Page 6 of The Alpha's Forced Bullied Mate

My brows furrowed.And run.

I lifted the pile of bills and recounted. Then counted one more time. Then I set them inside an old leather shoebox that still smelled of mink oil. After wrapping a tight band around the box, I shoved it under my desk and kicked it back toward the open panel in the wall. Late last year, I discovered the little hidey hole and used it to store my extra cash. I needed to protect it. For some reason.

I mean, eventually, I would have a good reason.Eventually.Wasn’t that always how it worked in packs where I trusted them too much?

Two sharp knocks clapped through the silence of the house. I stared at my bedroom doorway, trying to think of who would possibly want to disturb my morning. Maybe Turner forgot his key. But I could have sworn I heard him lock the door when he left.

After a second, another series of knocks erupted, these three sounding more urgent than the first two. I swept my fingers through my soft blonde hair that spilled down my back and walked onto the landing, staring at the front door at the bottom of the stairs. Just then, as if magically timed, another knock came.

That was impossible. Nobody was able to access the foyer without a key. Blake never mentioned that he was planningto send anyone, and Fred didn’t have access either. Kylie had perhaps made a spare key for herself, but then again, she would have said something about that during one of our morning jogs. My heart leaped into my throat as I thought of yet another impossible factor, one that had no earthly reason for occurring to me.

A fog encompassed my mind as my eyelids fluttered. Every one of my senses was consumed except for my intuition—and that meant a prediction was coming.

Something lost from the past. Something that forever lasts.

I gasped as I regained a hold on my surroundings. I gripped the banister, steadied my stance, and touched my sternum, forcing myself to continue breathing.

My magic was rusty from not being used much, but that clairvoyant poem was as loud as someone whispering into my ear. It didn’t make sense like most of my predictions, and I had a bad feeling about descending the stairs into the lower living area that was sparsely decorated compared to the second floor. One more knock encouraged me to flee the last few steps and snatch open the door.

It was his eyes that caught my initial attention. A rush of blue invading a pool of violet like a swirl of galaxies in a milky midnight sky. Onyx hair as wild as hanging vines tickled the corners of his eyes, crow’s feet etched those ocular ovals and enhanced the squint he gave me, curved by thick brows matching his hair color. His half-mast squint sharpened his grin on his wolfish face, and he had a large nose with a notch in the bridge just at eye-level that I had put there myself with my own fist.

Way back when.

Something lost.

Oh, I hadn’t lost this. I hadn’t even thought about it in many years. Because it wasn’t important anymore. He wasn’t important enough to take up space in my brain for free anymore. Multiple meditations and podcasts had cleared out that wreckage, only for it to come crashing back in an instant. Hurt, anger,pain.

My eyes trailed his form—and that was enough to slack my jaw. The guy who used to be a scrawny skater nobody was now a buff, olive-skinned, tattooed hunk of muscle wearing dusty black jeans that cupped his package and a flannel button-down that had been a bright green at some point and was now a rather greyish grass color from so many years of washing it repeatedly.

His hand came into view, large and veiny, rough and textured in his palms from labor, hosting a pointed index finger poised toward his face. “Up here, Cherry Pie.”

Fierce indignation swept through me in hot and cold waves. A mixture of feelings swarmed my body after that, lust and betrayal taking the helm. This wasn’t fair or right for him to show up now at my doorstep. The same doorstep that was behind a locked door.

I glared up at him, my heartbeat caught somewhere I didn’t want it to be—at the apex of my thighs. “No.”

I tried to slam the door only to find his thick arm blocking the door’s passage. He leaned against it as casually as he would any doorway. “Come on, Faye Lynne. Don’t you want to see an old friend?”

I pushed harder. “Hellno.”

Without back-up, I was no match for Hector Shaw. His square and buff shoulders were enough to prod the door open, sending me stumbling back toward one of the plush rose couches. The baroque carpet with the frilly gold border I liked so much that I got from the thrift shop in town for a mere five bucks decided to catch my white sock, and then I was really in for some trouble. My glass coffee table was about to break my fall.

My life flashed before my eyes, a dozen tasks undone, and every time Hector had called mePiggy TailsandSnorty.Sure, I was a thick girl back then, and I was still thick, but now I had muscle to go with my thickness, a tapered waist that would have gotten me a modeling contract in the plus-size fashion world if I tried hard enough, and a loveable set of squishy thighs that would probably get a lot of compliments from men online if I dared to show myself off.

Too bad nobody has ever touched them except me.

This is how I die, I thought.Just gonna smash my head to bits in front of my childhood bully.

Before I could properly crack my skull by falling backward on the glass coffee table, Hector caught my waist and set me on my feet. He held me steady for a second, gripping my hips, squishing me right through the spandex shorts I only wore around the house in my favorite delicate pastel pink. His breath caught as he pressed me firmly to his rock-hard chest, a plane of muscle that felt like armor beneath the fabric of his shirt.

My eyelids fluttered. I noticed how much my breasts plumped up in the sports bra I wore, the same shade as my spandex shorts. What were usually my comfort clothes now felt like a far too revealing outfit in front of the guy who had effectively ruined my life.

But this close, he smelled like burnt autumn leaves with a dash of rain. It was like experiencing the humidity before a thunderstorm while tucked away safely in the nook of a giant tree, wrapped in fall leaves with tiny twigs sticking out of the rustic crimson and sunflower yellow.

I shook him off, shoving his chest firmly without pushing myself back. I wasn’t about to stumble into another mistake.

Not again.

Hector took my push seriously, something he rarely had done back when we were kids. He crossed his arms over his chest and mimicked by fierce expression. Yet, on his face, it looked so much more like he was commanding me to listen to him.

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