005 | ALONE TOGETHER

Scarlett’s POV

My throat closed up. I’d tried to make light of it, knowing that I was pushing Alpha Enzo away every time I refused to talk or dropped his gaze and wanting to do better, to please him, but inside my heart pounded and my breath caught in my lungs. Fuck, I thought, over and over and over again. I’d failed Enzo. I’d failed myself.

I’d just escaped being the pack outcast. I’d wanted so badly to be accepted here, to find a way to hide my dirty little secret – and I’d ruined it less than two hours after I’d arrived in Moose Creek. Fuck.

“Maybe they didn’t hear,” he murmured, catching my chin and holding my gaze. I shivered. “This whole top floor is mine. I thought they were drunk, stumbling around, lost after the ball…”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “What if they weren’t? What if they wanted to catch a glimpse of your new mate?” 

His brow pulled taut. “They wouldn’t. We’ll all meet tomorrow – we always do. I give my wolves the morning off, and we have a lunch to welcome the new wolves into my pack.” He shook his head. “No, they must be drunk. Maybe it was some stupid dare. I doubt they heard and, if they did, I doubt they’ll remember it by tomorrow.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. Nothing ever worked out for me. Life wasn’t that simple.

“I’ll go out into the hall,” he said suddenly, decisively. After one last embrace he stood; the bed shifted, and I bounced with it. He grabbed my flowers from the sill and waved them, his face set with a forced smile. “And I’ll get a vase for these while I’m there. Unless you have one you want to use?” He glanced at my small, single case dubiously.

My cheeks burned. “No, I didn’t bring one with me.”

He held out a hand. “Do you want to come?”

I tried to read his expression before I made my choice. Did he want me to go with him? Or was he just offering to be polite? I was about to say no, sure that he’d suggested leaving the room only to get a moment away from me, when his smile cracked and he said, “Please?”

I was on my feet in an instant. “Okay.” I took his hand, trying to be bolder, more forward. My entire body warmed as our hands met. “You said this whole floor was yours?”

He led me out into the hallway. As I’d expected, there was nobody there. 

“Yeah. It’s like an apartment, I guess – everything I need is up here. But on the bottom floor there’s a big dining room, where we’ll have the lunch tomorrow, and the main kitchen, and there’s a library, and then a meeting room where my wolves can come and see me if they have an issue they want to raise.”

Nerves fizzed in my stomach at the thought of this lunch. I shoved them aside. 

“And what’s up here?” I asked, gesturing at the doorways that lined the hallway. 

It smelt like pine – as did the whole pack house, from what I’d seen so far – and logs made up most of the walls. There were areas of exposed brickwork, which I guessed were decorative rather than part of the actual walls themselves. Mismatched paintings hung in clusters and were leant against the walls on top of – you guessed it – more bookshelves; most were landscapes, depicting forests and rugged coastlines and endless snow-capped mountains. 

He glanced at me and smiled, and he was so devastatingly handsome that my eyes boggled. I tucked a stray lock of auburn hair behind my ear and grinned back, ignoring the flush heating my cheeks.

He cleared his throat and looked away. "What you'd expect, really: bathroom, kitchen, living space." He pointed out the first door on our right. “And that’s my office. The room next to it will be your office – it’s empty, waiting for a Luna to fill it. It used to be my mum’s, but I’ve been running the pack on my own for the last two years.”

My face fell, sympathy swelling so aggressively in me that I pulled him to a halt. “Are you okay?” I whispered, feeling the aggravating sting of tears in my own eyes.  

He frowned at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier, Scar. I’ve just found you, after four years of – oh.” He grinned, and his grin became a laugh. “They aren’t dead! They just thought I was ready to take it on, and they were ready to retire. No, no.” He shook his head. “They live in a little cabin on the coast. I’ll take you to meet them as soon as you’re settled.”

My chest hollowed out. I constructed a smile on my mouth, building it lip by lip, tooth by tooth. “Oh,” I said, forcing a laugh from my throat. “I misunderstood. I’m sorry.”

