Page 24 of The Alpha's Runaway Mate
Nolan takes a single step forward. The air hums, thick with warning. “Careful, Rhea.” His tone drops so low it’s almost a growl. “You’re an inch from banishment, and I’m in no mood to show mercy tonight.”
She swallows hard, but pride keeps her talking. “You can’t be serious.Her?A human? You’d throw away everything for that?”
“I’d throw you out first,” he says simply.
Rhea freezes, then forces out a laugh that doesn’t quite make it past her throat. “We’ll see how long that lasts,” she mutters, her voice dripping like poison.
“That’s it. You’re fucking gone,” Nolan snaps, and the words land like a blade. He squares to her, cold and flat. “I better not see you in my territory again or I’ll kill you.”
The bar exhales all at once. Rhea goes pale, then angry, then small in the space of a breath. She backs away, spine forced straight, lips pressed into a line that says she’s pretending not to be scared. She glances at me like she’s trying to find a crack I don’t have. There isn’t one.
Nolan doesn’t wait for her to leave. His hand finds the small of my back, firm and steady, and he guides me through the door while the place hums with the aftermath of his warning. Outside, the night air hits like a promise and a dare at once. Cool. Clean. Too quiet.
I pull my jacket tighter and the words Rhea spat slip back through my head, sticky and loud:You’d risk everything for a girl who doesn’t belong here.She’ll run the first time she sees what you really are.You’re making a mistake.
He doesn’t act like it’s a risk. He acts like it’s a fact. That unsettles me more than the threat did. Because in his world, throwing everything away for someone might mean something different. For him it might be simple. For me it feels huge. Dangerous. Stupid.
“You said it like it was a fact,” I say, my voice smaller than I want it to be. The words hang between us, catching in the space lit by the lodge lights.
He stops, just long enough to make me look at him. Nolan’s face is calm, too calm, but his eyes are steady, grounding. “It is,” he says. “You felt it.”
I want to believe him. I want to flip this moment, to claim him right back, to stop bracing for heartbreak like it’s a reflex I can’t shake. But she was right about one thing: I don’t know these rules. I don’t know what it costs him. I don’t know what it costs me.
“What if I can’t… handle it?” The words scrape out before I can stop them. “What if I’m the thing that makes you lose everything?” My throat tightens. “I’ve been on the other end of words like hers before. They didn’t kill me, but they left marks I still feel.”
He closes the distance, his palms settling on my shoulders, steady, warm, unyielding. “You’re not going to break me, Jessica,” he says, voice low but sure. “And I won’t let anyone touch what’s mine.”
The claim hits like a weight and a promise all at once. It should settle me. It doesn’t. It opens something thin and shaking in my chest. I want to lean into him and never move. I also want to run until the woods blur and I forget this feeling.
He sees it, of course he does. He always sees it. Nolan gives a small, impatient laugh, one that softens and steadies him in the same breath. “Think about it,” he says. “I didn’t choose you to lose something. I chose you because you’re mine. End of story.”
Maybe for him, it really is that simple. But I’m the one who’s been sleeping in a tent, learning that safety is fragile and fleeting. The bond hums under my skin, real, constant, but fear still tastes like iron on my tongue.
My truck sits a few spaces away, coated in a thin layer of dust, like it already knows it doesn’t belong here. I stop beside it,chewing my lip. Nolan’s truck is parked just ahead, dark and gleaming under the lamplight.
He notices my hesitation immediately. “What?”
I glance between the two vehicles. “I just… I don’t know. Should I take mine?”
His gaze follows mine, then drops back to my face. “Leave it,” he says simply. “We’ll grab it tomorrow.”
I hesitate, torn. My truck’s been my whole life for months, my only safe place, my way out. But the way he says it, like it’s already decided, makes something in me unclench.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He nods once and guides me toward his truck, his hand settling at the small of my back. The contact is casual, but my body doesn’t get the memo. Every nerve lights up.
He opens the door and helps me inside, his fingers brushing my hip as I climb up. The scent of him fills the cab before he even joins me, pine, smoke, and something distinctly him. When he gets behind the wheel, he glances over, his voice low. “You good?”
I nod, even though I’m not sure whatgoodeven means anymore.
The road winds through dark trees, the headlights catching flashes of pine needles and rock. It’s quiet except for the low hum of the engine. The silence should feel heavy, but it doesn’t, it’s steady, comfortable, like the world has finally stopped chasing me for once.
When the truck turns down the long gravel drive and the cabin comes into view, my breath catches.
The place looks different now, alive under the soft gold of the porch lights. The wraparound porch glows like something out of a dream, smoke curling lazily from the chimney. I can’t stop staring.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
