Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
“You know you’re not alone,” he said. “Not anymore.”
Alice swallowed and smiled.
“I know,” she nodded.
“Do you?” he asked.
Of course,” she laughed. “You’re right here.”
Myka tilted his head to the side and smiled.
“I meant Axel,” he said.
Alice clenched her jaw and looked away.
“I know.”
“You can’t keep avoiding him, Alice,” Myka continued. “I know you don’t want to burden him, but–”
“It’s not about that,” she replied with a sigh. “I’m not avoiding him because I don’t want to be a burden. I just don’t want to feel the way I feel.”
“And how do you feel?” he asked gently.
“Guilty, selfish…. Unworthy.”
She smiled sadly.
“There was… a moment,” she said. A gentle strain in her voice as she tried to keep smiling. “Just a small one, more like an instant.”
She paused, licking and then biting her top lip before continuing.
“A tiny, half a second, where I wondered if it had to be him?”
Alice took a shaky breath as her knees buckled. Myka put his arm around her as he saw her become unsteady. She leaned into him, not even realizing that she needed the support.
Myka guided her to sit on a log not far from them. She took a few breaths, a few moments to recover. Then, when she seemed stable again, Myka broached the subject.
“Could you really go through the rest of this life without Axel?” he asked softly.
Alice closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose, pulling the cold air deep into her lungs and blowing it slowly through her lips.
“I’m not sure I could endure even the thought of that life,” she whispered.
She curled her lips between her teeth, chewing on them to keep the tears from falling.
“What is it?” Myka asked softly, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“I have spent my life unable to express any real emotion,” she said. “Playing a role everywhere I went, and with everything I did.”
She licked her lips, taking another breath and showing a sad smile.
“And now, when I need to do exactly that, keep my real emotions buried deep inside, I can’t.”
“But… why would you need to do that?” Myka asked as he rubbed her shoulder. “Axel loves you, Alice. He would want to know how you are really feeling.”
Alice swallowed and then looked up at Myka with tears welled in her eyes.
“Because he is the only person who has never seen me as broken,” she whispered. “After everything, he has never looked at me as less than anyone else.”
“And why would he now?” Myka smiled tenderly. “You’re still you, Alice.”
“You don’t understand,” Alice replied and turned away with a sniffle.
“Help me understand,” Myka replied, squeezing her shoulder.
Alice sniffled and then closed her eyes.
“Axel and I talked before about the possibility of not having children,” she said.
She paused to take a deep breath and swallow.
“I had told him that I would understand if he married someone else and had a family with them, that I would be fine if he wanted to keep me on the side.”
She smiled as the tears fell.
Myka took a deep breath and looked away.
“Alice…”
“He was against the idea,” she chuckled.
“Of course he was!” Myka replied. “It’s a ridiculous idea.”
Alice nodded.
“But it was still an option I gave him,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “And now…”
“Alice, come on, you can’t really think he would suddenly change his mind like that.”
Alice clenched her jaw and swallowed; she shrugged as she looked away.
“Wouldn’t it be the simplest solution?” she said. “He could have a family, a real Luna, and I would still be here for whatever he wanted me for.”
Myka let out a pained sigh as he listened.
“Axel would never do that,” he said. “Even if he was that determined to have children, he couldn’t hurt you like that, keeping you on the side to watch him with someone else? That’s stupid.”
“I know,” she whispered with a bitter laugh. Then with a sharp inhale of breath and a sob, she added. “But I’d rather that than the alternative.”
“What’s the alternative?” Myka asked gently.
Alice sniffled.
“That he might send me away,” she whispered. “He might think I’d be happy with anyone’s child over him. That his love for me and my dreams would overrule his own.”
“Selfishly,” a deep voice called from behind them.
Alice gasped, turning to see her golden Viking staring back at her with a pained look in his eyes.
“I had never even considered that option.”
They walked together in silence.
Myka had almost immediately excused himself at Axel’s arrival. Alice, for once in her life, was left speechless.
For his part, all that Axel had said was that they should go home.
As they trudged through the snow, Alice could only hear the loud thumping of her heart and the endless panic in her mind. How much had he heard? Did he misunderstand?
Nearing their home, she tried desperately to swallow down her nerves, to push her fears far out of reach and think of a way to turn the situation around. To explain away the things he had heard without making it any worse.
Axel opened the door, stepping inside ahead of her. Alice swallowed as she followed him in. She closed the door, holding her position for a moment as she tried to steel herself to the fear and panic before she turned back to face him.
“Axel, what you heard–”
She gasped as her words were cut short. The moment she had turned to face him, Axel had wrapped her in a tight embrace, pulling her body flush against his and burying his face in her shoulder.
Though it took her a second to recover her senses, as soon as she did, she wrapped her arms around him and held him just as tight.
They held each other in silence for a long time.
It was Axel that broke their silence.
He took a deep breath and loosened his grip on her. Then, pulling away from her, he pressed his fingertips gently to her face.
“You’re cold,” he whispered.
Alice swallowed; her heart was in her throat.
Axel moved away from her, removing his coat and hanging it on the coat rack beside the door.
“I’ll run you a hot bath,” he said quietly as he moved toward the stairs.
Alice furrowed her brow, confused and unsure how to feel.
“Axel…” she called out to him.
He paused on the stairs and glanced back over his shoulder.
“There will be time to talk,” he said. “For now, we need to get you warm.”
***
The first time Axel brought Alice to their home, they slowly toured the house together. She looked in each room, smiling at the small things that reminded her of him.
Like the row of brushes, combs, and hair ties of varying sizes, the beads, and small metal clasps he alternated as decorations within his braids.
Every room was decorated in a simple but warm style, and there was nothing that she didn’t like. But there was one thing that she had found strange.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?