Page 10 of Brutal Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #2)

“This way!” Ellis yells as we run. He’s taking us in the opposite direction of where I thought we were going to go. We’re not headed toward the pack or the coven for support. It's as though he’s trying to lead us out of the valley.

“Where are we going?” I scream.

My legs are aching, my heart racing, and I can barely catch my breath. I can feel the monsters gaining on us.

We could have tried to fight them, but Ellis didn’t give us that option. I’m waiting for a moment of strength to hurl another zap.

“Just keep moving forward!” He yells. “We need to lead them away.”

It doesn’t help that it’s raining. I can barely see.

But Ellis hasn’t shifted, which means he’s not leaving me to fend for myself. Maybe he should—we’re not going to outrun them at this pace.

He leads me around a bend, and all I see is mud and trees. I become frantic. Even in his human form, he’s much faster than me.

I look back, and notice five or more shadow monsters still following—gaining on me, too close.

I turn, stopping abruptly, and raise my hands above my head. I try to steady my heart rate, focusing on producing a glow.

“Danielle!” I hear Ellis yell. “What are you…come on!”

My hands become shaky, little sparks form, and I take a deep breath as I stare those creatures right into their soulless, empty black eyes.

Before they reach me, I feel Ellis yank me. It all happens so fast, a bright flash that covers my vision, it’s my magic, but somehow, it's completely out of my control.

I don’t even have time to scream before I fall to the ground.

***

Somehow, Ellis and I have ended up somewhere completely different. We’re in a forest, but there are no shadow monsters, and we’ve been walking for what feels like miles and still haven’t found the route back home.

“I would transport us back if I could,” I say, gazing around at the unfamiliar trees. “But I don’t know how I did this. I’ve never done a transportation spell before.”

The rain has come to a drizzle, but I still shiver from the cold.

“I don’t scent anything familiar,” Ellis says curiously while looking around.

Ellis and I weren’t exactly on the best of terms before those monsters came for us out of nowhere, but still, I feel bad about getting us lost. If I had just done what he said and run, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

He already thinks I’m a spy , and I’m sure this has only made things worse.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I thought I could take them, but I didn’t feel fast enough running.”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. “I shouldn’t have been so forceful; it was probably the panic that misfired the spell.”

I’m not sure whether we’re only talking about the spell, but either way, there’s a peace that settles among us. A calm energy that feels like a truce, despite us being completely and utterly lost.

“Were you thinking about anything in particular when you fired, a place from your past, maybe?”

My past. Not something I’d ever choose to think about willingly. Especially not in his presence.

“No,” I say. “I was thinking about destroying those things.”

“They’re what Sawyer and Lacey had to fight, aren't they?” He says. I turn to look at him. I notice the way that the rain has flattened his copper hair and how that accentuates his hard-edged bone structure. I notice the mixture of tiredness and subtle disassociation that transforms his face.

There are a few little red scratches on his face, one by his jaw, the other on his forehead. Something about the way he looks makes my stomach flutter.

“Yes,” I whisper. “The curse is getting worse.”

He doesn’t have a response, and as we walk in silence, the doom and gloom of our future hangs above us like a bad omen. The curse is getting worse, and we have no idea what we’re going to do.

“Are you cold?” He asks me.

I hug my arms across my chest to keep myself from shivering too much.

“No,” I say, quietly. “I’m fine.”

I feel his gaze on me as I say this, and I’m certain he doesn’t believe me. My teeth are practically chattering, but he lets it go.

We walk a little more, my feet and thighs burning, and somehow, we’ve migrated closer to one another so that we’re practically touching.

In usual circumstances, I’d have moved away, but I have just about enough energy to keep walking, let alone the defiance to show him my disgust.

Soon, it begins to get dark, and at least the rain has fully stopped.

“Maybe we can try a different direction?” I suggest. The forest feels as though it's stretching on until infinity, and I can’t think of a spell that I can use to find our way home. But I know we have to try something; this walking feels pointless.

