Page 27 of Traded

And holding me in place. “Rosie.”

I don’t like this. I look at Carter, and he looks like he’s in pain. Miles isn’t looking at us at all, focused on our soft cream carpet like it’s the last ten seconds of the playoff finals.

I’m not a fool.

When I struggle, Jonas’s grip on my hands tightens. Liam holds me in place easily. “Look at me.”

“Let me go.”

“No.” At Liam’s refusal, my head jerks to him in shock. “You need to sit here and listen.”

No, I don’t.

But the more I struggle, the more I realize that they’re not giving me a choice. When I twist, trying to tear my neck free, Liam loses patience. “Stop.Moving.”

I always wondered what it would be like to hear an alpha bark. Atruebark. What it would feel like. I never really thought I would, truthfully. I asked Carter once and he’d refused.

I didn’t know it would feel like this.

Fear—full, white, coldfear—floods every part of my body.

And it stops working.

It stops obeying me. As if we’re strangers, this body and me—as if my skin no longer fits properly, as if it now answers only to the alpha beside me.

Even my mind wipes away beneath a tsunami of immediate obedience.Alpha.

My vision flickers, waving and warping as movement erupts. Shouting—people are shouting, and a small, quiet noise builds in my throat until it becomes a whine.

“Rosie.” Someone is saying my name. Murmuring it, over and over again. “I’m so sorry, baby. The first time is harder. You’re alright.”

They keep saying that. But I don’t think anything is. Not anymore.

I’m in Liam’s lap, his arms around me. A whine ripples again, and the room quiets. His lips brush my forehead, my cheek, anywhere he can reach. “That’s it. Fuck, Ro, you scared me.”

I… scaredhim?

“You barked at me.” My throat feels raw.

His face is pale. Liam examines me, his eyes sweeping over my face. There’s a cut under his eye that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. “I know. You were panicking, Ro.”

I’m not panicking anymore.

I don’t know what I feel.

Jonas’s face appears next to Liam. He rakes a hand back through his hair. “You okay?”

I don’t know.

In the absence of anything else, I try to nod. When that doesn’t work, my lips shape words that don’t feel right. “Think so.”

Liam exhales shakily. “Good. That’s good.”

I try to turn my head, but my body isn’t cooperating. “How long?”

How long will this last?

“Not long.” Liam kisses my forehead again. “Focus on me.”