Page 16 of Cruel Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #1)
`Before the phone rang once, my heart was full of emotion.
I mean, I know I was mad at Sawyer—rightfully so—for the way he treated me most of my life, but deep down in my soul, I always longed to give my sweet little Shea a relationship with a father.
Even if that meant I had to venture out of the coven to meet someone new and hope he wouldn’t mind being a step-dad.
A little over a month after moving into the coven’s village, I learned I was carrying Shea. I considered going back to the valley with my head hanging low, even though I doubted anyone but Greg and Sawyer would know I was missing in the first place.
I thought about pretending that I had met someone out in the human world and had gotten pregnant after a one-night stand.
Somehow, to me, that was far less shameful than sleeping with a man whom I believed felt nothing for me, and who would likely deny until his dying breath that he ever touched me in the first place.
It’s not like I would have been completely alone in the valley.
I would have had Greg help me out, but I didn’t want him to feel like he had to act as anything more than just an uncle to my future child.
He had already taken care of me for so long, he didn’t need to care for me as an adult, as well as care for a mewling, temperamental little baby.
I even thought about marching up to Lucas’s pristine porch steps and telling him exactly what his precious son had done with me, and praying to the moon that the baby looked enough like Sawyer that there would be no denying its paternity.
I could only imagine the look of shock when the older man realized his son’s standards were lower than he expected.
It was enough to make me smile in times of darkness and depression.
But in my heart, I really wanted Sawyer to claim my sweet little bundle of joy as his own. I wanted him to proudly take me as his wife. And I wanted that lovely domestic life I had read about in books and watched on TV. The white picket fence and all that comes with it.
While none of it happened quite how I had hoped, it all still happened. Except for the white picket fence, of course.
I’m now married to Sawyer, and just moments ago, I got to witness him tucking his daughter into bed and improvising a story to help her go to sleep. He even gave her “night-night kisses,” something she has only ever requested of me, no matter how much she loves her twin aunties.
And even better, that story he told her. It was obviously the watered-down version of our real-life story, but it was so much more than that. It was the genuine, heartfelt apology I had been craving since I tearfully burst through the trees with my shirt inside out all those years ago.
He knew what he had done wrong, and he had atoned for it, never once making an excuse for himself and his poor behavior. Consider me finally satisfied.
My phone rings one more time, breaking me free of my thoughts just long enough to taste reality again.
I know that this call from Danielle must be important, but my heart rate hasn’t slowed down from my kiss with Sawyer.
It was so much different than any other kiss we’ve shared.
The others in the past they’ve been drawn from passion, or in the case of our wedding night, duty, and tradition, but never from such a place of intimacy and understanding.
It’s been like years of trauma have started chipping away. While they’ll never completely leave, this is a new start for both of us. And I hate to be called away from it so soon.
Still, though, I can’t ignore this phone call. The valley and its inhabitants are far too important to ignore for a kiss with my husband.
“Hello?” I say.
“ Lacey? ”
“Danielle?” I ask. “Why are you whispering so quietly?”
“I can’t risk anyone hearing me,” Danielle tells me, striking a chill in my bones. “Listen, things are getting really hairy over here.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, putting her on speakerphone so Sawyer can hear as well.
“You remember our little fight with Violet in the woods? Remember how she said she would lie about what happened?”
“Yes, of course. She’s completely unhinged,” I say.
“You don’t know the half of it, Lacey. She didn’t go home after I doused her little fire.
I don’t know where she went, but she came back to the coven at first light, all covered in cuts and bruises.
It’s either a magical glamour, or she’s just crazy enough to hurt herself on purpose to prove a point.
Either way, she was looking for attention, and she got it.
Everyone asked her what happened, and she said that your husband attacked her for no reason. And everyone believed her.”
“What?” I gasp out, looking at Sawyer. “I mean, I know she said she would do it, but why would she go to such lengths?”
“And to make it all better, she told everyone that Monroe and I were helping him because we’re traitors like you,” Danielle adds sardonically. “Everyone’s been giving us the evil eye like crazy. No one trusts us anymore, Lacey. We’ve locked ourselves in the house all day.”
“What about Penelope?” I ask. “I mean, surely she’s level-headed enough to see through this obvious bullshit.”
“She’s our best chance,” Danielle replies. “But we haven’t talked to her face-to-face yet.”
“I’m sorry this is happening,” Sawyer tells her in a broken voice. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it.”
“No, it’s not,” she says. “Violet’s a strange girl. Always has been. Something like this was bound to happen sometime.”
Sawyer makes a humming noise in his throat. “Then what does this mean for me?”
“We just received a message from Penelope. She said she’ll request a meeting with you to discuss the incident. I think she told us so we could warn you in advance. Maybe that’s a sign that she’s on our side?”
“Thank you, Danielle,” Sawyer says.
Before another word can be spoken, there’s a loud gust of wind. It’s so powerful that it lifts open one of the living room windows, and in blows a scroll of parchment directly into Sawyer’s hands.
“There it is,” I say. “Danielle, promise me you and Monroe will stay safe tonight?”
“I promise. We’ve been throwing back coffee like you wouldn’t believe.”
There’s a click and then silence on the other line. I tuck my phone back into the pocket of my bathrobe and look at Sawyer, who’s staring cautiously at the scroll in his grasp.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Just open it.”
He nods, then unfurls the scroll before him. The inky letters lift slowly from the page, disintegrating before his eyes, and then a familiar woman’s voice begins speaking.
“ Sawyer of the Valley, you are hereby summoned to the thicket. Meet me there posthaste. There are many questions that need many answers .”
“That’s Penelope’s voice, alright,” I mutter, my brow furrowing. “But what was she talking about?”
Sawyer heaves a great sigh, then cracks his neck.
“After whatever divided the witches and the wolves all those years ago, the alphas and coven leaders designated an area in the woods as a neutral meeting spot in the forest, just in case they needed to speak to each other. Jasper, Ellis, and I were all told where it was when we were sworn in as alphas. I’m sure this Penelope of yours was as well when she took over the coven. ”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I say, pulling out my phone again. “Let me call Greg and see if he can babysit while Shea sleeps. I’ll get dressed, and then we can go, okay?”
“No, Lacey,” my husband tells me. “As much as I would love to have you by my side, by decree, I must get to the thicket as soon as I possibly can. I can’t wait for Greg to get here, and I can’t walk as a human. I have to run as a wolf, and I have to go now.”
My heart feels heavy. If only I weren’t so defective. If only I could shift like him.
I could be with him. I could see Penelope.
And now that my heart is beating for Sawyer again, being apart from him in a time like this is going to hurt. Deeply. But I have to be strong. I’m an alpha’s wife, damn it.
“Okay,” I murmur in response. I lean forward and kiss him on his scruffy cheek. “Be safe, Sawyer.”
He nods. “I will.”
“Penelope is firm,” I add, not quite as much a warning as it was an expectation set. “She’s firm, but she’s also fair. I’m sure everything will be okay. But good luck.”
Sawyer nods his head once again. There’s something I want to tell him, but I just can’t let it leave my mouth.
So, instead, I follow him into the kitchen and open the front door for him.
He kisses my lips before shifting into his large, chestnut-brown wolf form and darts off into the darkness, slipping away outside of the streetlamp’s light.