Page 23 of Cruel Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #1)

Lacey drags me up the porch and into our home, throwing the heavy backpack down on the kitchen table. I’ve hardly closed the door behind me when she jumps into my arms, pressing her lips against mine like she’s been poisoned, and my mouth has the antidote.

“What is it?” I ask as soon as I break free.

“There’s no time to explain,” she says quickly. “Please, just keep kissing me.”

Her lips are wet and soft against mine. I love kissing her, feeling her arms around me, pulling me closer. And in any other moment, I would be overjoyed to feel her undoing my fly just enough to reach her hand under the waistband of my boxers.

But I can only focus on the heaps of information I’ve just received. And on the things fluttering through my brain—everything I’ve left unsaid.

As much as I love Lacey, her touch does nothing to make me harder right now. I’m far too preoccupied with my thoughts. And she notices, her face falling in disappointment.

Breaking apart, I look at her sheepishly. “It’s not you,” I say as soon as I see the confusion, the hurt on her face. “Lacey, hell no, it’s not you. It’s… It’s everything around me, right now.”

“Please, we have to,” Lacey murmurs. “It’s important.”

“I can’t, Lacey,” I tell her, and she removes her hand, stepping away from me. “Look, there’s something I need to tell you before I lose the opportunity forever.”

Lacey cocks her head to the side, sniffling back her tears. “What is it?”

“I am absolutely and completely in love with you, Lacey. Every inch, head to toe,” I admit. “I’ve been too afraid to say it because I worry I still haven’t earned your full love and affection. But now I can’t stand here and not tell you that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for us.”

Lacey backs up further, and it’s clear that something is coming over her in that very same moment. Her face fell in a way that I was dreading it would, only confirming my worst suspicions about telling her how I really feel.

“I’d ask if you think I’ve earned it, but it seems I’ve fallen quite short,” I say, glancing down at my feet.

When I meet her eyes again, I can see how much this revelation breaks her. I thought we had been in a good place lately, that she was falling for me all over again, but I guess I was wrong.

“I can’t say it back,” she tells me hoarsely, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Sawyer, you’ve surpassed a lot of my expectations over the last week. I thought I was getting closer to saying it, too, but I don’t think I realized just how deep these scars run until right now.”

It’s like my heart is being torn out of my chest by one of those shadow monsters from the forest. I still haven’t proven myself to her.

“I know you’ve changed,” she adds, heartbreakingly. “I’ve seen you be a much better person now. But everything you did, everything you said to me, they’ve left a huge scar that hasn’t fully healed.”

I can’t even say that I’m sorry. Words can never be enough.

All I can do is beat myself up more over my foolish ways.

“I’m so proud of you for maturing, but it’s just not enough for me to be able to say it back.

I mean, what if you change your mind immediately after saying this?

” she asks. “What if I reopen that wound, just for it to fester again? I’ve been so guarded all of these years, Sawyer.

It’s all to protect me from getting hurt.

And now that the stakes are so high—now that we have a daughter who’s learning who you are, who’s falling in love with you, herself, I just can’t do it again… ”

My own eyes fill with tears as she continues to ramble in front of me. I knew I had fucked up royally, but it seems I’ve shifted her life completely with my past transgressions.

I’m the worst person I’ve ever known. This just confirms it.

“Look, I know it’s irrational,” Lacey says through hitching breaths. “I know that I’m probably making a huge mistake right now. But I also know that if I get hurt like that again, I will never be able to forgive myself.”

All I can do is nod my head. I deserve this. And it’s only a fraction of how horrible I’ve made her feel.

“You deserve the truth, Sawyer,” she tells me. “Even if we both die in the next five minutes, I can’t let the truth go unsaid. Not with you.”

My heart crumples deep within my chest, but I continue to nod my head. “I understand, Lacey,” I tell her. “But even if I die in the next minute , I will spend that last minute of my life proving myself to you, Lacey. I love you, even if you don’t love me back.”

