Page 59 of Their Alpha

Fletcher growled low in his throat then pulled me closer, slamming his mouth over mine. I loved the way he kissed, like he would force me to submit with the power of his mouth alone. And I wanted to submit to him. I loved the crazy, unusual dynamic between us. I wanted more of it, all of it. And I wanted Gideon to play a part in our hot lovemaking as well.

Gideon.

I gasped and pulled back, suddenly remembering Fletcher and I weren’t alone. I twisted to check on Gideon at the kitchen table, but he was gone.

“Shit, Gideon!” I called out, peeling away from Fletcher.

We dashed into the living room, but that, too, was empty, and the front door was wide open.

“Gideon! No!” Fletcher cried out, staring at the dining table. “The keys are gone.”

Dread like nothing I’d ever felt before filled me as the two of us raced through the room and out onto the porch. The rain and wind had picked up to a fevered pitch, makingeverything outside black and confusing, but it wasn’t loud or raging enough to hide Gideon’s panicked, high-pitched scream somewhere in the night.

“No, no!” Fletcher shouted. I could feel the anguish in his soul and the sense that he’d failed at the one thing he’d worked for years to accomplish.

I wasn’t going to let him fail. I wasn’t going to let Goode take Gideon.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Fletcher’s hand and dashing off the porch into the storm.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Gideon

Ihad to be brave. Artemis and Fletcher were the bravest people I knew, and I owed it to them not to be a burden. That meant I had to face the things that frightened me the most and deal with them.

“We don’t give up. There is a way out of this, we just have to find it,” Fletcher said, gripping Artemis’s arms and looking straight into his eyes.

I smiled, despite the situation being so dire. I loved watching the two of them together. They each had a different sort of strength. Fletcher was all sharp and defensive. He’d been stretching himself for years to be my hero, my protector. Artemis was completely different, but still amazing. He was a rock. He was the wall that stood between me and anything that would try to hurt me, stalwartly protecting me.

I was so lucky that I couldn’t begin to put it into words,even though evil sat in the next room. I had complete confidence in my husband and my alpha to figure out a way to get us through this situation so that we could all live happily ever after, just like the captive princes and their dragon princes.

I felt so confident in my men’s ability to keep me safe that as Fletcher and Artemis discussed what we should do next, I picked up the charcuterie board and carried it into the living room.

“That looks delicious,” Goode said, standing from the chair he was sitting in and stepping closer to me. “But then, you always were a good cook.”

“I am a good cook,” I said, steeling all my courage to face my tormentor. “I didn’t have a choice. Being a good cook was the only thing I was allowed to do, and if I made a mistake with any of the recipes Papa tried to teach me, I had my hands smacked with a wooden spatula.”

Goode just shrugged at that revelation and walked carefully over to the table. He took a cracker and a piece of cheese from the charcuterie board, put them together, and ate them, all while smiling at me.

Smiling at me the way a crocodile smiled at its next meal.

“Discipline is necessary to keep omegas on the path to Heaven,” he said once he’d swallowed. “You know that.”

He tried to reach for me to brush his fingertips across my face, but I jerked back to avoid him, so he dropped his hand.

My heart pounded wildly. He’d backed down when I indicated touching me was not okay. Maybe I could be even braver and get him to go away.

“I don’t want you,” I told him, my breaths coming inshallow pants. “I never wanted you. My father chose you and I didn’t have a say in it.”

“Fathers know better than their children,” he countered. “God made alpha fathers the heads of their family. They are God’s representatives on earth.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. I think alphas just made that up so they could control everyone, and controlling people is wrong.”

Goode let out a breath and shook his head. “Oh, my poor, prodigal omega,” he said. “There is so much you must relearn.”

“I’m not going back to The People,” I told him, quivering with fear on the inside, even though I knew I was being brave. “I never wanted that life. I wanted out as soon as I knew what it would mean for me. And I got out. I got out all by myself.” With a little help from Elijah on the outside, but I didn’t want him or anyone else to get in trouble.

“Your family wants you back, you know,” he said, slipping almost imperceptibly closer to me. “Your Papa, for one. Your sisters, Mary and Ruth as well.”

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