Page 12 of Alpha Unchained
Beneath that memory comes another, sharp and fast. A wild storm-lit night after closing, when she lit candles everywhere and read Neruda by the window, her hair a wild halo in the glow.That memory is with me now, raw and real, layered over the present like an old scar.
But everything has changed, and I recognize the truth of it. I realize Elena’s never been alone, even when I failed her.
Today there’s nothing gentle in the air. Kate stands at Elena’s side, her glare sharp enough to strip paint, her body language pure warning. She lets me know—wordlessly and then aloud—that I’m on thin ice. “You be nice, and if Elena wants you to leave, you do as she asks.” She moves past with a parting shot, just loud enough for me to hear. “You’ve done enough damage. Elena’s not alone—not anymore.”
I nod, unable to trust my voice. There was a time Kate’s loyalty was mine without question. Now, all her devotion seems aimed at Elena. I should hate it, but instead, I feel the sharp relief of knowing Elena wasn’t alone when I left her broken.
Kate gives Elena a reassuring squeeze on the arm before brushing past me, making her point. When the door shuts behind her, the tension hums through my teeth.
Now it’s just Elena and me, standing in the shop’s filtered morning light, every unspoken word heavy between us. I’ve made conversation impossible by leaving the way I did—twice. I have to make her see I won’t walk away again.
The space between us swells with everything I never let her say and all I never got to explain. I’m the reason for this canyon of silence—leaving without a word didn’t just end things; it made honest conversation impossible. Twice over. Somehow, I have to show her I won’t do it again.
The light falls across her in sharp bands, catching the flush in her cheeks, the stubborn line of her jaw, the determined set of her brow, the fierce, unguarded challenge in her eyes. She’s wound tight, fighting not just me, but most likely herself. The wolf in me aches to reach for her—claim her, soothe her, make her see reason. The man in me isn’t any better. My hands curl atmy sides, itching to claim what I gave up. Even though I know I have no right, my body doesn’t care—every instinct screams she’s still mine. My fingers flex, remembering the last time they closed around her waist, the way her skin felt.
"What do you want, Luke?" Her voice is steady but icy, each word measured, a warning and a dare. Her hand trembles a little as she straightens a stack of receipts, but her eyes never leave mine.
I hold her gaze. "You know what I want. I want to keep you safe. I want to protect what’s mine."
She snorts, eyes flashing with old fire. "That’s not your call. Not anymore. You don’t get to walk in here and act like you get a say, just because you showed up with a wounded conscience."
I move closer, careful not to touch but letting her feel the heat pouring off me. I can see the wildness in her, the wolf beneath her skin ready to fight me. "That’s not how this works, Elena. I walked away to keep you safe. If I’d stayed, if I’d let the McKinleys or the Sable Rock syndicate get to you...”
She cuts me off, her laugh sharp as broken glass. "You keep telling yourself that. If you’d stayed, maybe I’d know what the hell I am now. Instead, I had to figure out how to survive being a shifter and carrying your baby without a single word from you! Thank God for your sister. If it had been left up to you, I’d have been feral in the woods, terrified and lost. But Kate sent me there—she told me what to expect, how to shift back. I knew what was coming. I understood what it meant when it happened."
My throat tightens. I want to defend myself, but the truth is I wasn’t there. I was a coward. "You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to leave you behind? You and that child are the only things that have ever mattered. I’m not leaving again. Not for anything."
She steps out from behind the counter, fire and pride in every line. "That’s not your choice to make. You left me—twice. Once a long time ago, and once after you turned me and left me pregnant. You missed everything: the fever and aches as I transitioned, my first shift alone in the woods after Kate had to explain it to me. All of it was absolutely terrifying. It’s one thing to know your friends can do that and quite another to experience it first hand. I was afraid I might never be able to shift back. The doctor’s visit, lying through my teeth so no one would know what I’d become. The first time the baby kicked—my baby, not yours - it scared the shit out of me."
I grit my teeth. "I left because I thought it was the only way to keep you safe."
She lets out a harsh laugh, her hands curling into fists. "Safe? You call abandoning me safety? I needed you, Luke. I needed you when I couldn’t control my own body, when my instincts turned inside out, when your pack started sniffing around my doorstep trying to decide if I was even fit to raise my own child. Where the hell were you then? You don’t get to call the shots, Luke. You don’t get to walk in here like some returning king and declare what my future will be."
My wolf surges, dominance riding my words even though I know it’ll only make her madder. "You and that baby are mine, Elena. I have to protect you. I’d burn the Hollow to the ground before I let anyone take you from me."
"No," she snaps, stepping close, her scent wild and sharp as fresh-cut pine. "You don’t get to decide for me—not anymore. My life isn’t yours to run, not ever again. Do you hear me? You gave up that right the second you walked out that door without looking back. I don’t need your protection. I don’t need your permission. I survived without you—I'll survive again."
That’s the difference between us. She wants choices. I spent years making them for her—deciding what she needed, who sheshould be kept from, what parts of me she could survive. But I’m standing in her kitchen now, seeing the sharpness in her eyes, and I finally understand—she never needed protection. She needed respect.
I may know all of that, but that doesn’t mean I can pull it off. I plant both hands on the counter, shoulders squared, body blocking her path—staking my ground as if I could command the entire room to heel. Dominance pulses through me, every muscle tight, my wolf refusing to back down. "You can say that, but you don’t mean it. You never wanted to be alone."
"I never wanted to be abandoned," she fires back. "But here we are."
We’re toe to toe, the air thick with the kind of violence that doesn’t need fists—just heartbreak sharp enough to cut bone. The air is thick with memory, longing, fury, the sharp bite of our joined scents. I hear a low growl rising—maybe hers, maybe mine. My wolf is close to the surface, teeth bared, ready to fight for her.
She draws herself up, jaw trembling with rage. "You weren’t there when I woke up alone in our bed, your scent still on the sheets and a note on the counter. You weren’t there when I thought I’d lost my mind. You weren’t there when your uncle tried to threaten me into giving up the baby, or when I cried so hard I thought I’d break."
"You think it was easy for me?" The words snap out before I can stop them. "I was out there fighting every day to keep the syndicate away from Wild Hollow—away from you—dealing with the fallout from my bloodline, cleaning up the mess my father left. Every threat, everybody, every sleepless night was for you and that baby. You think I wanted to stay away? I did it so you'd be safe."
She shakes her head. "You didn't know about the baby. You couldn't have. And don't bother lying. I asked Kate. Don’t try tomake this about your heroics. You don’t get to claim sacrifice when you left me to handle everything alone."
For a heartbeat, we both stand there, breath ragged, both of our wolves so close to the surface it’s a wonder we don’t shift right here, right now, in a maelstrom of mist and color.
"You’re mine, Elena. That baby is mine. I don’t care who tries to come between us—my sister, the pack, the syndicate. They’ll have to go through me first."
Her hand shoots out—faster than I remember her ever moving—and she grabs the heaviest book from the display: a copy of Faulkner. For half a second, I remember her voice reading that same book in the quiet of the shop, her laughter catching in her throat. Then she hurls it at my head. I duck. The book bounces off a display and slams onto the floor. Tiny dust motes swirl in the sunlight, the only applause either of us gets.
"Get out," she snaps, voice shaking with more than anger now. "I mean it, Luke. Get out of my store. Get out of my life."