Ellis clenches his jaw, looks up at the sky, and then back to me.

“No,” he says, his eyes weary. “We should stop.”

It’s not until Ellis says we should stop that I discover how truly exhausted I am. For example, I’m too exhausted to protest when he says, ‘Here, sit.’ I oblige, sitting my ass down on a softer-than-I’d-imagined tree stump.

I’m also too tired to protest when Ellis starts busying himself with grabbing supplies and wood. Usually, I’d protest him doing anything remotely traditional and husband-esque like this, but now is not the time to start a fight or complain.

Even I know that.

“You think we’re safe out here?” I ask him, gazing up at the moon, which is glowing in front of a wispy layer of cloud.

I can’t stop thinking about those monsters—as a witch, I’m in tune with energy, and thinking back to the darkness that they had gives me the absolute creeps.

“Can’t be sure,” he says, “I don’t know where we are, but I’ll work on building some basic traps and a barrier for us out of the materials that I can find. It won’t be foolproof, but it’ll at least alert us if someone or something is coming.”

“I’ll help you,” I say, standing up.

In half a second of my movement, he’s suddenly before me, close, towering above, and I can practically hear his heart beating. Or maybe that’s my own?

“No,” he commands. “You should rest.”

Something about his voice makes me want to obey him, but I know better. I’m not going to sit around and let him do all the work. I’m not as weak as he may think—although he may not respect our kind, I am a powerful, strong witch.

“I’m not as weak as you think I am, you know.”

He allows himself to smile just a little. “I know you’re a badass, Danielle, but-”

I shake my head. “No buts. If I add a subtle layer of magic to what you create, it’ll help. It needs to be subtle, in case anyone notices, I know. This isn’t my first time out in the wild trying to survive.”

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s not?”

“Penelope has us practice things,” I explain, rising on my toes and lifting my chin defiantly at him. “And none of those things include secretly spying on your pack.”

He shakes his head, and I can’t help but think that I’ve missed the way he quietly disapproves and concedes to me all at once. He’s smiling a little. Maybe he believes me, maybe he doesn’t. I was stupid to take back roads that someone like me, an outsider, shouldn’t know.

But all that’s in the past now. We exist somewhere else, and we need to work together if we want to make it through the night.

“Let’s do this, then,” he says.

It turns out the Alpha wolf is skilled at building things in nature and setting up traps—go figure. I always knew that he excelled at these sorts of things when we were younger, but obviously, after all this time, he’s improved.

Ellis builds a protective wooden barrier that circles around a spot of land. He does this quickly, as though it takes him little effort at all.

“Show off,” I mutter.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Next, I use the faintest bit of glow to add an extra protective layer to the barrier. The magic that holds it is not visible to the naked eye, but it’ll block anything from flying in at us, and will make a sound in case anything does, so that we can quickly get up.

Then we move onto the traps, Ellis has mapped out all the possible angles, and sets up objects that are covered with both of our scents—just in case any rogue wolves want to come get us.

At first, he wanted to create a contraption that would physically suspend anything that went near one of the objects in the air.

“No,” I tell him. “It’s better I lace the objects with magic so that if they cross it, it’ll lightly burn the thing that comes by. In that way, we’ll hear it coming, which is what we really want.”

He squints at me, looking amused.

“What?”

“Have you ever thought about burning me?”

I shrug. “Maybe a couple of times.”

Once we’re finished with the traps, I consider casting a spell to make the sleeping area a little more comfortable… but I know it’s risky.

“It’s not that bad,” Ellis says beside me, as though reading my thoughts. “I’ve slept on the forest floor without anything plenty of times.”

I exhale a small laugh. “Of course you have.”

He rolls his eyes, “Just come on.”

We move through the barrier and settle down side by side on the floor. I’m facing up at the night sky, which is finally clear, and so is he.

My body tingles from us being so close.

