AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pretending like I feel nothing for her is pure torture, but I have to do it if I want us to live.
As far as Gideon is concerned, everyone on the Rig needs to believe that Peaches is miserable. He wanted her punished—and I can’t make her feel so safe that Gideon would be able to tell, or we’ll both be fucked.
I stand watch at the door, waiting to find out if someone will come snooping to see what we’re up to. I’m sure they expect us to be doing something very different than sleeping, but the storm is loud enough that they wouldn’t be able to tell anyway. I find myself grateful for the pounding rain as I stand vigil, ignoring the sleeping girl in the bed behind me.
Still, my arousal rises, my wolf unable to ignore the pounding, desperate desire I have for my mate.
I bit her. She took the pain, allowed me to tend to it. She lies naked in my bed, my scent over her pulse. It certainly doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous, with waist-length curls, generous curves, and freckles that paint her skin from head to toe.
I want more.
I don’t just want to see. I want to touch, taste,feel.
I want to thoroughly claim her, breed her, make her mine in every way that counts. Surrounded by hostile alphas, I want nothing more than to make it clear to them that she belongs to me.
But I can’t.
And I won’t.
Because she hates me.
I stand and pace by the door when I start to nod off, taking note of anything and everything in the room—anything to get my mind offher. There’s a pile of loot in the corner, discarded like trash, tokens of the old world that don’t have any meaning or value post-Convergence. One of the strangest artifacts is a bag of shiny silver communicators, their screens shattered and the power gone. I kneel by the pile of stuff and dig through it, looking for a charger in what’s likely a doomed attempt to find a way out of this.
Peaches sniffles behind me and I jerk my head around to look at her, finding her eyes wide and trained right on me. It’s dark, but with my enhanced vision, I can still see the color of her irises—deep, warm brown, like doe’s eyes.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
She’s covered only in a thin blanket, nothing else around to keep her warm—and she’s trembling. I don’t know if it’s from fear or being cold, but I can barely tolerate the idea of her being in any discomfort whatsoever. I stiffen as I look at her, my muscles tense.
“Why are you sorry?” I grumble.
“Because I’m…because I’m annoying you,” she says. “I’m sorry. I’m told I have a habit of talking too much.”
“You’ve barely said a word,” I scoff.
“My father always told me I would mouth off and get myself in trouble one day,” she says. “And…well, I guess you’ve seen what happened.”
“Hypocritical of him to say that whenhe’sthe one who got you in trouble,” I shoot back.
Peaches bites her lip, then sits up in bed and clutches the blanket to her chest. Her eyes are trained on me, unblinking, waiting for…something.
“You should go back to—”
“I can’t go back to sleep,” she says. “Not when…not after everything that’s happened. And you’re the first person who’s been willing to listen to me since I got here, even though it’syour faultthat I’m here in the first place and…”
She pauses, scanning my feature.
“Oh,” she squeaks. “There I go, talking my little head off.”
I glance at the door, then let out a huff of breath. “I don’t mind it. Just don’t let on about that when we’re around the others.”
She blinks rapidly, her eyelashes fluttering.
“Well, um…now I don’t know what to talk about,” she says.
I frown. “You seemed eager a minute ago.”
“But I don’t…I don’t even know you,” she says. “I don’t know what you’re interested in, what makes you tick, why you’re doing this. I don’t fully understand how we got to this room, to be honest. Would you tell me?”
