Page 18 of Alpha's Chosen Mate (Wolf Billionaire #2)

CHAPTER 18

LEILANI

M eeting your ex-best friend right after having earth-shattering sex is a real mood-killer. But this is a meeting I can’t avoid.

Asher’s knuckles brush against my bare waist as he leads me toward the receiving hall. “I can take care of this if?—”

I glance up at him. “I’ll be fine, Asher. It’s just Georgia. I’ve dealt with worse than a backstabbing best friend.” I have, but it doesn’t stop my heartbeat from accelerating as we near the heavily guarded hall. Why is she here? What does she want now? The last time I saw her, she was gloating about deserving to be Christian’s luna, even if she’d helped me plan what was supposed to be my wedding, down to the flowers that decorated the hall.

The guards manning the door bow to Asher and me before pulling it open, and the first thing I notice is the luggage. Asher and I exchange bewildered glances, and a happy squeal is the only warning I get before someone careens into me. “Oh my goodness, Leilani,” Georgia says, wrapping her arms around me. “It’s been too long! ”

Uh...what the hell?

She pulls back, and I gasp when I see her face. Her left eye is swollen shut, her nose is crooked, and her lips are split in multiple places. A patch of skin has been scraped off her jaw. Her usually glossy hair is thin and dry, and she looks like a sack of bones in an oversized sweater. What happened to her?

She smiles at me, revealing a chip in her front tooth. “I know you’re mad, but...” She rushes forward to take my hand, but Asher steps forward, shielding me.

Georgia’s head tips back, and her good eye glistens as she takes in my husband. Her blotchy skin flushes, and her lips part in surprise. She blinks, her gaze taking in every feature, and her expression turns increasingly annoying. She’s ogling him. I understand why...I mean, when I heard of the Dark Alpha, I expected an ugly old bastard. I was also surprised when the man who abducted me turned out to be a savagely, devastatingly handsome man whose stern expression constantly turns my legs to jelly.

I don’t like it, not one bit. Her lashes flutter and she lowers her head. “Thank you for not turning me away. You aren’t anything like what I expected.”

“What are you doing here, Georgia?” I ask her, unable to keep the irritation from my voice.

Her eyes flick to me, as if she’s only just remembered I’m here. Tears rise in her eyes. “Chris...” Her face reddens, and she flinches at some distant memory that flits across her expression. “He’s lost his mind, Lei.”

I arch a brow. “And this concerns me…how, exactly?”

Her nostrils flare and she wipes a tear off her cheek. “I suppose I deserve your distrust. And your anger. But I had no one else to turn to. Nowhere else to go. My parents won’t take me in. They say it’s disgraceful for a luna to turn away from her alpha and duties. They’ll just tell me to go back to him. But I can’t.” Her eyes widen with desperation. “If I do, he’ll kill me.”

I open my mouth to tell her she can join the rogues in the wilds, but she must see the coldness in my eyes, because she suddenly grabs the hem of her sweater and pulls it off in one smooth move.

Cold chills my entire body, and my feet go numb as I stare at her. Talon curses behind me, and so do a couple of guards. Her body is a patchwork of bruises and injuries, old and new, purple, blue, red, and black, trailing all the way down to her black slacks. Usually, Georgia looks like a supermodel, but no one is looking at her ample breasts and hard nipples right now. Her scars are too gruesome to ignore. She points at a scar running down her belly. “He did this to me on our wedding night, after you were taken.”

She points at another. “From the night you married the Dark Alpha. He didn’t care that I was with child…” Her voice breaks and she wipes another tear from her jaw. “I ran after I miscarried.” Her eyes find mine, but I have an odd feeling that she’s addressing the entire room, and not just me. “I understand that you hate me. I stole your life, your mate, and no apology could possibly take away the hurt I’ve caused you, but I came here because I heard your pack’s doors were open to those who have no homes to return to. Victims. If you send me back, you’ll be sending me to my death by his hands.”