I don’t dare to look at him directly, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see his large chest rising and falling and the cool expression of his stoic eyes.

Part of me wants him to fall asleep so that I’m alone, and another part is so comforted by him being beside me, I almost feel safe. I almost feel like I want to stay up talking to him all night.

I think I’m becoming delirious.

“You did a good job, Danielle,” he says.

That makes me feel more excited than I should be.

I sigh, shuffling a little. “You didn’t do so bad yourself.”

He laughs, and then we lay in a silence filled by the forest.

Eventually, I decide to close my eyes and try to sleep.

I think I doze off a little at one point, but I keep coming back, so painfully awake and conscious. I don’t want to check if Ellis is awake, but his breathing is slow and steady, and hearing the way he sounds alone is putting me on edge.

We’re so close to one another, inches away from touching. We have to be prepared in case we need to escape, but it ties my stomach into knots.

And then the cold. When we were moving around, setting traps, doing magic—I forgot about the cool night’s breeze and my damp clothes.

Now I feel it. I feel everything.

My teeth are chattering again, and goosebumps break out all over my body like hives. For a second, I think about doing a spell, but I can’t risk it.

I huff a little in frustration.

Ellis moves.

One large arm wraps itself around me and brings me toward his chest. A suffocated, strange noise escapes my throat from the shock.

“What are you doing?” I hiss. Is he asleep? But God, his chest is so warm, like a heater, which immediately makes my eyes heavy and soothes my body.

Despite that, I try to pull away. He doesn’t let me. I gaze up at him and realize he’s awake and grinning. Arrogant shit.

“Relax, would you, Danielle? You’re obviously cold.”

Frustratedly, I rest my head back on his chest. I have little choice.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I don’t need to be manhandled.”

But my body is buzzing, excited, insatiable, as well as frustrated. The warmth that spreads across me very quickly turns hot.

“Do you ever let your walls down?” He murmurs.

His forearm is resting against my back. No, Ellis, I do not . At least not anymore.

“It’s not that,” I complain. “It’s your chest. Well... It isn’t comfortable. It’s too hard, and not to mention your horrible wolf smell.”

It’s haunting, actually.

Without saying anything else, he takes hold of me, and pulls me up. Now we’re side by side, his arms still around me, but we’re at eye level. He’s so much bigger than me, so much stronger—he can move me wherever he wants.

His eyes open, and those burgundy pools watch me with an expression I immediately recognize. I feel a heat between my legs, and my throat burns.

Move away, Danielle , my intuition warns. But I can’t, my body has taken over, and suddenly I’m staring at a man who’s the only person I’ve ever loved.

“Better?” He asks.

I swallow, my throat and mouth dry. “No.”

Now I’m up by his face, his arms hang lower on my body, beneath the back of my thighs. I’m too aware of how close they are to the area that is growing uncontrollably hot and moist.

“But you’re warmer, aren’t you?” He asks me.

I nod.

“And you want me to let you go?”

His hands trace higher, just inches below my ass. I’m desperate for him; my pussy throbs.

“Yes,” I whisper, but everything else about me says no.

His mouth lowers to meet mine, his lips gently lapping against my edges. I sigh as a frustrated fire rages inside me.

The voice that tells me to stop is long gone, and delicately, I kiss him back. His lips are so soft, so smooth—everything smells like him.

We kiss gently, his tongue massaging mine, and then I thrust my hips against his torso. His hands make their way up to my ass, and his grip tightens. Ellis groans.

Now his tongue is stronger, faster. I kiss him back with rapid force. My arms hang over his neck, we’re rolling, he’s pulling himself on top of me.

“Wait,” I say, breathless. “Stop.”

He pulls out, his eyes riddled with desire. I want him so much. But I turn to face the nearest wall of the barrier that encloses us.

“I think we should rest. It’s been a long night.”

He pauses, and then I feel the cold absence of his body as he rolls over.

“Goodnight, Danielle,” he says.