Lib Novel Page 104
When she comes to a halt and glances at me, my heart stutters at the picture she’s painting. Wrapped in a bedsheet that is trailing behind her, her hair streaming down her back as she looks at me from over her shoulder…She is mesmerizing. My breath catches, and it takes me a second to gather my thoughts.
“Somebody gave you that aphrodisiac, Sophia. We need to look into it.”
She turns around to face me fully, and I see some of the fire return to her eyes. “We don’t need to do anything. I will look into this matter myself. This is my problem, not yours. It is for the best that you and I stop getting involved with each other, Alex. I know you need to look for the Silver Wolf, and if it gets you out of town faster, I will help you. But I just want you gone. I want to start living my life again. I can’t do that when you’re still here.”
She walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind her.
I stare at the bathroom door, feeling numb.
“I just want you gone.”
My wolf makes a miserable sound.
I can feel the coldness from our bond, a dull sensation.
“I guess I just thought that maybe somebody would choose me for once.”
I don’t think Sophia intended for me to hear that. It felt like she was speaking to herself. I don’t know much about her—an orphan raised in the pack’s orphanage and now living in this small town—but I do know that she’s lonely. I can sense it. She also admitted it when she first met me in my wolf form.
I realize I’ve gone after her when my hand touches the bathroom door. I want to open it. I want to apologize. I want to keep apologizing. That listless, empty look in her eyes breaks me.
I want to tell her that I desperately want to choose her, that I don’t want to walk away from her. I want to tell her that my heart is breaking as well.
Maybe deep inside she knows it.
I wish I could comfort her. I wish I never came here.
Stepping back, I tilt my head and stare at the ceiling, trying to breathe through the agony of my emotions.
Somebody drugged Sophia. The only person I can think of is Noah, but when I asked Sophia who she was with this morning, she wouldn’t tell me. However, the scent of the Alpha Successor is hard to miss. But there was also another scent on her. One that I didn’t recognize.
That scent was fainter, meaning that whoever it was, she had been with that person a couple of hours ago. Aphrodisiacs don’t work very fast, and Noah’s scent was stronger. I grab my pants and tug them on over my briefs, my brain working in overdrive. If I follow the scent, it cannot be the Alpha Successor who drugged her.
Who was the other person?
And why did they give Sophia an aphrodisiac?
Chapter 20
Sophia Hope
“If it were only the fated mate bond, it would be easy.”
Sitting on the floor of the shower, hot water pouring over me, I stare blankly at the tiles. I’ve lost my mind.
Because to me, that sounded very much like a love confession.
No, I really have lost my mind. I’m reading too much into his words. I let out a shaky breath, running my fingers through my wet hair.
Even if he does have feelings for me now, it doesn’t change anything. He has to protect the young of his pack. It’s as simple as that. I can’t stand in the way of that. I can’t demand that he let them die and choose me.
Alex’s words keep running through my head. I have to admit to myself that he hasn’t been acting like somebody who despises me. I know all of my emotions, actions, and words have been coming from a place of anger and hurt. When I stood on the beach this morning, staring at the ocean, I knew that. I’ve been like a child throwing a tantrum.
I can still feel Alex, his body moving against mine, the tension in his eyes, that heat and relief. He is the first man I’ve ever been with. I can still feel the lingering ghost of his touch on every part of my body. The blazing trail his fingers left against my skin, how they felt when they were inside me, the intense need and desperation his touch pushed me to…It’s all replaying in my head, over and over again.
My arms come to wrap around my stomach. I can feel my wetness down below, and I swallow. If I go out there and ask him to take me to bed, he won’t deny me. I’m certain of it.
I didn’t lie to him. As soon as he touched me in the doorway, it felt like I had fallen into a deep, murky lake. I could feel what my body was doing, aggressively seducing him, and I could do nothing but watch. He tried to isolate me in the bedroom. He tried to stay away from me. And then, when he finally did relent, I could see the guilt he felt. It was in his eyes, in his breath.