Page 4 of Bullied Alpha Bride (Wolfshade Brides-for-Hire #2)

The drive back to Cyan Lock is pure torture.

For so long now, all I’ve wanted is to explain myself to her. Now she’s right in front of me, and I can’t think of a single fucking word to say to her.

I know I don’t deserve a damn thing from her. Even if I tell her exactly what happened, it doesn’t excuse my actions.

But I had no choice!

“So, Lexa, how have you been?” I ask lamely.

Great job, champ! There’s a conversation starter.

“Fine,” she answers flatly.

“What have you been doing for work?”

“Not much.”

I take a deep breath and keep my eyes on the road before I ask my next question.

“Why did you leave town so suddenly, all those years ago?”

She turns away from the window and looks at me, and I take my eyes off the road for a second to look back. Her silvery eyes are glinting in the midday sun, as if diamond chips have appeared in the layers of icy gray.

She’s changed so much…

“There was nothing left for me there,” she answers, turning back to look out the window again. I feel like there is a lot to unpack behind that sentence, but I also know I don’t deserve to hear it.

I made it clear to her I didn’t give a fuck what she did. But I never expected her to leave town.

I look away from the road again and let my eyes linger on her.

When I knew her in school, she was slender, almost willowy, and often looked lost in slightly baggy clothes.

Her black hair was long and wavy, falling all the way to her waist in a messy tangle.

She was soft-spoken and shy, barely noticed by most people.

Now her hair is cut in a short, glossy bob that bounces just above her shoulders, and the pure, jet-black strands are highlighted with violent streaks of purple. She seems a little taller than before, and the tight jeans and faded T-shirt are wrapped tightly around gorgeous curves.

I thought she was hot before, but this new version of Lexa is captivating me even more.

And I think I even like the spicy attitude.

I want to ask her about how much she’s changed, but I can’t figure out how to do it without openly admitting I’m admiring her body. So I keep my mouth shut.

As we travel along Lycan Pass to Cyan Lock, I look over at her as often as I can. She’s always staring out the window, not even paying attention to me, so I end up watching her with intense focus.

I was fucking obsessed with her in high school. I couldn’t admit it then, but I was. Now she’s ten times as hot… and we’re married!

I glance back at the road, then shift my eyes straight back to Lexa. To my shock, she’s staring right at me. I jump so hard, I jerk the wheel and almost crash into a tree, correcting hard to get us back onto the Pass.

Even though Lexa is holding on to the grab bar, she’s laughing softly. “Don’t remember you being the nervous type, Kit,” she mutters. “You were always so confident and perfect at everything you did. I never thought I’d see you fumble.”

“It’s not every day I get matched with my ex,” I retort, staring at the road so I don’t get distracted again.

“Oh?” she says. “You can’t be referring to me. How can I be your ex when we never even dated?”

It feels like all the air in the cabin has been sucked out. I feel dizzy for a few seconds as I absorb those words.

I’m such an asshole.

Winding down the window, I take deep breaths of fresh mountain air to clear my head. My concentration improves, but my mood doesn’t.

How can I explain everything to her?

My mind flips back to that night so many years ago. It was an end-of-school party, and everyone was there. All of us had graduated, and I was enjoying some rare time to myself away from Grandfather and his incessant demands.

I felt free, like there was hope in the world. As if maybe, just maybe, I could get away from him and his expectations of me.

I spent the entire night being my usual loud, abrasive self. Grandfather had instilled a certain arrogance in me and ordered me to play it up at all times. I was supposed to inspire fear in the pack, remind the others constantly that they were lower than me.

I cut people off while they were talking, shoved them out of the way, and took liberties with personal items. If I could think of a new way to be a jerk, I did it. And Grandfather always praised me for it.

Very late that night, I saw Lexa sitting with a few people out by the bonfire.

I’d been shocked to see her still at the party because she usually avoided social situations entirely.

The fact that she was there at all was odd, but seeing her still there so late at night was like a gift from the gods.

I went over to the small crowd, where I singled her out and told her to take a walk with me. I didn’t ask, leaving no room for negotiation. I just grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, announcing to everyone in earshot that Lexa was coming with me.

I remember her bright smile, the flickers of excitement in her pale eyes. She was glowing under my attention, and all I could feel was satisfaction.

With a shudder, I remember my thoughts at the time: Of course she fucking wants me. Everybody wants me. She should be grateful that I’m giving her this kind of attention.

The old memories, the words that used to come out of my mouth, flood through my brain, making me sick with guilt.

I’m such a fucking jerk!

I seduced Lexa out there, in one of the empty cabins at the campground. I took her, ravished her, even though she was so hesitant and withdrawn at first. I felt how hot she was for me, and I broke down her defenses and devoured her innocence and purity.

When I woke up in the morning, I realized what I’d done. I looked at her laid out on the mattress, her long waves of black hair scattered across the pillows like the clouds before a storm, her beautiful eyes still closed to the bright new day.

