Page 14 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter (Moonbound Mates #3)

JAVI

I ’ve never felt anything quite like when Peaches told me I wasn’t her mate.

From the moment I met her—from the moment the wolfsbane wore off and I scented her—I knew there was some connection between us. And biting her, tasting her skin, her blood, only made that connection more concrete.

If mates are real—and the jury’s still out on that one—then she’s mine. Even if they aren’t real, there’s some wolf magic happening here that I have no control over.

I know I have to protect her, even if it means the end of me. It’s the reason I felt called to the hunt when she was in danger, why I put everything on the line and got myself imprisoned on this dystopian island.

Pretending like I feel nothing for her is pure torture, but I have to do it if I want us to live.

As far as Gideon is concerned, everyone on the Rig needs to believe that Peaches is miserable. He wanted her punished—and I can’t make her feel so safe that Gideon would be able to tell, or we’ll both be fucked.

I stand watch at the door, waiting to find out if someone will come snooping to see what we’re up to.

I’m sure they expect us to be doing something very different than sleeping, but the storm is loud enough that they wouldn’t be able to tell anyway.

I find myself grateful for the pounding rain as I stand vigil, ignoring the sleeping girl in the bed behind me.

Still, my arousal rises, my wolf unable to ignore the pounding, desperate desire I have for my mate.

I bit her. She took the pain, allowed me to tend to it.

And now she’s naked in my bed, my scent over her pulse.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous, with waist-length scarlet curls, generous curves, and freckles that paint her skin from head to toe. I want more. I don’t just want to see—I want to touch, taste, feel.

I want to thoroughly claim her, breed her, make her mine in every way that counts. Surrounded by hostile alphas, I want nothing more than to make it clear to them that she belongs to me.

But I can’t.

And I won’t.

Because she hates me.

I stand and pace by the door when I start to nod off, taking note of anything and everything in the room—anything to get my mind off her.

There’s a pile of loot in the corner, discarded like trash, tokens of the old world that don’t have any meaning or value post-Convergence.

One of the strangest artifacts is a bag of shiny silver communicators, their screens shattered and the power gone.

I kneel by the pile of stuff and dig through it, looking for a charger in what’s likely a doomed attempt to find a way out of this.

Peaches sniffles behind me, and I jerk my head around, instinctual.

Her eyes are wide, locked on mine, big and brown and glossy like a fawn’s.

It’s dark, but I don’t need light to see her.

My vision’s sharp enough to catch every tremble in her lip, every twitch of her lashes.

She’s still clutching the blanket tight around herself, nothing but skin beneath it and a storm behind her.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

I tense. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because I’m… I dunno, annoyin’ you, probably,” she says, voice all small and breathless. “I’ve been told I talk too much. That I run my mouth.”

“You’ve barely said a word,” I scoff.

She blinks. “I thought I was bein’ real restrained.”

I raise an eyebrow.

She pulls the blanket tighter, sits up straighter, and pushes her hair behind her ear with this sheepish little movement that damn near guts me. A flash of lightning outside gives me a stark glimpse of every curve, and I avert my eyes again fast before she can see how much I want her.

“My daddy always said I’d talk myself into a cell someday,” she adds, her voice quieter now. “Guess he just didn’t expect it to be his cell.”

There’s a beat where I don’t say anything. She bites her lip. Hard.

“And now I’ve done it again,” she says, voice bright with embarrassment. “Ramblin’ my little heart out to the man who quite literally chased me down through a hurricane and bit me on the neck. I…really need to learn when to shut up.”

I huff a breath and glance toward the door. “I don’t mind it.”

She perks up, visibly surprised.

“Just don’t let on about that when we’re around the others,” I add.

She nods fast, lashes fluttering. “Oh, of course not. Don’t worry. I know how to keep secrets.” A pause. “Sorta.”

I shake my head. She’s so earnest it hurts.

“Well…now I don’t know what to talk about,” she says, blinking wide-eyed like a baby deer in the headlights.

“You’re the only person who’s listened to me since I got back here—even if it is your fault I’m here—but now my brain’s all scrambled like eggs and I can’t think of a single decent thing to say. ”

“You seemed eager a minute ago.”

“I was!” she insists, huffing. “But now I’m nervous.

I don’t even know what you like. I don’t know what you’re into, what makes you tick, what you care about.

I don’t know where you’re from, or how you ended up bein’ a mercenary, or if you’ve always been all broody and grumpy or if that came later… ”

She stops herself with a little squeak. “Oh no, now I’m bein’ rude.”

I snort. “You’re fine.”

“Well, thanks,” she says with a dramatic little bat of her lashes, and I can’t tell if she’s teasing me or just can’t help herself. “I just—I like people’s stories. I like the texture of them. All the little things that make up a person.”

God, what is this girl?

She’s all soft curls and softer eyes and pure joy—and she shouldn’t be here . Not on the Rig. Not anywhere near men like me. But somehow, she is. And somehow, I can’t stop staring at her.

“I’m really not that interesting,” I mutter.

She just beams at me. “See, that’s how I know you’ve got stories. People who ain’t interestin’ never feel the need to say so.”

And hell, if that doesn’t hit a little too close to home.

