Page 14 of Ruthless Alpha (Nightfire Islands Alphas #3)

After my impromptu lesson in weapon history, it was almost easy to accept that Xander wasn’t mad, that there would be no consequences for my failed seduction attempt.

As far as I could tell, the only consequence was that I felt confused, mortified, and disappointed in a way that I didn’t want to examine.

The atmosphere in the house had changed, certainly, but it was—as far as I could tell—a positive one.

Jace was polite and friendly, and his presence changed something in Xander.

I’d only really known him to be direct and taciturn, but Jace brought out something more relaxed in him; when they returned home after a day of development, they were laughing and joking together—a far cry from Xander’s usual heavy tread after he’d spent the day with his Pack.

This new and energetic Xander was also eager for me to have more regular fight training.

Once I’d mastered the tennis balls, we moved on to handheld weapons.

This, of course, involved dedicated time spent looking at the weapons on Xander’s wall and listening to him ramble about their history.

I knew no other setting in which he was so expressive—his hands gestured with every word, and his dark eyes were alight with enthusiasm.

In those moments, he might have been an excitable boy, not the stern leader I knew him to be.

More than once, I wondered what he’d been like at my age.

It wasn’t until the third such lecture that we came to a weapon about which he knew very little, and I couldn’t help being disappointed.

It was the first weapon to catch my eye; with shimmering gold woven into the steel of the blade, it stood in stark contrast to the dark chromes of the other weapons.

My fingers itched to take the hilt in my hand, to test its weight and hear the sound it made when it cut through the air—Xander called it the blade’s song.

“I’m sure you can deduce that this one wasn’t purely an Ensign design,” he said with a wry smile. “It’s very light, but the balance is flawless, and the blade is a really unique shape.”

Once he pointed that out, I wondered how I hadn’t noticed it before. The taper of the blade was stark, the end slightly curved.

“What’s the shape for?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions,” Xander replied.

“I don’t know. It’s not one that we get out often—it really is too light for our fighters.

If the curve was more pronounced, then you might be looking at something designed for disembowelment, but I doubt that’s what such a light weapon would be for.

It’s our little mystery. Probably only the collaborators could tell us, and I don’t know who they were. ”

“Can I hold it?” I asked before I could stop myself. I expected a kind rebuff—I couldn’t say when I’d started expecting kindness from him—but he looked like he’d been waiting for me to ask.

“Of course,” he said, reaching up to take it carefully from the wall.

He held it differently from the others—as if it was some creature he’d plucked out of the sea, beautiful but alien.

He placed it carefully into my hands, and my skin tingled where the metal touched it.

Even in the limited, static light of the basement, the metal of the blade seemed to shimmer, the rivers of gold running through it shifting and changing even when the weapon was still.

“Hold it by the hilt,” said Xander softly, seeming almost as captivated as I was. “See how it feels in your hand.”

I obeyed him, shifting my hold so that my right hand gripped the weapon’s hilt.

“It feels… good,” I said, unable to tear my gaze away from the blade in my hand. “I think I understand what you mean about the balance.”

“Looks like we’ve found you a training weapon.

” That got my attention. When I snapped my head around to look at him, Xander was smiling down at me.

He looked—he was pleased, I could tell that, but there was something else in that expression, too.

Relief? Whatever it was, it softened his stern features, and then my stomach flipped pleasantly.

It was strange to feel my heartbeat accelerate without the sharp stab of fear, to shiver without the cold ache of dread.

“This?” I said, stupidly. “Surely it’s—”

“It’s perfect for you,” he promised. The way his lips rounded out the syllables made me want to reach out and touch, to feel if they were as soft as they looked.

What was wrong with me? I shook my head to clear it as he continued, “Like I said, none of my guys are getting any use out of something like that. I’m glad it’s found a home, if you like it. ”

I did like the weapon. I liked the way the metal stayed cool in my hand, even after long drills.

I liked how light it was, how it seemed to know what I wanted it to do before I did it.

Xander told me I was a natural, but I didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t me, it was the sword he’d put in my hands.

I also didn’t know how to explain the way my body reacted to him when I was holding it.

Perhaps it was the thrill of adrenaline and the heavy, thumping heartbeat that came with exercise.

Perhaps I was imagining it; perhaps it was a natural extension of the grudging attraction I had come to feel for Xander.

It didn’t feel the same, though. I might appreciate the cut of his jaw, or become distracted by the morning light bouncing off his dark hair over breakfast, but those feelings were easy to squash.

At any other time, I could push that attraction down, ignore them, remind myself that he wasn’t just a cute boy who’d caught my eye, he was the Alpha of the most terrifying Pack in the archipelago, and he literally owned me.

When I was training, with that sword in my hands, my body was in charge: it was the only reasonable explanation for how easily I became fixated on a single bead of sweat running down his neck, the crease between his brows when he was concentrating, or the network of raised veins that decorated his forearms and the backs of his hands.

A few weeks ago, I might have suspected he was doing something to me, that the hilt of the weapon was laced with some kind of aphrodisiac, but I didn’t entertain that paranoia now.

If Xander wanted me, he’d have had the opportunity, and he’d passed it up.

I only had myself to blame when Xander sent the weapon flying out of my hands and clattering to the ground on a Friday afternoon.

After three weeks of training with it, I should have seen that move coming, and we both knew it.

The problem was, I’d been distracted by the way his pupils dilated when he was concentrating—his eyes, I had come to realize, were not utterly black, but the deepest brown I’d ever known—and I hadn’t seen the disarm coming.

“That was embarrassing for you,” said Xander, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. I’d stopped expecting reprimands for messing up in training, resigning myself to light teasing instead.