I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her she was mine, that I’d never let her go. I’d never wanted to possess anything as badly as her. I wanted to own her—every inch of her.

I wanted to keep her… forever.

But as I sat there watching her, cold waves of fear rolled through me. I knew exactly what Grandfather would say—that I couldn’t have any kind of relationship with gutter trash that fled to Cyan Lock because they’d been thrown out of their own pack.

Oh, he’d be fine with me fucking her. That’s definitely something his version of an alpha would do. But keep her? Or even marry her? No fucking way.

So I ran. I left her there alone.

I did what I had to do.

The last thing I expected was for her to track me down and confront me at my parents’ house, where my family and I—including Grandfather—were having dinner to celebrate my graduation.

Someone must have told Lexa I was there.

She just showed up on the doorstep with a shy smile on her face and a bright, hopeful look in her eyes.

I knew right then that I was going to have to crush her. So I did. Standing right on the front stoop, in front of my family and friends, I laughed in her face.

I saw her crumbling with every word. I knew I was destroying her, and I hated myself for it, but deep inside, part of me screamed with defiance and determination.

I will make this right , I thought in the present . I promise you, Lexa. Once the old man isn’t looking over my shoulder anymore, I can tell you how I really feel—and give the pack what it really needs.

She ran away crying, and I turned my back, slamming the door on the train wreck I’d just made. Grandfather laughed and congratulated me, and the family dinner went on as if we had just evicted a stray dog.

A few days later, Grandfather called me to his office. I could tell from his expression that he had a tough mission for me, one of the ones I hated but pretended to like.

I tortured people for him. I killed people for him. And I let him think I liked it.

Grandfather was a firm believer in final solutions.

He would occasionally issue a verbal warning or a light beating, but mostly, he went straight to death.

Any random wolf I found out on patrol was brutally killed, no matter who they were or what they were doing.

Grandfather said if they were on the boundary, we had to make an example of them.

And he’d said he regretted not being able to do it himself. That he was too old for patrols or hands-on discipline, and that it did me good to step up and learn to do what was necessary.

On that horrible night, he called me to his office and told me to kill both Lexa and her mother.

My struggle in that moment was one of the most painful moments of my life.

If I showed any resistance to the idea, Grandfather would take it out on me—either directly, with torture for punishment, or against others in the family he knew I cared about.

He had his ways of forcing obedience, and he only got more creative as he got older.

Keeping my stance casual, I lightly commented that the two of them were of such little consequence, they weren’t worth the effort. Grandfather agreed, but said he’d ultimately decided they were a liability and wouldn’t tolerate their presence in the pack any longer.

If I argued with him, then he would know that I truly cared about Lexa. It would only give him ammunition, and I knew he already had his suspicions.

The only thing I could do was nod in agreement.

Grandfather then revealed to me that he was taking Grandmother to the human world for a week, and he expected the job to be done by the time he got back.

After we spoke, I went to find Lexa, explain everything, and tell her to get out of Cyan Lock. To run and never look back.

And maybe, go with her…

My world was slowly collapsing. I couldn’t obey Grandfather anymore, but I knew what he would do if I defied him.

No matter where we ran, he would most likely catch us, but I couldn’t think of another solution that would keep Lexa safe.

Even though I didn’t want to abandon my family or my pack, I stupidly thought they might be safer if I left.

When I went looking for Lexa, I found her house empty. It looked like it had been broken into, and I could only detect a very faint trail of her scent—a scent I followed into the woods.

Not far beyond our boundary, I found the body of Laura, Lexa’s mother.

There was no sign of Lexa, and almost no trail to follow.

It looked like the poor woman had gone down in a terrible fight and had been there for some time.

I took her body back to town, hoping to satisfy Grandfather that the job had been completed.

But I didn’t have to, because he never returned. After news of his death was announced, I became alpha. After that, I answered to no one. Unless you counted the council.

I tried to find Lexa for the first two years.

Trackers and investigators were sent out throughout Lycan Pass as well as the human world, but I found no leads to her location or even her previous pack.

Her mother had kept their past a secret, and even though she must have done it for their safety, it had been the biggest barrier between me and finding Lexa.

And all I wanted was to keep her safe…

“Lexa,” I say softly as we crest the last hill. The Pass turns sharply down towards the town, and I can see the lake as a perfect smudge of blue against the hills.

“What?” she answers, her tone flat and hard. All the words I want to say get stuck in my throat, and I swallow them down.

I have so much to say, but how can I ever explain? She’ll think I killed her mother.

“We’re almost there,” I say weakly.

She nods. “Yeah. There’s the lake. Are we going to your estate?”

“No, we’ll have to go into town first. To see the council.”

“What?” Lexa asks, her tone pained. “Why?”

“For the ceremony,” I answer. “The binding ceremony?”

“What?” she gasps. “Now?”

“Yes,” I reply with some regret. “Now.”