Page 71 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two

“Trust you to rope in some pets in my absence,” he muttered, glancing down at her. “Perhaps I underestimated your ability to keep yourself safe.”

Thistle was glowing with the compliment, and she shifted closer, patting Bunny happily on the head. “We always figure things out.”

Ace sighed, looking around. “Catch me up, then. What do I need to know?”

I filled in the rest of the details: Thistle getting in Bella’s crosshairs because I was her match, and the fallout.

“So, you’re a mole for the authorities?” Ace asked.

“Yup,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “Of course you are. For how long?”

“Since the moment you turned up here and put him in charge over me,” Rogue replied. “Didn’t give him many options, did you?”

He was right. Rogue had been tied to the Ring, even if not actively. They knew who he was. He’d bought me so he could distance himself, but that had been a peace offering—and the opposite of cutting ties. It made him as culpable as they were, which was the point.

I could have killed him and vanished, but they might have come after me if they didn’t know why.

“Well, there was the most obvious one,” Ace mused.

“I wasn’t participating.”

It had been my best bet.

Rogue had done a decent job of keeping to himself, and I think most of the Ring assumed he’d killed me—or the nameless Alpha he’d bought years ago. Not that anyone cared, or remembered.

Bella hadn’t even known we were mates.

So all I had to do was turn up with him leashed and I’d become a new player in the game—with the instant gravity of having chained one of their own.

Rogue was a Manzo, and his family had endless enemies in other parts of the country, so no one had questioned it.

“So. You’re a double agent for the Nevada trafficking ring. Your scent match just outed you to Carrion—or if she hasn’t, she will soon, and you draggedmymate into the middle of this disaster. Have I missed anything?”

“Nope.” Thistle popped the ‘p’. “But uh, I really need to emphasize the Bella issue.”

“Bella issue?”

“Scent matched bitch who made Knox bite her…” She lifted Bunny up to Ace. “See what she did to Bunny? Tried to fucking kill him.” She shuffled closer to him on the couch, clearly hoping for a reaction. Ace did, to his credit, take a longer look at Bunny than I expected.

If he felt anything, though, he’d returned to hiding it well.

It was hard to keep my face straight as Thistle found the courage to scoot a bit closer to him. I was clearly not built right for a pack, every hint of honied bourbon when she was in the room sent me into daydreams of digging up that goddamned knuckleduster again.

But Ace was like that on steroids.

He belongs to her, not the other way around.

I had to keep that in my brain—and he wouldn’t let her die. But it didn’t feel like enough.

I didn’t just want safety for her. I wanted herhappy. I wanted her drawing more than just storms in that sketchbook. The only reason I didn’tloseit every time I caught Rogue’s gaze wandering to her ass was because the prickdidmake her happy.

But Ace?

There was no promise of that at all.

In fact, the idea that he couldn’t let her die only left me more on edge, because her dependency on him could be born of something similar. If he showed, even once, that he was capable of hurting her, I would lock him back up in that cage without a second thought.