There’s one Alpha you would beg for. You’ve begged for him before.
The intrusive thought sneaks up on me with the help of the heat pricking my skin and making my insides feel molten.
Keiran is the one I would ruin myself for in front of the entire pack. So far I’ve only done it in the quiet of the trees, beneath the dark night sky where it’s just been us and only Maud has known I’ve done it but here…here everyone would know and even if I begged him…
Even if I begged him, he wouldn’t help me. He has a mate. More than Maud would know how pathetic I am and they’d be far less kind to me about it. My knees buckle but I stay standing.
No, I have to go, I have to run.
Once I get out in the trees, the familiar clearing where no one can see me, I’ll be fine. I’ll be safe at Maud’s. I take another step to the edge of the square and raise my hand to motion for Maud but I freeze. I freeze because that’s when I see Keiran. He’s off to the side of the Elders and looks just as annoyed as Maud does. He doesn’t like the chant either from the curl of his lip and the way he’s scowling. It’s no secret Keiran doesn’t agree, even if he rarely speaks out publicly, the others know it and so do I. Time slows and I see Keiran the way he was when he first started meeting me in the woods to walk and talk.
“It makes no sense. Why would they bring you to be pack if…”
“If what?”
“If they were going to punish you for it? That isn’t what pack means.”
“It’s just…it’s just the way it is.”
Keiran turned to look at me. “It won’t be when I’m Alpha. I promise you, Cordy. I’m going to make this place safe for you. I swear I will.”
I think that was the moment I fell in love with him. Tears prick my eyes. When they spill down my cheeks I’m thankful for how sweaty I am. Salt mixes on my skin and no one who looked at me would guess I was crying, least of all for Keiran. He was so different when we were younger. Kind, gentle, soft spoken but he’s changed. I used to think he loved me too, that maybe with enough time he would claim me in front of the others. I dreamed of it until this afternoon but I know I was stupid to think so when I see the she-wolf beside him.
She’s beautiful. Curly blonde hair frames big blue eyes, lush lips and a delicate nose. She’s petite, the top of her head sits just below Keiran’s shoulders. She’s wearing a dress and it’s fancy, the kind of thing I’ve only seen in magazines while waiting in the checkout at the small grocery store in town with Maud. I like to flip through those glossy magazines and imagine that I’m one of the women in paradise decked out in a sparkling jeweled gown that makes me feel like a princess, a queen with a kingdom at her feet and all the power in the world.
The woman is wearing a gold dress that looks like it could have been ripped right out of those magazine pages. It shimmers in the bonfire light with a sweetheart neckline and the skirts of it fall and sway in the evening wind around her legs. She suits Keiran perfectly. She looks like someone he’ll take care to be gentle with. Soft beds and whispered vows of love. Nothing like what he’s given me in the woods and fields surrounding the village. Even if he isn’t chanting for my death, Keiran would never give me the life I deserve.
The woman at his side moves and puts a hand on his arm. Instantly, Keiran’s attention is on her. I feel sick to my stomachand it has nothing to do with my heat. What’s my first heat hitting me while a bloodthirsty mob chants for my demise when the man I’ve willingly taken myself apart for is out in the open with his chosen mate when he never so much as looked my way when anyone else could see us?
I could take the voices screaming for my end till the end of my days if it meant I was the one at Keiran’s side. If it meant I didn’t have to see him with his real mate then the voices would just be white noise.
Keiran puts his arm around his chosen mate. The hole in my heart with Keiran’s name gets so big that I know I’ll never be able to close it.
Chapter
Five
CORDELIA
Ipull at my dress and try to breathe through the crushing weight of my heat. There’s no denying that I’m about to lose myself to the haze of hormones and biology that’s about to slam into me like a ton of bricks. Seeing Keiran has made the whole thing…well, worse. Somehow, even just seeing him has triggered something in me. The edges of my vision flicker again and soften and this time I know I wasn’t imagining it. The world is going soft—the effects of my heat making themselves undeniably known with the rosy tint the world starts to take on.
If I weren’t alone and aching for the one wolf I can’t have, the night would almost look magical.
I should move. Run right to Maud’s but just like always when it comes to Keiran I don’t go anywhere. I swallow hard and watch him. He’s so beautiful. I can still feel the way his hands felt on my body this afternoon. His scent rises up around me and it’s not a whisper of a memory anymore. Despite my efforts to scrub myself clean of him, I can smell him on me. I sway on my feet and take in a deep breath. For a blessed second Keiran’s scent is a balm to my heat. Relief courses through my body. I stop moving away from Keiran.
Instead, I take a half staggered step forward, right towards the middle of the pack—I avoid the pack at all costs. Never in a million years would I choose to walk right through them but Keiran’s scent drags me forward. My heat hazed brain knows what it wants and it’s him.
Alpha.
Keiran can fix me. He’s the only one that smells right. A big strong Alpha like him, one that I’m foolish enough to love. He’s the obvious choice. I only make it another half shuffled step before reality comes crashing down on my head. His beautiful mate leans into his arm and smiles up at him. That smile is the bucket of water I need to snap out of the cloying heat haze, it’s enough to push back the rosy tint the world takes on.
I’m not safe. He’s not my mate. Not my Alpha.
Never mine.
I blink back frustrated tears. Gods what am I doing? Why am I acting like this? Thinking like this? There was no other way for this to play out. Not in the real world. I’ve always known that but when Keiran turns his head in my direction I almost forget all about reality and just how ill-fated what we had always was. It would be so easy to torture myself more than my heat is already doing but for once I don’t.
I look away when Keiran leans away from his mate and fixes his gaze on the back of the square and my heart stupidly pounds in my chest at the thought that Keiran would be trying to find me in the crowd. Shifter eyes are far better than human. It isn’t entirely out of the question that Keiran really is looking at me but I’d rather not give legs to that thought. Not with the way my idiot heat brain is screaming that it can smell Keiran from this far away. I can’t scent him, not from here and even if I did, even if he was my perfect match, he would never choose me with his mate and his father waiting on him.
