Page 112 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
My hands clench around the packages. Is that what she thinks? That I was just using her?
“I always knew this would happen,” she continues, her voice breaking slightly. “I just—I thought maybe if I was good enough, quiet enough, if I didn’t cause any trouble, maybe he’d want to keep me around a little longer.”
The pain in her voice is like a knife between my ribs.
“Was I always this weak, Luna? I can’t even remember who I used to be anymore. I feel so lost.”
The bundles in my arms suddenly feel impossibly heavy. Fury builds inside me—not at her, but at the situation. At Andrew for breaking her. At her pack for making her believe she’s worthless. At myself for not seeing this sooner.
She thinks I don’t want her. She thinks getting separate rooms means I’m rejecting her. I finally understand; she believes I’m going to leave her now that I’ve slept with her. An even worse thought occurs to me: her enthusiasm in bed, the desperate way she responds to my touch—is that all her way of trying to getme to stay with her? Does she think if she pleases me enough, I won’t abandon her?
The possibility that she thinks I would walk away from her after taking her to my bed makes my wolf snarl with possessive fury. But underneath the anger is something else: hope. If she’s this desperate to keep me, does that mean I matter to her?
And then I remember—that morning in our first inn room bed, when she thought I was asleep. The desperate words she whispered against my neck: “If you’re going to leave me, you should kill me before you do. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive.” And that broken confession: “I wish you would be cruel to me so that I could hate you.”
The pieces click into place with devastating clarity.
She’s not being compliant because she doesn’t care. She’s being compliant because she thinks if she’s perfect enough, agreeable enough, invisible enough, I won’t abandon her. She thinks her very existence is a burden that I’m barely tolerating.
Astra doesn’t understand that the desperate need to stay by my side, the terror of being left behind—that’s the mate bond. Her wolf might be latent, but it’s still there, still pulling her toward me with an intensity she can’t comprehend.
She thinks she’s weak. She has no idea that what she’s feeling is one of the most powerful forces in our world.
I touch my neck absently, where my own mating mark would be if she were to bite me in return. The bond pulses steadily, a constant reminder of what connects us.
I need to shift strategies completely. I’ve been trying to give her space, trying to let her come to me on her own terms. But she’s interpreting every gesture letting her have her independence as rejection.
She doesn’t need space. She needs to know I want her here. More than that, she needs to feel needed.
A devious thought takes shape in my mind. Of course. It’s so simple I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. If she needs to feel that I need her, then I’ll give her exactly what she wants.
She’s a healer. An herbalist. Someone whose entire identity is built around taking care of others, solving their problems, being useful.
Andrew destroyed her sense of self-worth, made her believe she was nothing but a commodity. But what if I could show her the opposite? What if I could make her feel indispensable?
I need to find Seth.
Chapter Nineteen
Astra
Long, evening shadows stretch across my small room, and there’s still no sign of Lucian. He’s been gone since morning. I’ve been pacing for what feels like hours, wearing out a path on the wood floor between the window and the door. Each time I hear footsteps in the hallway, my hopes rise, only to sink again when they pass by without stopping.
He’s gone. The thought is devastating, even though I’ve been trying to prepare myself for it all day. Of course he’s gone. What did I expect? That a man like him would stay in a place like this, with someone like me, forever?
I sink onto the bed, my hands trembling as I pick up one of the gifts he gave me: a small, carved, wooden cat, so intricately detailed that I can see the individual strands of its tail. When he first placed it in my hands, his fingers brushing mine, I thought it meant something. I thought I meant something.
“Foolish girl,” I whisper to myself, setting the cat down shakily.
Maybe these gifts were his way of easing his guilt. A parting consolation for the pathetic woman who clung to him like he washer lifeline. Because that’s exactly what I did, isn’t it? Ever since that first morning when I woke up burrowed against his chest like a needy animal, I have been completely dependent on him.
The memory makes heat flood my cheeks. The way he looked at me that morning, amusement dancing in those dark eyes as he told me I’d been using him as my personal pillow. The way his voice went low and rough when he said he didn’t mind. The way my body responded to his nearness, to the scent of him, to the warmth radiating from his skin.
What is wrong with me?
I stand abruptly, restless energy coursing through me again. It has been happening more and more lately—this feeling like something is trying to claw its way out from inside my chest. Like there’s another presence in there, something wild and desperate that I can’t understand or control.
Sometimes I wake up from dreams where I’m running through forests on four legs, where my senses are so sharp I can taste the emotions of others on the wind. But they fade the moment I open my eyes, leaving only this aching emptiness behind.