“I mean,” she keeps going. “You’re kinda, well…an apocalypse pirate? Is that a thing?”

“Not a pirate,” I say.

Her lips part and I see her blush even in the dim light. “I didn’t mean to call you a criminal or nothin’,” she says. “Just—the general swashbuckling of it all.”

“That’s a million dollar word,” I say.

“One of my favorites,” she replies.

I glance back at her to find her smiling, and it’s like light is pouring out of her.

And that makes me…

Fuck me.

I can’t do this with her?—

“Do you have a favorite word?” she asks.

I ignore the question. “If you’re going to stay awake, you should at least help me look for a charging cable.”

She hums. “I can’t—I got nothin’ to wear.”

I look back at her.

“You’re a shifter,” I say. “You should get used to it.”

“Back at home we’re given a lot of privacy,” she says. “And I don’t…I don’t shift very often. I prefer to cozy up with a nice sweater and I hate it when I lose my clothes.”

I sigh and roll my eyes, then stand and strip off my shirt to toss over to her. She catches it in one hand, but the gesture makes the sheet slip from where it covers her chest. I get an eyeful of her gorgeous body before I avert my gaze.

“Put it on quick,” I say gruffly, everything in me begging me to give up this resistance. I listen as fabric rustles behind me, then she joins me at the pile of loot.

The black t-shirt swallows her up, though it’s snug around her upper thighs. She pulls it down self-consciously when I glance at her, so I try not to look again.

“Okay,” she says. “What are you doing?”

I squat beside the pile of trash, then show her one of the phones. “This is an old communicator,” I say. “Shouldn’t be functional, but if I can charge it we might be able to get a signal out.”

“You…” she pauses, her brow furrowing. “You want to escape.”

“Of course I want to escape,” I mutter. “But keep your voice down. We don’t know who’s listening from outside the door.”

“Sorry,” she says.

I grimace. “You apologize a lot. Stop it.”

“Sor—” she catches herself “—I’ll cut it out.”

I move away from her, afraid of what I’ll do if I stay at her side. “I’ll sort through this pile, you start from the other side and we’ll meet in the middle. You’re looking for a cable with a little silver piece on either side.”

Now that she has a job to do, she gets right to it.

Peaches goes silent while we search through the pile, sifting through old tech, knickknacks, silverware, and all kinds of other random junk.

Gideon seems to be quite the hoarder out here on his own private island.

For a guy who embraced the new world order to the extreme, he seems obsessed with old world stuff.

“Why did he keep all this junk?” I ask, tossing a scuffed plastic trophy behind me. “I don’t get it.”

“He was poor before the Convergence,” Peaches says. “Lived in a trailer park or somethin’. My mother told me she worked at the grocery store down the street from his house when it all went to hell.”

I frown. “They weren’t together beforehand?”

She shakes her head. “He was obsessed with her, and then he took her out here after they were both Blessed. He even gave her a new name…Obedience.”

I go still, rage coursing through me—but I try not to let her see, not wanting to scare her. “What was her real name?”

Peaches gives me a soft smile. “Georgia. It’s why…sorry, never mind. I’m talking too much.”

“I asked.”

We work in silence for a while, our hands moving automatically through the piles of junk while our thoughts spiral elsewhere. The only sound is the steady hush of rain on the windows, the occasional creak of the old rig groaning under the weight of the storm.

She’s quiet, but not in the way she was before. It’s a quieter kind of quiet now—exhausted, but open. Like the silence that comes when you’ve finally said something that’s been killing you for years.

We don’t find anything.

After almost an hour, the storm starts to let up and grey light slips through the slats of the windows, soft and silver.

Peaches sits back on her heels, wiping her hands on her thighs.

“No luck,” she sighs. “You?”

“Nope.” I stretch my back, muscles tight and aching. “So…I guess it’s time for Plan B.”

She tilts her head. “What’s that?”

“Boyd,” I say. “They said they’d let him go, so I have to try and talk to him before then.”

Her brow furrows. “And if they don’t let you?”

“Well…fuck, I don’t know.” I shake my head, fingers curling into a loose fist. “But the bottom line is that we have to get out of here. You, me, Boyd if I can swing it. And then…”

I look at her.

“…then I’ll try to release you from the bond. If it’s possible.”

For just a second, her expression shifts—softens, then falters. Like her breath caught in her chest. Like maybe she isn’t sure that’s what she wants after all.

But the moment passes. She blinks, looks away.

“Thank you,” she says, quiet as breath.

And fuck, it wrecks me.

Because I don’t deserve that thanks. Not from her. I’m the reason she’s bleeding. I’m the reason she’s here. I bound her, bit her, collared her—and now I’m offering scraps like I’m some kind of savior.

She doesn’t need a savior.

She needs someone to make it right.

And I don’t know if I can give her freedom, or safety, or a future where she gets to love someone who doesn’t scare her. I don’t know if I can undo this bond or ever deserve the way she just looked at me.

But I do know one thing.

I can take out the bastard who ruined her life.

I can end the man who stole her name, her mother, her choices—who turned her whole world into a cage and called it holy.

I might not be able to save her.

But I can make sure he never touches her again.

So yeah.

Before I leave this rig…

Gideon Vinton dies.