would he stick around to protect you if you’re not Alpha?”
“It was never anything to do with me being Alpha. It’s a personal thing.”
“Really?” she drawled, skeptical. “And what is this personal thing?”
He’d rather not say, would rather not tell her about that period of his life in case it scared her off. “You know, you didn’t answer me last night when I asked you if there was a guy in your life.”
Thrown off-balance by the complete change of subject, she was silent for a moment. Instead of answering, she hit his question with one of her own. “Is there a female in your life?”
Nick would have insisted on hearing her answer first, but it killed him to see the distrust in her eyes. “There hasn’t been anyone since I first saw you.”
She snorted and turned her head away. “Yeah, right.”
He tugged on her hair, demanding her full attention. “I wouldn’t betray you like that.”
She spluttered. “But we aren’t mated.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You chose to forsake me.”
“No, I chose to put your safety above everything else. It didn’t change the fact that the only person I wanted was you.”
If that was true, he was going to be seriously pissed off by her answer, and then she’d be stuck in a car with a raging, too-damn-dominant alpha male wolf. That was never a good situation, and her wolf wasn’t looking forward to it. When he raised a questioning brow at her, she averted her gaze as she admitted, “I dated a couple of times.” She braced herself for an explosion. There wasn’t one. Risking a glance at him, she saw him looking calm and cool. Only his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel betrayed his inner turmoil. “Why aren’t you yelling?”
“How can I?” His words were like crushed rock. “All you were doing was trying to get on with your life.”
And now she felt bad. She shouldn’t. She knew that. If he’d yelled at her, she could have rightly pointed out that if he hadn’t wanted her to date anyone else, he should have claimed her. But although he was undoubtedly angry, he’d turned that anger inward, had directed it at himself, and was taking responsibility for what he’d done. Dammit. She wanted to stay pissed at him, and he was making it hard.
As he smoothly pulled up outside the salon, Shaya glanced at him to find that he still wasn’t looking at her. “I never slept with any of them.” No, she hadn’t owed him that detail, but he could so easily get to her. It wasn’t just because he was her mate, either. It was his eyes…those pools of dusky green had dark shadows there-scarred by a pain that no person would ever want to feel. Any female with a heart would want to reach out and take that away, not intensify it. She was hurt, but she wasn’t bitter and twisted and didn’t relish the idea of making anyone’s pain worse.
Fighting to keep his touch gentle when anger was overwhelming him and putting a sour taste in his mouth, Nick briefly breezed his thumb across her cheekbone. “Thank you for telling me that.”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?