Page 45 of Fated to the Alpha

He wasn’t looking at either of them, his golden eyes cast down as he left the room. Kimberly didn’t know for whom that assurance was meant. She hoped it was for her.

“What the hell just happened?” Declan asked.

Pissed, Kimberly turned and pushed him. “You asshole! I was fine! I was making progress and you fucked it up!”

By the way Declan looked at her, he clearly had never seen her this angry before. In all the years they knew each other, she hardly ever raised her voice or cursed like that. Kimberly was sure she had never let any of her pack witness this feisty side of her, willing to hit and cuss another shifter so brazenly. They knew her as the meek, quiet pup who was too scared to rock the boat.

No more.

“How was I supposed to know? I came in to run. I caught your scent and one I didn’t recognize, so I decided to check it out. I walk in and the guy looks like … you two were…” He fumbled with his words, gesturing toward the place she and Shane had been lying.

Yeah, she knew exactly how it looked.

“He was showing me how to get out of that position in case some psycho tries to attack me … again.” Kimberly started pacing, just as Shane had done earlier, and ran her nails across her scalp to diffuse her anger. “God, Declan! You didn’t have to go and jump on him like that! He’s an alpha! He could have killed you!”

Declan glanced at the bit of blood on his workout shirt, leftover from the fight. “Yeah, I figured that out pretty quickly.”

She looked back and glanced over his body for any sign of unhealed battle wounds. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.” It was then she realized the only real hurt in him anymore was in his eyes. “Why didn’t you ask me or Gage to help you if you wanted to learn self-defense? We could have helped you too … Is it because—”

“It has nothing to do with Gage’s ability to be an alpha or anything. It’s just … Shane and I have some history and…” She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to admit that she was more comfortable with a guy she hadn’t seen in ten years than her own packmates.

Gage might have been offended that he was kept in the dark about her recent struggles. She made Kaelyn promise that she wouldn’t give Gage or Dominic any details regarding her sudden hairstyle change, but that she was handling it, and she was all right.

What could she tell Declan, the guy who took her under his wing and brought her into their pack during her college years? She might have known Shane all her childhood, but she knew Declan and Gage as adults. Which held more weight? The pack she left behind or the pack that accepted her now?

Declan waved his hand to stop her from putting her foot any further into her mouth. “Listen, whatever is going on, you can talk to us. You know we have your back, no matter what. You’re like a sister to me. You know that. Would I have tried to take down a shifter like him if I didn’t care that much about you?”

Kimberly looked up at her reflection in the mirrors, then to the little trail of blood left on the mats that marked the trail of the fight across the room. Probably Declan’s blood. She knew how much she meant to all of them, but at that moment, all she wanted to do was curl up in Shane’s arms. No one else mattered the way he did, and it took her until this moment to figure that out.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t mean to forsake the pack. I just got caught up in Shane and spending time with him again and—”

“The Shane you dated in high school?”

The surprise in Declan’s question grabbed her attention. “Yeah. He’s the new alpha in Tolstone.”

Declan chuckled. “Holy shit … That’s some dumb luck there, huh?”

She smirked. “Dumb luck or a cruel joke.” She folded her arms, feeling the chill of the air conditioning now that Shane was gone and she had cooled down. “We’ll all have to part ways eventually.”

Declan’s smile wilted. “Oh, right. So, you wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. I get that.”

“I just feel … Don’t take this the wrong way, but I just feel like more of myself around him. Like I got a piece of my old self back. It’s a nice feeling.”

“Like having a piece of home again?”

Kimberly gave him a mirthless smile. “Exactly.”

Declan went quiet for a few thoughtful beats and then asked, “Do you still love him?”

It was the question she had been asking herself for days. The answer still eluded her, hidden behind the haze of trauma from the past and despair for their inevitable future. How could she think of how she felt now when she knew it would all end in a matter of weeks? If she were lucky, maybe they’d get a few months. They never got to talk about his progress in finding a new home for his pack, but he had to be close. The way he talked last week made it seem like it was Shane’s biggest goal next to spending time with her. She knew nothing would stop Shane from taking care of his pack. Not even her.

Kimberly rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling isolated and alone, even with her packmate in the room. “I don’t know.”

“If you do, would you ask Gage to release you from the pack?”

She shot a befuddled look at him. “How could I possibly leave you guys? You’ve been my family for years.”