Page 13 of The Alpha's Forced Bride

She laughed; the sound was so musical that it made me want to lean even closer to her. I rested my forehead against the gate and felt the coolness of the iron on my forehead. I almost tried to reach through the bars to get to her, which was funny, considering I could have just undone the latch, but there was just this strange, striking resistance between the bars, my heart, and the way things had to be done. I knew that breaking the heat between us would ruin our mating ritual.

And yet, other parts of me wanted to fling open the door, swing her around on the cot, and ravish her until she was screaming incoherently. I sensed that she even wanted something like that to happen. I felt it in the way she looked at me and how her eyes raked over my body. It was evident in how she inspected the front of my pants with a quick flick of her eyes.

Wolves could often confuse physical hunger for lust. However, she had been fed, and continued to observe me hungrily. I couldn't stop considering the possibility. It didn't help that Clancy narrated his inner dialogue about thoughts that were too inappropriate to share.

“You’re funny,” she claimed. “He thinks he’s funny,” she said to herself this time. She shook her head. “Can I just get my phone call, please?”

I sighed. “We'll get you a change of clothes.”

When I tried to push away from the bars, I found that I couldn't. She leaned toward me and pressed her hands just close enough to my hands that they could touch if she wanted them to. I stood there silently, trying to figure out if she wanted to touch me or if she was just trying to cozy up to me to figure out she was going to escape. Of course she would be thinking about that. I knew because she asked to call her father. It made me wonder how it felt to belong to a family like that, to think of them as soon as danger was present.

That was when it happened, when the movement struck me. Despite its subtlety, I noticed the side of her thumb from her left hand touched my right pinky. A spark flew through me that could have lit up the darkest night. My wolf seemed to chase his own tail, spinning around in circles and kicking up dirt as my demon attempted to get him under control. Even without much trying, I found myself able to block it out just by focusing on her eyes. Watching those swirls of cosmic oceanic bliss turned me into a metaphorical puddle.

Do I really have to do this ritual? I closed my eyes while recalling the way her words sounded. I could sit here and argue with her all day just to hear her voice. Or I could tell her the truth.

When I opened my eyes, she was looking at me as if she was lost, or maybe she just wanted to look lost so that I would sympathize with her. I wasn't sure which it was. My demon had convinced me that everyone in my life was manipulative because I was manipulative. Why wouldn't everyone else want to hurt me when I wanted to hurt them, too? But her—I didn't want to hurt her. She looked too sweet and kind. She was too feisty, too playful, too genuinely curious.

“What?” she snapped, though I couldn’t see any hint of irritation in her eyes while she examined my lips. “What is it…?”

I didn’t respond. I was too busy considering whether I should put her through the mating ritual at all, whether I should introduce her to anyone else, or whether I should just open the cage door and let her run. I even took a step back to see the space, to see my hand reaching for the latch, to see it coming undone, sliding to the right. The door popped open about a half inch. The hinges creaked, and she stepped forward.

A hand landed on my shoulder. Behind me, a person who smelled of incense and dried leaves spoke in a raspy voice. “I presume this is the woman you're going to mate with.”

I turned around to welcome Nora, one of our pack elders. The older woman was rather frail and much shorter than me. Perhaps an inch or two shorter than Kiara. She hunched over worse than Clancy. Her eyes were a steel gray with a hint of blue in them, a sort of cerulean that reminded me of starlight, and her skin resembled a weathered tan hide, almost like animal leather that had been left out in the sun to dry a little too long, wrinkled in many places and spotted in others. Her nose had a crooked hook at the tip, and her lips were so thin they were almost non-existent, yet they wore a smile—a very tired and worn smile that told me she was very glad to see me.

Around her shoulders was a periwinkle shawl on top of a Christmas sweater, which she must have picked up on the way here. Whatever clothes we could get were usually stolen from town or bartered for in some kind of underground market. We did our best with what we could. In particular, Nora was one among us who certainly did her best. She took care of a lot of people as she had been a makeshift nurse for such a long time. Yet, over time, I could tell that her demon had worn her down, physically and mentally. I didn’t want her to suffer anymore.

“Now, step aside.”

I held Nora’s hand and was careful not to step on the edge of her long, sweeping white skirt. Kiara had returned to her cot almost obediently, appearing almost too afraid to move. Her muscles were rigid and her pupils were dilated so wide that I almost couldn't see the bluish-green of her eyes anymore. Some sweat had beaded on her right temple. Her fingers were tightly knitted together in her lap, and she sat as if expecting a teacher to chastise her.

Nora extended her right hand, the one that I wasn't holding, and beckoned Kiara toward her. “Come closer, child. Let me get a look at you.”

Kiara’s eyes went wide, and her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. She hopped to her feet and scampered over to us like a frightened animal seeking shelter.

The moment she took Nora's hand, the fear seemed to drain from her eyes. There was still some hesitation there, of course—perhaps some sort of self-preservation remained as a form of survival. But from the look of her skin, the healthiness of her hair, and the general glow about her, she looked like she came from a pack that took very good care of her. If I wasn't in such dire circumstances, I might have felt bad about taking her from them.

But I didn't. I knew she was supposed to be mine. She came to me in a vision, and then she was found wandering in the woods right next to my property. This was the type of fate I wished that I had come upon sooner. Yet, at this moment, I was relieved to see her holding hands with Nora, to see her muscles relaxing, and to see the rigidness fade out of her throat and her cheeks.

Everything seemed okay. Even I felt okay.

“I'm going to guide you through this process,” Nora explained.

Anxiety flashed in Kiara’s eyes as she furtively glanced in my direction. A split second later, she returned her gaze to Nora. She seemed even more intent on listening to what Nora had to say.

I retreated back to a small table that held a series of scrolls. The two women got lost in each other, forgetting about my presence. As I watched them, I felt a great affection grow in my chest, a warm feeling that expanded and infected every part of me. It overwhelmed my demon, and I heard him release a disgruntled cough as he retreated to some darker, less conscious part of me. My wolf barked once and then flicked his tail, curled up in my center, and snoozed happily for perhaps the first time in ten years.

And I owed it all to Kiara.

Chapter 6 - Kiara

I stared at the woman in front of me, her steel resembling a storm. It was strange looking at her. The way that she held my hand and reached for my cheek was like she was a grandmother who was just trying to take care of me.

I gulped. Almost. But not really. She’s not really my family.

I almost didn't like the sensation of familiarity, how comforted I felt just being near her. My own mother hadn't even been like this. Why should any other woman in my life be like this? Other than Regina, of course, who had taken on the role of stepmother as well as a best friend.

Yet, even she didn't treat me like this. My own father didn't treat me like this. Not with this kind of gentleness. He was protective, he loved me, and he did everything in his power to protect me, but he wasn’t like this. The way Nora handled me, the way she guided me back to my cot, made me feel like everything was going to be okay.

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