Silence descends on the hall, and I feel the weight of a dozen different gazes on me, expecting my refusal. Asher’s voice drops into my subconscious, startling me. ‘They won’t judge you if you turn her away. You’re the luna. It’s your house and pack, and this is your decision to make. And if they don’t like it, they can sleep in the storeroom.’

I snort a laugh, looking at him. “They won’t all fit in there, Ash.”

He smirks and playfully brushes his knuckle over my cheek. Talon makes a gagging sound, and the guards try unsuccessfully to muffle their laughter.

Raising my chin, I return my gaze to Georgia, and I swear I catch a flash of jealousy in her eyes as she stares at Asher’s smile. But it’s gone in a second, replaced so quickly with hope that I start to wonder if I misjudged her. “You can stay, but don’t mistake my kindness for forgiveness. Your every move will be watched, so I suggest you behave yourself. For all we know, Christian sent you here to infiltrate the pack.”

Her eyes flash with anger as she gestures to her brutalized body. “Do you think these are self-inflicted?”

I step forward, peering down my nose at her, even though she’s taller than me. “I wouldn’t put it past you, Georgia. I’d be a fool to trust you after everything you’ve done. You might be able to fool everyone else with your act, but I see right through you, and I’ll be watching. One mistake, and those bruises will be nothing compared to what I have in mind for you.”

She says nothing, breaking eye contact first in a show of submission, but I still don’t buy it.

“Show her to the guest room,” Asher says to no one in particular as he entwines our fingers, tugging me toward the door. “You did great,” he says softly, just to me.

I smile, but as I steal a glance back at Georgia, who’s tugging her sweater over her head with a deer-in-the-headlights look, I can’t shake the feeling that I just made a huge mistake.

I don’t spend that night in my room, or any of the nights that follow. Asher doesn’t let me out of his sight for longer than a minute, and when he has to leave for work, he loosely ties my ankle to his bed. It’s the wolf in him. Usually, after the first time mates have sex, they’re inseparable. The male wolf gets possessive, and the female is stirred into heat by the male—horny enough that her mood affects the other males around her.

It’s why I don’t object to staying in his bed naked, parting my legs wide whenever I hear his light, yet sure footsteps. My body is so sensitive, even the sheets rubbing against my skin make me wet. I would be mortified if an entire hall of men could smell my arousal.

It was never like this with Christian, and I don’t know what it is about Asher that makes me wild and uncontrollable. Happy, even. With Christian, it was always a battle of getting through to him, connecting, and always wondering what really went on in his head. And though I could never completely understand him, I loved him enough to pretend it didn’t matter.

With Asher, I don’t have to pretend. Or wonder. I see it in the way he looks at me like I’m something special. I feel it in the way his arms wrap around me protectively at night. I hear it in the way he murmurs my name in his sleep and breathes in my scent when his body tightens from the nightmare that plagues him every night.

Even now, as streams of sunlight invade our—his—bedroom, I trace the outlines of his jaw with my thumb, and then his lips. I enjoy this thing between us. This bond, this relationship, this friendship we’re building. We don’t just have marathon sex all day .

We talk. We joke. We laugh. We’re getting to know each other, swapping experiences and ranking our habits from bad to worse. Although, I’ve come to find that there’s not a lot about me that Asher doesn’t know. It makes it even easier to like him He listens to me and gives all the right reactions. Even if I repeat the same story twice, he listens, propping his head on his elbow with eyes twinkling like I’m the most fascinating person in the world.

I don’t get it, but it makes me feel good.

Sighing, I attempt to roll over, but Asher grabs me and pulls me on top of him with his strong, muscular arms. His lazy blue eyes watch me with faint incredulity. With his hair tousled and his eyes heavy with sleep, he looks so tempting that my insides squeeze. “And where do you think you’re going?” His voice is deep and husky as his hands slide down to cup my ass. He’s hard instantly, and I clench on instinct.

