Chapter 93
LEAH
Adam steps up onto the stage. “Friends. Family. Let’s celebrate our new Alpha!” Adam grabs my hand.
He kisses my cheek.
I feel my face heat.
This is a very public display and I have to think that Adam is doing this very intentionally.
Aaron growls and pushes off the wall from the back of the
room. I shake my head sharply.
Please don’t make a scene.
I just touted about peace, and Adam’s about to start a war.
I glance at Adam. “What are you doing?” I whisper.
Everyone is talking and cheering and I’m mostly confident they aren’t all trying to listen.
“Letting the room know you’re not Aaron’s anymore.” His eyes
are kind. “You have to know I’ve always cared about you, Leah.”
If he cared so much, then why did he wait until I was dying to look me up?
What’s more… what he did just now in front of our pack was more about solidifying his position and aligning himself with me as “the Alpha.”
bring Adam in for a hug and pat his back. “Don’t ever make such a presumptuous move again,” I growl. “Do you understand me?”
He leans back and his mo uth turns down.
“Get away from me,” I say bluntly.
He does.
I wave and step down to shake hands again with some of the elders and to smile confidently-or try to-despite that I’m terrified that every person in this room is going to see straight through me.
It’s another hour before the party starts to wind down-or start up, I suppose, depending on where you’re standing. Outside,
on the back lawn, there’s a DJ and the younger wolves are having more of a party. In here in the main packhouse, families and elders hit the buffet and sit at tables eating and conversing.
The string quartet continues to play.
A hand grabs mine and spins me around.
I tense until I see who it is.
Aaron.
“Just one, for ol’ times’ sake,” he tells me.
Then he moves me through the steps of a formal waltz and I
let him, because outside of this night and this moment, I don’t
think I’ll ever be in this man’s arms again.
“Come home, Leah.”
“I am home.”
“Be with me then. Here. Somewhere else. He ll, we can set up
some neutral zone between both our packs.”
I cannot believe what he is offering me.
“W-why?”
I draw back and search his dark eyes. I wait for an answer
that never comes. He doesn’t give me the words. Maybe he can’t. Or maybe, like Adam, he’s just posturing and jockeying for position and hiding his ulterior motives.
His steps are sure and he spins me out and twirls me back
in close. I can’t breathe without drawing in his masculine
strength. I miss this man. How he’d hold me at night. He ll, I
even miss his wolf.
“Maybe in the next life, Aaron.”
He looks at me oddly. “What the he ll is that supposed to
mean?”
