Chapter 5: In My Bed

The Last Cunt Standing

Alpha Emmerick>

I did not wait for the pack’s permission.

Once the last head bowed, I left the pack grounds at a run. Their hostility followed me, but I had more important things to think about. My human was limp between my jaws and still bleeding. The scent grew stronger with every passing minute, and too many wolves behind me had already noticed it.

My den was higher in the territory, built into the rock face and reinforced with old timber and iron. The entrance was narrow on purpose. I pushed through the heavy wooden door, moved through the main room, and went straight into my chamber.

No human had ever slept here.

I placed my mate in the middle of my bed carefully. Her head fell to one side, her torn shirt hung open, and dried blood stained her thighs.

Then I shifted back into my human form, standing naked beside my bed. The long run had left my chest rising harder than usual, but it was her scent filling my chamber that kept my body aroused.

I stared at my unconscious mate.

She seemed smaller surrounded by a room made for wolves, fragile beside everything built to withstand claws, teeth, and bodies much stronger than hers.

And somehow she was in my bed.

Mine, even while I kept telling myself I wanted no part of the bond.

Riven stirred behind the barrier I had forced between us, angry with me for keeping him there.

I ignored him.

My chamber door opened without a knock and Malrik, my beta, walked inside and stopped.

His nostrils flared almost immediately, and his eyes went straight to my human lying unconscious on my bed.

His lip curled. “Humans are forbidden in the pack,” he said. “You know the law. You enforced it yourself.”

“She is my mate, not a mere human.”

Malrik stared at me, then at her and had nothing to say.

His eyes moved through my erect manhood before returning to my face, and I could almost see him trying to resolve whether he had heard me correctly.

I did not repeat myself.

She was my mate. Whatever I chose to do about the bond would be my decision, but no one could change what she was.

Malrik’s gaze dropped to my manhood again.

“Before we discuss the weak object on your bed,” he said dryly, “put some fucking clothes on. I am tired of staring at your cock standing at full attention.”

I growled and went to the wooden chest against the wall, pulled out a black linen shirt and loose trousers, and put them on without hurrying. The clothes did little to hide my arousal. With my mate’s scent filling the room, my body had no interest in cooperating with me.

“She needs protection,” I said to my beta.

Malrik folded his arms. “She cannot be here.”

“She is my mate.”

“That is the problem.” He pointed toward her. “The entire pack has waited for its Alpha to find his mate. A true mate brings power,” he started his sermon. “She strengthens the bond in our pack and gives us the power to take territories we have held only through force. We have waited years for that advantage, and you bring home a weak, worthless human.” His hands flung in the air. “She will die before the next full moon and leave us worse off than before.”

A louder growl tore from my chest.

Malrik barely had time to react before I had him against the stone wall with my hand locked around his throat.

I lifted him, his boots leaving the floor.

“You will never call my mate weak again,” I snarled, moving closer until he had nowhere else to look but at me. “And you will never call her worthless. Say it.”

He kept his hands at his sides. He knew better than to fight me. “Forgive me, Alpha.”

I held him for another second before releasing him. His boots struck the floor. He rubbed his throat once and dipped his head.

Worthless.

The word still rang in my head.

I gazed at the door, already imagining how fast the pack would start talking once the shock of seeing their Alpha bring home a human wore off.

“The warriors who saw me bring her in will keep their mouths shut,” I commanded. “Make sure of it. No one speaks about her being inside my den until I decide what happens next. If the outer circles hear about her before I am ready, I will hold you responsible.”

Malrik dipped his head again. “Understood.”

He moved toward the door, then stopped with one hand on the iron handle.

“Lydia is almost here,” he said. “She caught the scent on the wind. If she sees the human, she will rip her apart.”

My body went still before my eyes shifted to my bed. “Keep Lydia away from this den.”

Malrik glanced back.

I continued, “Give her patrol duty, training, hunting, I do not care. She does not enter this chamber tonight.”

His usual sly smile tugged at his mouth. “I will do it on the condition you will offer me two bars of gold.”

I stared at him. “Must I bribe you before you help your own Alpha?”

“Deal or no deal.”

I kept my eyes on him until his smile almost became irritating. “Deal.”

His grin widened before he left my chamber, shutting the door behind him.

Letting out an exhausted sigh, I turned as my mate’s uneven breathing filled the room.

Then the smell of her blood took over everything. It mixed with sweat and the fear still trapped in her skin. My nose wrinkled. She smelled of the ruined city, dirty human males, blood, and everything I wanted removed from her.

More importantly, leaving her in that condition would draw wolves straight to my den.

I needed to wash her.

I opened my wardrobe. Most of what hung inside had been made for me, too large for her. I took one of my shirts and held it against her from where I stood.

It would swallow her.

Women did not wear a male’s clothing among my kind without meaning attached to it, but she could not remain in what she had on.

The shirt would have to do.

I went back to the bed.

My mate had not moved. Her head rested to one side, and the torn front of her shirt exposed her red lace bra.

I sat beside her and began undoing the rest of her buttons. Dried blood had stiffened sections of the fabric, so I worked slowly until I could gently take off the ruined shirt from her shoulders without hurting her.

My gaze dropped to her stomach and then to the lace covering her breasts. I clenched my teeth but kept my hands where they needed to be.

She was unconscious. Whatever the bond wanted from me could wait.

I reached for the shirt I had chosen for her and placed it beside us, then supported her shoulders and brought her upright against my chest.

She weighed almost nothing.

Too little.

Her head rested against my chest while I removed the last of her ruined shirt, and the dissimilarity between our bodies was impossible to ignore. I could have hurt her without meaning to. Riven wanted a full mating from a woman whose bones were too fragile for my hands.

She wouldn't even be able to take me. I would break her apart before I even knotted her.

The Goddess was a joke for bonding us together. 

Bringing my attention back to her clothes, I  moved to her jeans. Blood had stiffened the denim.

I opened the zip and gently pulled the jeans to her hips until the amount of blood between her thighs made me halt.

This was not from a simple injury.

I touched two fingers to the coated blood, brought them to my nose, and inhaled.

Then I tasted the blood.

Human baby. The blood was a human baby.

I stared at my mate. She had been carrying a child and she was losing it.

Even now, blood still left her body.

My eyes moved over her face, stopping on the stubborn line of her mouth.

How?

How had my human lost her child and still found the strength to shoot at me?

To bite me?

To curse at me and fight every time I stopped her from running?

I had called her weak from the moment I smelled human on her. Now I was not so sure.

“What are you, human?” I murmured, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “Are you truly weak, or are you a survivor?”

I took hold of the waistband of her jeans and worked the jeans down.

Some sections had stuck to her skin, forcing me to move carefully so I would not worsen the injury. My mate remained limp against me with her head resting on my shoulder.

About stripping her totally when I heard footsteps in the outer corridor and a familiar scent followed them.

Lydia.

The instant her scent mixed with my mate’s, my stomach lurched, and I almost threw up.

I froze.

I had known Lydia for years. Her scent had never upset me before, but now my body rejected it so hard I struggled to breath.

I gripped the bed frame until the feeling passed.

She was close. Too close. I could sense she was almost here—

I paused as the door to my chamber suddenly swung open.