Page 11 of The Alpha's Forced Bullied Mate

And hers was beyond uncontrollable.

Talking didn’t work. Fighting didn’t work.

And then it hit me.

I sorted out the details mentally with a small smile. “I’ll think of something.” I squinted at the house, searching for a weak point in the old structure. “I always do—don’t I?”

***

The night sky cascaded around me like a pin-pricked blanket. Faye lived on a ranch with advanced security. Twice now, I’d had to duck out of sight from a revolving security hawk. Despite that challenge, I managed to park my car at one of the empty houses near Faye’s home and lay low until the unsuspecting day shifters had gone to sleep and the night shifters had left their homes.

It was approximately forty-five minutes past nine when I approached Faye’s house. Given that the structure was older, it was simple to break in through the rear door by loosening the rusted hinges. The deadbolt made it slightly difficult to remove the door quietly, but I managed to do it quickly without drawing attention to myself.

To the right, a salty-smelling shifter—some kind of water shifter—was playing punk music loud enough to guard my footsteps. I tiptoed past their door and went to Faye’s, inspecting the inner doorway for anything that might allow me inside. Just then, the lock unwound, and the knob twisted.

I fled to the back and hid in the darkness of the backyard, keeping my eyes and ears pointed in the direction of where Faye was going—which was just across the hallway. She banged onthe door to get the shifter’s attention. Though the music was reduced, it wasn’t enough to be truly quiet.

Faye planted her hands on her hips when her neighbor’s door opened. “Turner, I need you to do one thing for me.”

The short shifter had tattered auburn hair that hung in messy ringlets around his shoulders with baggy clothes swallowing his thin frame. A nervous laugh surfaced as he scratched his vitiligo face, which looked like a white puddle splashed on olive skin. “Yeah, Faye?”

“I need a copy of that album.”

Unexpectedly, she pushed her way into Turner’s apartment, leaving the door ajar to hers.

And giving me the perfect entry.

In a flash, I had sneaked into Faye’s apartment and found a decent hiding place near the curtains. She kept the place lit with low light from the Christmas lights strung over the fireplace to the battery-operated color-changing candles on the coffee table. Everything in here was coated with her touch and scent. It was like stepping inside her mind.

Something about that intrigued me. Faye hadn’t just been picked on for her piggish way of eating back in the day—she’d also lacked control over her powers. People like Faye were born once every fifty years or so. Some called it a fluke in the supernatural bloodline, a weird aberration that wasn’t welcome.

Because shifters weren’t supposed to have magic powers. That would make them far too susceptible to corruption by demons and manipulative practitioners. During the vampire-wolf wars, one of those bastard kids would eventually stumble onto the battlefield, throwing flames from their palms or attempting to lift vampires straight into the air.

The Council shut that down promptly. In fact, most packs were relatively unaware of the existence of hybrid children like Faye. Many times, hybrids kept the secret under wraps. Unfortunately for Faye, her powers were out of control at the time. There was no hiding that sort of thing.

Now, I wanted to bring her back into the light. There was no shame in her powers—only in the act of hiding like an embarrassed child.

I might have hurt her feelings back then, but she’s hurting my chance of being a good alpha, I thought. I studied the doorway, inhaling the full scent of peaches and cream that lingered in the apartment—her signature scent.I get it. I did bad. Why won’t she let me make it right?

Some light chatter floated across the foyer. The punk music came with it. Within a few seconds, Faye had returned to her apartment and bolted the door. Her eyes swept the living area as she adjusted back to the dimly lit room. Her nostrils twitched.

Shoot, I had to act fast before she spotted me—or smelled me.

With swift precision, I pounced forward and wrestled her to the ground with my right hand over her mouth and my left hand pinning her left arm behind her back. My shin was firmly lodged into the back of her knees to keep her from flailing around. This position left her helpless—and did things to me that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Keep quiet,” I warned in a low voice, relieved when the punk music from next door elevated in volume, “and I won’t have to do anything rash.”

Her blonde hair was sprawled up and around her head like a messy halo, and her back muscles remained flexed likeshe was preparing to fight back. She wiggled with a frustrated grunt, squealing angrily into my palm what I knew to be the correct tones for many creative curse words. Feisty and willful—she really was the perfect match for an alpha like me.

That was when I realized what she was wearing. Black spandex shorts cupped her bottom, and a white shirt stretched taut around her upper torso, revealing a small patch of her lower back. She never wore clothes like this back in Silverfang Creek. She couldn’t afford to with the way her parents got on her case about her weight. Showing skin would have been the anti-Goddess to them.

I bowed toward her, closing my eyes as I inhaled the scent of her hair. It felt like soft silk that I sifted through with my nose to inspect more of her scent. Vanilla and a faint hint of lavender drifted into my awareness. She must have used some kind of oil to take care of her hair. She struggled against me, shimmied her shoulders, tried to get away from my curious nose until I clutched her face harder.

“Stay still, Faye Lynne. If you run, I need to be able to find you.”

She went stiff as I dropped down south to the back of her exposed neck where I found more softness. Her flesh twitched as her breath hitched, and a low moan fluttered from her throat to my palm, where it vibrated my skin. She snapped her head back into the bridge of my nose. That old wound cranked right back up like it was fresh. It wasn’t a hard hit, but it hurt, and it sent a shock of pain through my ocular nerves.

I held my nose with my free hand, keeping her pinned with the other. “Damn it, Cherry Pie. You have to come back with me. You’re not safe by yourself!”

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