Page 89 of Rejected By the Alpha

Pavel captured my arm and yanked me to my feet. “I’m not fucking playing with you right now, Ember. There was a pack war going on in Black Hollows earlier, and you could’ve been fucking killed, and then I wouldn’t—forget it.”

Suddenly, this hoe twirled right back around and headed for the door.

“So, that’s it? You get mad and leave?” I hummed.

“Fucking forget it. Drop it,” he growled, slamming the door behind him.

I balled my hands into fists and sat back down on the couch. I didn’t know why he was acting like such a dick. I could go places without telling him. Why did everyone have to know my business all the time?

Hot tears welled up in my eyes, and I glared at the screen.

Every day since I had been diagnosed, Pavel became angrier, more and more insufferable, more agitated. And I didn’t know why. I just wanted to live the next few months in peace before I kicked the bucket—or was it the can?

Either way, I deserved some peace, didn’t I?

The door opened again, and I jumped up and gritted my teeth, about to give Pavel a piece of my mind. “Listen here, you fucker. I’m sick and tired of⁠—”

“Thank the fucking Goddess,” Cade said, tugging me into a tight hug, one hand slipping into my hair, his fingers almost running through it over and over as if it was soothing him. “Don’t ever go out without someone again, Ember, please.”

My eyes widened because I’d expected yelling or shouting or a scolding from him.

But instead, I got … this.

Warmth spread throughout my body, and I found myself hugging him back tightly. I didn’t know what had gone on in that place with that red-eyed wolf, but I wasn’t sure I liked it. At least not all of it. But Cade? Cade was familiar.

I had considered Cade home for as long as I could remember. He hugged me tighter, and I melted in his arms. While we might’ve been in a fight right now, there wasn’t a place I would rather be than with him.

“You’re not mad at me?” I whispered against his chest.

“No.”

I buried my head so he couldn’t see it. “Pavel is.”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks. All that matters is that you’re safe. Where did you go?”

Those red eyes flashed in my head, and I pressed my lips together. I didn’t know him, and he hadn’t told me anything about him, but the way my body had been desperate for him … the way I had begged for him to touch me …

It was burned into my fucking memory.

But what was seared was how much I loved his touch, loved his eyes, the sound of his voice. I’d barely seen the man for more than a few minutes, but, God … he was different. I wanted—no, needed—more of him.

“I just took a walk,” I murmured.

This time, Cade pulled away with his brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I walked to Java, and then I walked back.”

Cade’s soft expression hardened. “No, you didn’t. Where were you?”

I opened and closed my mouth a handful of times, a part of me desperate to tell him and another part of me refusing. How would I even explain it? Some red-eyed monster abducted me with fog that left me unconscious, then locked me in his …

Warmth gathered between my thighs, and I whimpered. Fuck, not again.

Though this didn’t feel like the heat I had gone through twice now. No, my core was … burning up at the thought of that red-eyed wolf being inside me. I needed him badly. I needed Davix badly. I needed Cade … badly.

“Now is not the time, Ember,” Cade said, voice laced with seriousness and jaw clenched the way he did when he was trying to control himself. “Where were you? What happened when you were there? How’d you get home? Give me any detail, and I will find who kidnapped you.”

“You don’t need to find him.”