Page 68 of The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate
I have to end it. The realization fills me with something akin to relief and regret. I can’t mate Lydia. It’s Sienna or no one. If it were just the fated mate bond, it would be easier, but it has become more than that. Somewhere along the line, Sienna found her way into my heart. All that pride and ambition and cleverness, the confidence she wears like a second skin…How could I not fall for her? Any man would be desperate to possess her.
If only she weren’t my fated mate.
I let out a shuddering breath.
I’ll send Sienna home. I won’t be able to explain to Darius or her why, so I’ll take the blame. Tell them I can’t be with her for personal reasons. I will take every shred of culpability onto my own back. Once she finds somebody else, once she wears his mark, this will be over.
I sit on the edge of the bed, forcing myself to accept reality. I was angry that she touched Ethan and that she spent hours with human men, letting them see her, dance with her. The truth is, there will be someone to take my place, and I will have no say in the matter. Somebody will recognize how precious she is and snap her up, and that will be the end of it all.
I sit like this for a while, unable to lie down, unable to get out of my own head.
My eyes fall on the clock on the wall. Eleven-forty. I pull a jacket off the back of the chair and leave. I need to get some air.
The corridors are dim. The estate has gone to bed. My shoes make almost no sound on the runners, and I pass Sienna’s door without allowing myself to look at it. The door in the kitchen that leads to the garden is unlocked. Outside, the night is clear. The moon hangs full and high, a hard, white disc. Cold air fills my lungs, and for a moment, I think I may be able to breathe out here.
I head toward the forest. It may be unsafe for others, but I’m the alpha. My wolf wants to run, to be free from the confines of this human body.
As the tree line rises ahead of me, the wind turns. It comes at me off the forest, and when it hits me, I stop dead in my tracks.
Blood. Sienna’s blood.
The smell becomes thick in the air. My body understands before my mind does. I am already running, already shifting. My jacket tears off me in pieces, and I hit the ground at a dead sprint. My wolf takes over, his fury a dangerous thing.
The forest canopy closes over us.
The blood-scent feels hot as it deepens, and underneath it, I hear the sounds. Growls. Teeth. That particular, wet noise of a body being worked over. My wolf covers ground I cannot measure. Branches whip against my shoulders. I do not feel them. I burst through a wall of ferns into a clearing, and I see her.
Sienna.
Her wolf is on her side. She is not moving. Her brown fur is red in patches. The ground under her is black with blood. Her mouth is open, her tongue resting on the moss, and she is not moving.
A sound I have not made in years leaves me. It is not a howl; it is something older. It shakes leaves off branches on the far side of the clearing.
The wolves around her look up and turn their attention toward me.
There are five still on their feet, maybe six. Not my pack. Rogues. Their scent is sharp, with something unsettling underneath the animal musk. Their eyes are blank, empty as a void.
One is standing over Sienna with his jaws at her throat. I slam into him at full speed.
The violent impact takes him away from her body and rolls us both across the clearing. He is big, but not big enough. I pin him under me before he can twist out of my grasp. I snap my teeth shut around his throat and tear. Blood comes out hot, and his body goes limp under my paws. I drop him.
Another wolf comes at me from my left. I pivot on the ruined body beneath me and meet him head on. He gets his teeth into my shoulder before I manage to break free. The pain is immediate yet distant at once—nothing compared to the smell of Sienna’s blood in my nose. I spiral out from under him, take his face in my jaws, and crush it.
Two down. Three more are circling me now, and a fourth is going for Sienna again, her body unguarded on the ground between us.
I throw my head back, and I howl. It is a long, carrying sound that bends the trees. A call no warrior of mine can ignore.
The rogue reaches Sienna. His muzzle lowers toward her.
I lunge.
I cover the space between us in two bounds and knock him off her body. We go rolling through the brush at the edge of the forest path. He is fast. He turns under me, his claws raking at my ribs. I feel my skin open, but I do not let go of him. My jaws find his throat, and I rip it out.
Suddenly, the forest bursts open on three sides, and my warriors pour into the clearing. Wolves in full formation, fangs bared, the pack bond lit up bright and hard between us. They break around me without instruction. They go after the remaining rogues.
I do not follow. I cannot. Sienna is still bleeding on the moss.
Shifting back, I come up on my knees, naked, next to her body. I am shaking so hard, I cannot make my hands steady. She is still in wolf form. Her flank rises. Once. Again. Her breathing is shallow and ragged, but it is there.
