Page 76 of Rejected By the Alpha

And I didn’t want Davix to have her when she went into heat, not after her first heat. She would go in and out of it until the next full moon, and I wanted to be the one she wanted, the one who mated her.

That fucker didn’t deserve it.

“You get me anything?” Pavel asked, scavenging through the bag from Java.

“Not unless you want to fight Ember for some banana bread,” I said, glancing at the staircase, brows furrowing. “Where the hell is she?”

Was she still mad at me? Maybe me inviting Hazel to her surprise birthday party in front of her was a bit too much.

“Ember?” Pavel said. “Haven’t seen her.”

“You haven’t seen her?” I repeated, scanning the living room.

In the corner, near the back door, there was an easel with her canvas of Black Hollows. Her paints and brushes were gathered in a small pile on the side table right near the door. And her shoes, the ones she usually took off near the door before entering, were gone.

“Fuck,” I growled, shooting up and ascending the steps. “Ember!”

No sounds. No scents.

Nothing.

Fuck! If she fucking left again …

When I yanked on her door, the room was completely empty. I ran into it, searching under her bed, in her closet, anywhere that she could be because I had fucking told her not to leave this house again.

And with Davix in the middle of a war with not one, but multiple packs …

If she ran to his packhouse because she was mad at me, then she would be in the middle of that shit. She couldn’t shift. She couldn’t protect herself. She had been running out of energy faster and faster since she’d started to get sick.

I sprinted down the stairs to find Pavel picking at the ends of the banana bread.

“Where did Ember go?” I asked as calmly as I fucking could.

“I thought she was with you,” he said, finally setting his phone down.

“Fuck,” I growled, storming to the back door.

“You sure she’s not at Java?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Dickhead.

“I’ll call her,” Pavel said, lifting his phone to his ear while I ran out of the house.

Calling her wouldn’t help if she ran to Davix, thinking he would help her, save her from whatever she thought I had done, and become an innocent victim. And it really wouldn’t help if someone had kidnapped her—or worse … killed her.

Chapter Forty-Two

Davix

Three packs.

Three fucking packs had attacked us at once.

The Black Hollows reeked of blood and decaying bodies. Wolves from opposing packs lay dead on my property. Sanguine gore soaked my feet. My pack was the strongest of this land, but three packs at once?

So many fucking wolves, and they had kept coming.

After shifting into my human, I grabbed my abdomen. Blood seeped through my fingers, and I gritted my teeth to displace all the pain. It had been torn open hours ago, and it hadn’t even started to heal yet.