He looked at me then, with some emotion I couldn’t read in his eyes. He said something that I didn’t hear; I was too lost in his irises, night-dark like the gaps between the stars. Only – only they weren’t, not quite; when he tilted his head like that and the sun hit them, they revealed themselves to be a very, very dark brown, like tree bark in midwinter. One of his pupils flared out more than the other, too, making his whole eye appear darker.

I wanted him. I wanted him in every way possible: emotionally, physically, mentally. I ached to know him, inside and out. My gaze dropped to his sensual mouth, to the perfect curve of his smug upper lip…

But I couldn’t kiss him, no matter how much I wanted to. Flashes of clenched fists and rough hands and sharp kicks shattered the haze of the mate bond every time I got too close to him. Fucking Alpha Ryker, I thought. Ruining everything, even after I’d left him behind.

“I said, shall I show you the kitchen?” His mouth hooked up into a smirk. I practically melted.

“Please.” 

“There should be a vase in there, too. Then you can start making my room into somewhere you feel at home.” His eyes warmed, burnished by the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Outside, the crooked rows of pine trees darkened the base of the distant grey-blue mountains. “I should say our room. This is your home now, Scar.”

* * *

I spent the early afternoon unpacking and dodging Enzo’s questions. He was curious – nosey was a better way of putting it – and he wanted to see everything as I pulled it out of my case. 

“What’s this?”

“A boot, Enzo.”

He held it up to the light. It was a plain brown Doc Marten, scuffed and scraped all over. My parents had bought them for me. I’d not worn them since they’d died, terrified they’d break for good, but there wasn’t a chance in Hell I’d have left them back in Desert Oak.

I took out a small stack of books and set them down on the woven rug beside me. 

“Books!” He shot over to his desk and rifled around in the mess there before pulling out a pair of glasses. “What have you brought with you?”

I swallowed hard. Rather than answering, I tried to keep my voice light and teasing. It came out strangled. “You wear glasses?”

He pulled a face. “Only for reading. Don’t tell anyone – only my Beta and Gamma know.”

“They suit you.” It was the truth: they were simple, with a browline frame in a rich brown that complemented his tanned skin. Then I realised something. “I’ve never known a werewolf that has to wear glasses.”

He smirked. “I’ve never met a werewolf that can’t shift.”

I rolled my eyes. “Touché.”

His smirk became a grin. “I got punched. In the eye. It’s blurred my vision – if I were a human, I’d be blind on that side. That pupil is fixed open, too.”

“Shit,” I breathed. “That’s… kind of badass, actually.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

I took out another book. A slip of paper fell from inside the cover. Enzo reached for it before I could stop him.

“Don’t–” I caught myself before I could offend him.

He looked at me sadly. “I wasn’t going to read it,” he said, and for some reason I believed him. 

I opened my mouth. I could just tell him. I could explain why I’d brought these books with me. I could – 

No, I couldn’t.

I stood abruptly. I just needed a minute to collect myself. “Do you mind if I get a glass of water?”

He frowned. “No, of course not. I can–”

“Don’t put yourself out.” I was already walking to the door. I felt like my chest was collapsing in on itself. Everything was suddenly too much. “Do you want anything?”

“No, Scar–”

That was the last straw, hearing the nickname my parents had called me in his deep, unfamiliar voice that felt like coming home. I rushed out of the door and didn’t look back. 

My eyes filled with tears. I blinked and looked up at the ceiling, desperate to stop them from falling. I wouldn’t cry, for God’s sake. Not here. Not when Enzo could follow me and see. Then I’d have to explain, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t rip that wound open.

They would have loved to have met my mate. They were missing out on so much. And God, I missed them. My hands curled into fists; the first tear slipped down my cheek. 

Blinded by tears, I didn’t see the people stood at the end of the hall.

Deafened by my own sorrow, I didn’t hear them as they crept towards me.

I just felt their hands as they grabbed me.