“For a run,” I murmur, flustered and distracted by his hands. “It’s been a while.”

“Hmm…” His voice rumbles, the vibrations sending shivers down my spine. He hooks my legs, bringing them to rest on either side of him. “You don’t think it’s too early to be away from me?”

I roll my eyes and slap his chest. “It’s eight after ten, Asher. Enya’s been in here four times already.”

He hums again, pushing back the sheets so he can look at my naked upper body. “Did you forget?” His hands palm my waist, pushing me against his hard cock. His eyes harden and my mouth waters as his tip teases my entrance. “You’re coming with me into town today to see the new club, remember? ”

I roll my hips, trying to get him where I want him, but I can’t get the angle quite right. He reaches up, catching my aching nipple between his fingers and pinching hard, and I clench again, gasping faintly. “The last time you took me on a drive to see the packhouses, we didn’t get there until midnight because someone got curious about how it’d feel to bend me over the backseat. And the car’s hood.”

His catches my other breast in his large hands, flicking his thumbs over both of my nipples. I scoot back, gasping when his tip presses against me, and I lower myself onto him slowly, earning a deep groan from him. He hisses a breath when I squeeze around him, his eyes darkening. “It was your idea, if I remember correctly. You said, and I quote, ‘I want you to think of me and smell me every time you’re in here.’”

“Your memory must be foggy, old man,” I moan, rising slightly to slam my ass down against him. He groans, grabbing my hips to guide me up and down his cock, stretching me and hitting spots that make me shake with need. “How old are you, anyway? Sixty?”

He thrusts up into me hard, and I cry out, digging my nails into his shoulders as my core tightens from the pressure building inside me. Asher’s a little over thirty-five, but he looks a decade younger. “Do you prefer men old enough to be your grandfather?”

I giggle, but it turns into a throaty moan. “No, I like them huge, pretty-faced, and obsessed enough to abduct me.” My eyes flutter shut as he grows harder, bigger, and it takes everything in me not to come as the side of his shaft brushes against my clit.

“You think…” A sharp groan escapes him as his brows furrow in concentration. His breath comes in ragged pants, and his eyes flare gold. “You think I’m pretty? ”

The power behind his thrust knocks me forward into his chest, and I groan. “Outrageously so— ah !” I grab the headboard behind him, riding him with reckless abandon as wave after wave of orgasm crashes into me. He follows me over the edge a couple seconds later, and he grips me so hard, I think he might break my hipbones, but he doesn’t. His breathing is rough against my ear. “Don’t wash it off. I want every male who smells you to know whose bed you’ve been sleeping in. Whose cock you’ve been riding. And when you return, you’ll fuck me with that smart mouth of yours.”

I turn my head to his, locking our lips together. My heart flutters as he runs a hand up my back, threading his fingers through my hair and massaging my scalp softly. “You still haven’t unwrapped your present,” he murmurs against my lips.

“Later,” I breathe. “When I get back.”

He watches me tumble out of bed and dash into my room to grab a baggy sweatshirt and gray joggers—he’s hidden my skintight leggings somewhere because they make my ass look “edible” to other men. “I might be a little late. I’m meeting Jules at the creek. Forcing her to spend time with me might not be the best idea, but I’m really trying to get her to like me,” I call out, pushing my feet into a pair of gray sneakers.

He folds his arms behind his head, grinning. “Juliana sees herself as the connoisseur, and everyone else is an acquired taste. She’ll warm up to you soon enough.”

My brows furrow as I pull my hair into a high bun. “Connoi—what?”

Asher laughs. “Later. Don’t make me wait too long. ”

The thought of returning to his arms distracts me as I race outside, past the courtyard and into the woods. Music blares in my headphones. I don’t smell anything but the creek as I near it, and I hear nothing but the pounding bass. That’s why I don’t notice the danger until something heavy slams into the back of my head, and my world goes black.