Page 45 of Rejected By the Alpha

My cheeks warmed at how embarrassing this was. I was a grown-ass woman, getting told what to do by a bunch of alphaholes. It wasn’t just Davix anymore. Cade had a hint of it in him, too, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

The wetness between my thighs surely did though.

“No,” I said, making myself as heavy as I could so he couldn’t easily drag me anywhere.

But before I could argue anymore, Cade flung me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing and headed straight in the direction of our home. I struggled in his hold, but he kept me secure, his muscles flexing against me.

Hazel waved at me. “I’ll come see you tomorrow, Em!”

“No, you won’t,” Davix growled, blocking her view of me. “Never again.”

Little did he know that alphaholes might’ve made the rules in public, but that didn’t mean girls like me had to follow them. That dickhead or Cade wasn’t going to stop me from seeing my friends, not when life had gotten this exciting.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ember

Branches snapped under Cade’s feet. I pumped my shorter legs to keep up with him. The forest was quieter than usual, and the faint scent of blood drifted through my nose, the memories of earlier following.

Had that red-eyed wolf really survived that attack? I swore I had seen hundreds of rogues surrounding him when Hazel pulled me away. If he was alive, was he still in the forest somewhere, watching me?

The house came into view, and I spotted my easel still set up in the backyard. The baby foxes were sitting on the back porch, cuddled together and staring at Cade storming up the pathway and toward the back door while dragging me along with him.

“Hi, babies,” I murmured.

But their gazes were locked on Cade, and I didn’t blame them. I had gotten a front-row seat at furious Cade versus Davix today, and I had practically been drooling. If it was their first time seeing a man so sexy when he was angry … of course they’d stare.

Cade threw the back door open and let me into the empty house. Pavel wasn’t home yet. Once I stepped into the living room, he slammed the door shut behind me.

“What the fuck were you thinking?! I told you to stay home.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

“You almost died!”

“And?”

“And? And?!”

“And if I died, so what?” I asked, turning away from him because I didn’t want him to judge me over my life choices. “It’d shave a couple of months off my life. It’s not like I’m going to live until I’m eighty. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.”

“Why? Huh? Why does it matter if I’m dead now or in two months?”

“Because you’ll be gone!” Cade shouted. “Because you’ll leave me!”

My eyes widened, and I sucked in a breath. Cade’s harsh expression turned into an odd mixture of guilt and surprise, as if he hadn’t expected himself to say what had just come out of his mouth.

“And the rest of your family,” he continued quietly.

But I could tell he didn’t care about me leaving Pavel as much as he cared about me leaving him. All this time, I had thought Pavel had convinced him to watch over me and paid him to take me to the hospital, to care for me.

Had he done it all because he actually liked me? More than just a casual hookup?

Warmth spread through my tightening chest, and I pushed the thought to the side. Sure, I liked Cade, too, but I didn’t … I couldn’t fall in love with him. Not before I was going to die. I wouldn’t want to die, and that … that would be so unfair to him.

So, I cleared my throat. “Who? Pavel? He’s barely been home since we moved.”