Page 50 of Prey for Me

“Open your eyes, princess, and see the island through my eyes. See our home.”

My eyes widen in amazement, as my alpha nudges my backside.

The swing lifts me into the air, and it feels like I’m floating in the clouds.

Mist blankets the forest below, the sights, sounds, and smells overwhelming my senses.

The lush environment no longer looks like a death trap.

A smile spreads across my face, then falters as I look down at my grimy black dress.

I glance behind me, a flash of my alpha’s bare freckled chest confirming what I know deep down inside.

I don’t belong here. I don’t deserve to feel safe, while my sister fights to survive in the north.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, distraught.

The swing stops.

I rip my chin from his grasp, biting back my tears.

“I don’t deserve… I don’t belong…” my voice falters on a whimper. What the hell is wrong with me? My mood swings are terrible these days.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he growls, pulling me into a tight back hug.

“You deserve the world and your enemies’ heads served on a platter.”

Even when he comforts me, his words are so vicious. And he doesn’t understand. What I mean to say is I don’t deserve to be here, and I don’t belong on this prison with them. But they way he’s holding me so tenderly breaks through my defenses, leaving me defenseless. How can a man so cruel, so crazed, sooth away all my pain with a touch so gentle my heart aches?

I get the distinct feeling family means something different to Leo. Maybe even something dangerous. And yet I sink into his embrace as he breathes in my scent, nuzzling my hair with his long, slightly crooked nose, massaging my stomach with a groan.

“You’re getting bigger.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

It seems like such a strange turn of events, killing the pleasant mood. Not that I care if I am getting fatter. I love my body and myself any shape or size, even my semi-feral jungle girl era.

“Curvy and soft. Fed and warm. I want my omega to be all that and more. I want you to feel secure, Grace. Because this is your home.”

It’s harder than a punch to the gut.

I turn to him and beckon him to look at me, and when he does I see a storm of emotion.

“This is my home,” he says. My alpha turns, tossing his scarred hand across the ruined skyline of what used to be a tropical paradise’s capital city.

I shake my head and point to my chest.

“Iam your home,” I whisper, and I mean it with every ounce of my battered soul.

I take my alpha’s hand and lay it over my heart. His emerald green eyes sparkle with unshed tears and confusion.

“Weare your home.Yourpack.Yourfamily. And wherever we go, as long as we’re together, we’ll be home.”

I don’t know where these words come from, shocked to my core by my sincerity for my captor, whom I now realize I’ve come to accept as my protector. But my words ring true, and my honesty hurts, because the truth often does.

“You are my home,” he repeats, before adding, “and my fated mate.” Then he kisses me so fiercely, drowning me in his earthy scent, that everything else melts away.

There’s only me and him, Leo and Grace, alpha and omega, pack prince and princess of the feral paradise we call Providence.

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