Her lips part and open several times, but no words come out. She won’t let them. She won’t allow herself to tell me how she really feels.

I’ll just have to be more patient.

“If we’re lucky to live a lifetime together,” I continue, “then I’ll prove myself to you every day.

If it takes you until we’re both old and gray, then I’ll wait that long, and even longer.

And if I turn into a fossil before you can even think to say it, then so be it, as well.

I will just love you until then and beyond. ”

I turn to grab the backpack and leave the kitchen, hoping to find something else useful in that musty old book Monroe gave her. But before I can even reach for one of the straps, Lacey steps forward and takes my elbow in her hand.

Her eyes still glassy with tears, she pulls my face against hers, kissing me with less reckless abandon than before. Just as I will wait for her to say she loves me, she waits for me to pull her closer, to melt my body against hers.

After what feels like a lifetime of tender, sweet kisses brought about by the honesty we’ve shared with each other, I feel the front of my pants start to tighten. Lacey’s hands drift between us once again, and she pulls my stiffening cock from the depths of my boxers.

We clear a space on the kitchen table, and soon, our cries of passion bounce off the four walls of this room. The warmth of my desire rises up and down my veins, spreading throughout me until they burst from my body, and I claim this woman as my own yet again.

As she lies with her back on the table, legs still quivering as she comes down from her climax, I pull out from her and close my eyes.

I keep waiting for the raw magic from the legend to manifest within me, to become something so powerful that it can take down Violet and this Willow lady residing within her.

But nothing. I don’t feel different at all.

I turn to Lacey, who looks mystified as she puts her clothes back on. “You don’t feel it either?” I ask.

“That was nothing but passion,” she whispers. “Pure desire.”

I start wondering if maybe this power is dormant. If it’s waiting to be used at the proper moment. Or if maybe we have to prove ourselves to the magic, just as much as we have to prove it to each other.

I’m about to share my thoughts as Lacey quickly pulls her underwear back up around her waist and smooths the skirt of her sundress, but then I hear the telltale sounds of a ruckus outside. I must have been deafened to it, focusing all of my energy on Lacey and the feelings within me.

I pull my jeans back up over my boxers, leaving my T-shirt in a heap on the floor of the kitchen. I’m far too sweaty to even think about putting it back on, and besides, this fight outside could end poorly, especially with Violet growing in power every day.

Just before I can step over to the door, I hear a loud banging on the other side of it, but much lower down than I would have expected to hear it coming from. I pull the door open carefully, the screams in the street only getting louder.

Across the way from our house, it’s more than just a petty argument over litter or who’s walking on what side of the road.

It’s a full-on scuffle with multiple people in my charge.

I’m about to go run and end this before it’s someone’s life that is ended, when I look down and see who exactly has been banging on the door.

It’s an older man, a friend of my dad’s, named Paul.

He’s in a daze, lying on his side, covered in a flop sweat on my porch.

His head lolls back and forth, and I can see the black spots creeping up on the side of his neck.

His arms are also afflicted, and I’m sure that if he weren’t wearing full-legged pants, it would be up and down his shins as well.

“Fuck,” I mutter to myself. “Lacey, call the infirmary! Right now!”

I sense her rushing for her phone behind my shoulder, but I don’t stick around to hear her call. The skirmish across the street is only getting worse, and I can see sprays of blood from broken noses and shattered teeth in the air.

Shifting into a wolf, I bound over Paull’s plague-ridden body and burst straight through the fight.

I don’t care who started it. I don’t care what they’re fighting over.

I just started using my teeth to pull people’s legs away, kicking them over, and even getting on my hind legs to snarl in their faces.

Whatever I can do to separate this madness.

Eventually, they’re all on the ground, and then the reflection starts happening.

I hear them question themselves and each other, none seeming to know what started this horrible rumble in the first place.

One of the men searches for the missing canine tooth I’ve almost stepped on, and he cleans it off with his shirt before tucking it away in his pocket.

“ Everyone ,” I say through many deep breaths. “Town meeting!”