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The logical side of my brain tells me that I’m reading too much into it. But then I remember the way his alpha wolf stared out at me from behind his eyes and I’m not so sure that’s the case.
Because the last time he looked at me like that? I had just licked his blood from my claws and sat with my legs spread, feeling the length of Ryker’s erection underneath me.
Forgive me for being thrown a bit.
By the time Ryker’s disappeared through the exit, I realize that that… all of that… it really happened. My former Alpha—the mate who rejected me—just showed up out of nowhere, and though he made it pretty clear that it wasn’t an accident—
I’m hanging onto my wolf by a thread, Gemma. A year. A whole fucking year I’ve been looking for you…
—I honestly can’t believe it.
I go into alpha mode myself. Though I consider myself a lone wolf, I really am part of a small pack of two. I live with Aleks, I eat with him, and I’m as protective of him as he is of me. I don’t think of him as a prospective mate or anything, and he’d probably be insulted that my instincts toward him are more like he’s my pup, but seeing him in such bad a shape?
I have to help him.
I don’t even tell Tony to cover the bar again. Now that the spectacle is over, the rest of the bar’s staff is reacting, too. I can see that Natalie’s on her phone—straining my ears, I hear her say Charlie and knows she’s called the boss—and two other waitresses are fielding comments, concerns, complaints from our customers. Tony’s moved behind the bar, and maybe he thought it would be a good place to hide after Ryker attacked Aleks, but he can handle anyone who—rightly so—needs another drink.
“Come on, Aleks,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”
I lead him into the backroom. Because it couples as a makeshift break room, there’s a handful of chairs. I plop Aleks in the nearest one, tell him to sit tight, and dash over to the massive fridge.
As I go, his voice calls after me. “That was him. Wasn’t it?”
I don’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yeah. That was him.”
Aleks knows about Ryker. At least, he knows what I felt comfortable enough to admit. He knows that I left my pack because my adopted father agreed that I should mate with Mountainside’s new Alpha. I arrived at the mountain, the Alpha decided he wanted another mate, and he rejected me. Since I didn’t want to go back to Lakeview with my tail between my legs, I moved to Muncie instead.
Aleks, once he made his intentions clear, always marveled that Ryker gave me up. I thought it was sweet, but a little heavy-handed.
So, yeah. He knows about Ryker.
But did I ever admit that he was my fated mate?
It… might’ve slipped my mind.
“I’m so sorry, Gem. He caught me off guard.”
My laugh comes out far more hollow than I mean it to. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“I didn’t want to involve the humans. I didn’t want Roman to find out, either.” He sighs, shifting in the seat to a more comfortable position. “Guess that’s a lost cause. He’ll know as soon as the first vamp reports in that we’ve got another shifter in town.”
Another shifter because, like me, his senses would’ve told him that the wolf who crossed into Muncie last night was different than Ryker.
So what was that about? An advanced guard? Or was it a wolf who got lucky enough to spy Gemma Swann walking around Muncie and ran back to Accalia to tell their Alpha?
“I don’t think Ryker’s gonna say ‘thanks’ for trying to cover his ass,” I mutter, grabbing the first blood bag I can reach from the fridge.
“I didn’t do it for the mangy wolf. I did it for you.”
“Me?”
“I know how much he hurt you. I wasn’t sure if you still cared about him even after all this time. But then the way he treated you… I couldn’t help myself.”
I use my claw to pop the plastic on the blood bag. I hold it out to Aleks. “Here. Drink this.”
If he notices that I pointedly avoided responding to his comment, he lets it go. Though he’s going to great lengths to act as if he’s fine, I watch in amazement as he lifts the puncture in the plastic to his fang. The second fang makes another hole. Seconds later, he’s drained the whole bag.
“Let me get you another one.”
