Page 76 of The Alpha's Forsaken Vow

The wine tastes like ash as I listen to her story, because rage filters in my veins. She shouldn’t have gone through all that. Not alone, anyway.

“Then I grew up, and for a minute, I forgot about who I was when I became involved with Julian. I needed someone, and he was there, and maybe that’s the reason I found out too late that he was cheating on me. Maybe he’d been cheating on me so many times, and I had failed to see it.”

I know for a fact that my nephew might have been cheating on her when they were together. He was that kind of idiot.

“But then, Lina came into my life, and Goddess, it was hard at first. Being pregnant and still having to work so I could support myself to keep a tiny apartment was so hard. Then came the postpartum stage, where I had to carry Lina to work because I had no choice if I wanted both of us to survive.”

Her tears fall, and I clench the tablecloth hard. Thinking of them in that situation twists the rage inside of me.

Guilt eats me up. If I had let her explain herself six years ago, maybe she wouldn’t have gone through so much. Maybe I would have already had her and Lina in my life a long time ago.

“But it’s okay, I’ve survived. She survived, too, and I'll do everything in my power to keep it that way.”

“We. We’ll do everything in our power to protect Lina because I’m here now, wild one. Every hardship you’ve enduredis in the past. Right now, and going forward, you and Lina have me in your corner, and I’m never leaving, baby.”

I don’t know what makes her move.

Maybe it’s the way my thumb is brushing her knuckles.

Maybe it’s the candlelight fighting the shadows in her eyes.

Maybe it’s just the bond.

But she stands up, rounding the table slowly and coming to me like I’m gravity and she’s finally tired of resisting the pull.

“Alaric,” she whispers. “I don’t know what this is, but I…”

I cut her off with a kiss because I already know what it is.

The kiss is not rough, not hurried.

Just lips meeting lips in a way that feels like we’re trying to etch each other and this moment into our memories.

Her fingers slide into my hair. My hands settle on her waist, then glide lower, making her body press flush against mine.

When I lift her into my arms, she doesn’t resist.

She melts into me.

I carry her inside, careful not to let the sounds between us wake up Lina in her room.

We don’t go to my room, but to Lila’s. Because this isn’t about possession. This is about giving her a choice.

I lay her on the bed like she’s precious. Because damn, she is.

She looks up at me, breathless with her green eyes dilating with the same need inside me. “You don’t have to be gentle.”

I lean down, kiss her collarbone, and trail my lips up to her ear. “But I want to be.”

Because she deserves softness after everything she’s endured.

She deserves it to be slow.

She deserves to be worshipped.

And that’s exactly what I do.

Her dress falls from her shoulders like silk. I trace every inch of her skin with my hands, my mouth, my devotion, to show herhow important she is to me. When I kiss down the curve of her thigh and hear the hitch in her breath, I smile against her skin.

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