“Maybe I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security,” I replied.

Talking back still sent a little jolt of adrenaline through my system—a warning that I was stepping out of bounds, that I needed to brace myself—but I was learning to ignore it.

Xander liked it when I joked around with him, I reminded myself.

It felt dangerous to lean into it, like I might fool myself into forgetting that he’d bought and paid for me, that I wasn’t free to leave.

Still, I was desperate enough for a little slice of joy that I allowed myself to forget the truth, even if just for a while.

“Sure you are,” Xander said, humoring me. “Pick that up.”

I did as ordered, sinking into the now-familiar ready stance.

“This time, try to see obvious moves coming.”

“Yes, sir.” I tried not to notice the way his throat bobbed as the words left my mouth.

He never announced his first attack—“Because your enemy isn’t going to give you prior warning.

” He just sprang forward, this time going low.

The first time we’d sparred, I’d been terrified of using the weapon, convinced that its sharp blade would catch his skin as I flailed around uselessly, but he was too observant and too fast for that.

On the few occasions that I’d made a successful attack, he’d looked nothing but pleased by the thin cut on his bicep or his thigh or his side, and if I offered to patch him up, he’d assure me it would be healed before I could try.

I tried not to wonder what it said about me that I liked to watch the fine rivulets of blood follow the lines of his muscles, as if I were leaving my mark on him.

I already knew that there would be no marking him that day.

He was in the zone, dodging even my best attempts at attacks.

If this were a real fight, I’d be dead ten times over.

If I were one of the Ensign males, I did not doubt that I would have been in the medical building by now.

Instead, Xander toyed with me, holding his attacks and simply waiting for me to lash out when I thought I saw an opening.

My eyes were fixed on him as he danced from foot to foot, feinting one way and then another, taunting me.

“You think someone trying to kill me is going to fuck around this much?” I panted, frustrated, but Xander only laughed.

“No. But you need to learn not to let your frustration get the better of you. Every attack is sloppier than the next.”

He was right, and I knew he was right, but that didn’t stop me from lunging forward in a final fruitless attempt to catch him off guard.

This time, he didn’t merely dodge the attack with a smug smile; this time, his hand was around my wrist, and then my back was against the wall.

I growled in frustration, lashing out with my free hand to—I didn’t even know what—but he took that as well, shifting his grip to pin both my wrists above my head with one large hand.

My skin burned beneath his touch, the breath leaving my body in a great rush.

I tried to fight against his restraint, but I was weak with exhaustion, and his proximity had my legs trembling beneath me.

I didn’t know if I was bucking in an attempt to free myself or to get closer to him, my mind cloudy with frustration and want.

Xander’s smile was smug and infuriating as he reached up with his free hand to pluck the sword from my grasp, dropping it to the ground beside him.

It should have brought me back to myself, should have stopped the tide of arousal rising up inside me, but I barely even noticed it.

I whined as I tried again to break his grip, and I felt it tighten.

“You know that’s not going to make anyone want to let you go, right?” he rumbled. His gaze was fixed on my mouth, and I drew my bottom lip between my teeth, just to see what he would do.

He leaned forward, his forehead hitting the wall beside my elbow.

“You’re killing me, here,” he muttered. I wasn’t stupid.

I knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him right now.

I also knew that doing anything about it was a really, really bad idea, but my body wasn’t listening to my brain, so I whined again, squirming and bucking until his free hand shot out to pin my hips against the wall.

I should have been terrified: there was no way I could break out of this hold unless I shifted, but my wolf couldn’t hold her own against his any more than I could against him.

I wasn’t terrified, though. My heart was trying to beat out of my chest, but my instinct wasn’t telling me to run, to hide, to drop and cower, or show my neck; it was telling me I wanted more. I pushed my hips against his hold—I didn’t budge, but I knew he could feel me moving under his palm.

“Stop it, Rosie, I mean it,” he rasped. I could have laughed. I wasn’t the one holding us here. If he wanted to be away from me, he could make it happen whenever he wanted.

“Let go, then,” I gasped, and that was what did it.

His mouth crashed down on mine, hot and eager and demanding.

I’d never been kissed before, though I’d imagined my first a thousand times.

It would be gentle, I’d decided, sweet and chaste, with my mate who loved me.

This was nothing like I imagined, and I didn’t care even slightly.

I opened my mouth to his tongue almost immediately, sighing as he licked the roof of my mouth before drawing my top lip between his teeth, nibbling and sucking as he crowded me tighter against the wall.

It was overwhelming. His scent was everywhere; his hands were brands on my body, and his kisses were like a drug, fogging my mind further with each press of his lips.

When he lifted his hand from my hips to wrap an arm around my waist, I moaned against him, my legs parting instinctively as he pushed a knee between my thighs.

I rolled my hips once, unable to hold back a full-body shiver at the delicious, heady pressure in my core.

I pulled my lips away from his, drunk and greedy, wanting to take his skin between my teeth.

The moment the kiss ended, though, he dropped my wrists, pushing himself away from the wall, away from me. He looked frantic and beautiful, his mouth shiny and wet from my kisses.

“I’m sorry, I—” he stammered. “I’m so sorry, Rosie. I’ll go, I—”

He didn’t leave me any room to protest before he disappeared up the stairs, leaving me alone in the training room.

I sank down the wall, my legs finally giving out beneath me, as I realized what I’d done.

That anxious, practical part of me who knew nothing but violence and servitude told me this was good, that I had more leverage now that he’d acted on his desire for me, but I didn’t want to hear it.

I hadn’t kissed him back because I was trying to manipulate him, because I was trying to gain something; I’d kissed him back because I wanted to, and that was a problem.