Page 30 of Traded to the Alpha Wolf

Normally, the fact I’ve just declared a woman is my mate would be met with some kind of reaction in this town, but the fact that Sandy and Travis simply nod and get to work tells me how serious this is. I roll up my sleeve and let Sandy do what she needs to do; in the distance, I’m vaguely aware of Grey’s voice and some others, maybe Sara arriving at the clinic, but my focus is entirely on Mara as Travis preps her for emergency surgery.

***

I pace the hallway outside the operating room while Grey tries to get me to sit down, but the second I stop moving, I know I’ll shatter into a thousand pieces. In the chair across from me, Sara sits hunched, arms locked around herself, face streaked with tears she’s trying and failing to hide. The clinic is surprisingly calm considering the chaos outside on the square.

Every time the door swings open, I brace myself for Travis to come out and tell me she’s gone; my wolf hesitates between feeling our connection fade and holding on to it so tightly I can barely breathe. I catch myself gripping the edge of the counter so hard the laminate cracks under my fingers.

Grey hovers, then finally says, “You’ve done everything you could, Cade.”

I glare at him, and he has the sense to look away. “Not enough,” I say. “I should have been there. I should have killed them all before they got her.” My hands won’t stop shaking. The adrenaline is gone, replaced by a cold, hollow ache that starts in my chest and radiates out to my fingertips.

Time collapses. I can’t feel the minutes passing, just a slow, unspooling anxiety that knots my gut tighter with every step I take. I want to claw the door off its hinges, but all I can do is wait.

When Travis finally emerges, he’s streaked with blood, scrubs soaked through, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. I don’t breathe until he speaks.

“She’s alive,” he says, and it takes me a second to process the words. “The wound was deep, and she lost almost half her volume, but”—his eyes flicker up to me, sharp and curious—“her body’s responding to the transfusion better than anything I’veever seen. She’s healing almost like a shifter would. Not quite as fast, but it’s…significant.”

I lurch forward. “Can I see her?”

Travis nods. “She’s coming around. But she’ll be weak for a while. Keep her calm, Cade, or I’ll sedate you both.”

I push past him into the small recovery room. Mara’s on her side in the bed, eyes open, lashes dark with sweat. There’s a thick bandage around her throat, stained pink. Her skin is paper pale, lips gray, but when she sees me, her whole body tenses like she wants to get up and run.

I go to her, drop to my knees at the bedside. My voice is gone; I have to swallow twice before I can speak. “You’re okay,” I say, which is a lie, but I want it to be true. “Travis says you’re healing. It’s remarkable because…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence. “It doesn’t matter why.”

She opens her mouth to try to talk, but winces, and I know she needs to stay quiet for now. I shake my head and try to keep my voice steady, but it cracks anyway. “Don’t talk, not now. Just listen. You can hate me if you want. You can walk out of here and never see me again. But I’m not going to pretend this is anything other than what it is. You need to know that you’re it for me, Mara. Not because you’re an omega, not because some gene or magic says we have to be together. It’s because I want you. I want you even if you hate me for it.” Her eyes are wet now, but she doesn’t cry. She just stares at our hands, like she can’t believe they belong to us.

The silence stretches, and I feel the panic rise in my chest. “You don’t have to feel the same,” I say, and it comes out as a whisper. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. Not the life you pictured. But I had to say it. Don’t talk; we can figure out what you want later. You just need to get better.”

I watch as something flickers across her eyes, but she doesn’t argue. She lets her eyes fall closed as I sit beside her, listening to the machines' methodical beeps, knowing with absolute certainty that the hunters got everything wrong about Mara and her omega nature.

She wasn’t a weapon; the thought that she could weaken my wolf is almost laughable because all she did was make me fight harder.

Chapter 18 - Mara

I wake to the sound of birdsong and a gentle breeze. For a moment, I don’t know where I am, but as Cade’s scent washes over me and I settle deeper into the pillows, it slowly comes back to me. Cade’s bed. Not the clinic, not the spare room I’d been using. Cade insisted, and I didn’t even want to fight him on it. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

I’m not dead.

I lie there for a while, not moving, just letting the ache in my neck and the dull pulse in my head ground me to the reality of the room. The sheets are heavy and clean, the pillows still warm from where he must have slept, and for the first time in maybe a decade, I don’t feel like I have to get up and do something.

Even the pain in my neck feels like a distant memory, muted by the soft weight of the duvet and the fact that I’m here, alive, in a bed that smells like Cade.

I roll to my side, burying my face in the pillow that still holds the faint warmth of his sleep. My hands drift over the sheets, tracing the tangle of threadbare flannel and crisp linen, and I let myself sink into it. This is so far removed from the foster home I was put in after my parents died, or the bare rooms the hunters let me sleep in. It should have still felt like a prison, considering how I arrived here, and yet, it doesn’t. It feels stupidly safe. It’s dangerous, really, how easy it is to fall into the fantasy that I could just stop.

I’m not sure what time it is. There’s no clock in the room, just the slow passage of sunlight across the ceiling and the birds outside singing in the trees. When I finally work up the courage to check my neck, I reach up with shaking fingers and probe theskin just below my jaw. There’s a ridge of scar tissue, rough and raised, but the pain is minimal, almost nonexistent. Travis had said I’d be lucky not to need some help with talking, but here I am, voice intact, breathing on my own.

I don’t get it. Cade’s blood is supposed to help shifters heal, but I’m not a shifter. I know I have the omega DNA, but everyone still seemed surprised that it worked. Everyone except Cade. The fact that his blood healed me seems less of a surprise and more of a confirmation; he simply said, “As it should.”

I smell something drifting through from the kitchen, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s coffee and the unmistakable scent of bacon and something sweet, like pancakes. My stomach growls, loud enough to startle me. I’m almost embarrassed by the sound, but then I realize that hunger is a privilege. I should be dying, or at least barely able to move, but instead I’m ravenous. My body feels…fine. Better than fine, almost like yesterday was merely a nightmare, and the memory of pain is already fading.

I sit up, testing the limits of my body, half-expecting to feel the pull of stitches or the sting of a healing wound. There’s a dull tingle under the scar, but nothing else, no real pain at all. I flex my hands, wiggle my toes, then swing my legs over the side of the bed. I’m unsteady for the first few steps, but not weak. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror by the closet: wild hair, skin pale but not sickly, the scar on my neck angry and pink but otherwise unremarkable. As I straighten and stretch, I realize that I feel remarkably fine.

I can’t see any of my clothes, only the simple T-shirt I’m still wearing, so I grab one of Cade’s shirts, so big it fits me like a dress. It’s red and black plaid, soft and worn at the collar, and when I slip it over my head, I instantly feel warmer, the fabric holding the memory of his body heat. I pad barefoot down thehallway, following the sound of a pan scraping and the low hum of Cade’s voice, half-singing to himself in the kitchen.

He’s at the stove, shirtless, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, forearms braced on the counter as he flips a mess of eggs and bacon in the skillet. There’s a fresh pot of coffee on, and the table is already set, two mugs and a plate stacked high with toast.

I should say good morning. I should say something clever, or at least thank him for saving my life, but all I can do is stare. I want to blame it on residual heat, the omega stuff, but it’s not that. It’s him, just him, the way his back flexes when he moves, the easy power in his hands. The way he moves around his own kitchen like he’s never once questioned his right to take up space in the world.