The Alpha I Shouldn't Want

Chapter Nine — You

° ELERA'S POV °

"That barely covers—" He stopped himself, jaw working, and when he continued his voice had dropped into something low and controlled in a way that felt more dangerous than shouting would have. "Do you understand what could have happened? Rogues cross this territory. Wandering wolves from three different packs have passed through in the last month alone. And you walked through it dressed like—"

"Like what?" I stepped closer, some reckless part of me refusing to shrink under the weight of his disapproval. "Say it."

"Elara."

"Say it."

"Like you weren't thinking," he snapped, finally, gloved hands curling at his sides. "Like it didn't occur to you what it looks like, walking into my house dressed like that, in front of my guards, in front of anyone who might—"

"In front of *you*, you mean."

That landed. I watched it land, watched something flicker behind his eyes before the wall came back up.

"This isn't about me."

"It's clearly about you. You haven't asked once if I'm all right. You haven't asked why my pants got wet or whether I was cold or whether the walk back was safe. You went straight to what I'm *wearing.*"

"Because what you're wearing is the problem."

"The problem," I said, voice rising now, "is that you don't get to decide what's appropriate for me to wear. You are not my father. You are not my keeper. You have spent two weeks avoiding me, stepping back every time I get close, refusing to explain a single thing that's changed between us — and now suddenly you have opinions about my *shirt*?"

"I have opinions about you walking through open territory *exposed*—"

"I am not exposed. I am covered. I am cold and tired and I want to go to bed, and instead I'm standing here being lectured like a child because you can't stand to look at me without finding something to be angry about."

"I am not angry."

"You are furious. You have been furious since the moment I walked through that door, and I don't understand why, because you won't *tell* me why, you never tell me anything anymore, you just stand there with your jaw clenched and your gloves on and your — your *distance*, like I'm something you have to manage instead of someone you—"

I stopped myself.

Too late. The word had already half-formed in the air between us, and I watched him hear the shape of what I hadn't finished saying.

Silence stretched, taut and terrible.

"You don't get to do this," I said finally, quieter now, though no less furious. "You don't get to shut me out for weeks and then explode the one time I make a practical decision about wet clothing. That's not fair, Valerian. That's not — that's not who you used to be with me."

His throat worked. For a moment I thought he might actually answer, might finally say whatever it was he'd been swallowing back since the night I came home.

Instead his jaw only tightened further.

"Go get dressed properly," he said. "We'll discuss this in the morning."

"There's nothing to discuss. You made your feelings very clear."

"Elara—"

"No." I shook my head, exhaustion and cold and two weeks of unanswered questions finally boiling over into something that felt dangerously close to tears, though I refused to let them fall in front of him. "You don't get to react this way. Not after everything. You don't get to pretend you have some claim over what I wear, what I do, who I dance with, when you won't even tell me why you flinch every time I stand too close to you. You don't have that right. You gave that up the second you decided I didn't deserve an explanation."

I turned to walk away.

His hand closed around my wrist before I'd taken a second step.

Not hard. Not painful. But immovable, gloved fingers wrapping fully around the width of my wrist, stopping me mid-stride like I'd hit a wall that hadn't been there a moment before.

"Don't," he said, low, rough, something raw bleeding through the careful control he'd worn like armor since the moment I came home. "Don't walk away from me."

I looked down at his hand on my wrist. Then up, into eyes that had gone molten gold and searching, none of the distance from the last two weeks visible in them now, nothing careful or measured left at all.

I pulled my arm free.

And walked away anyway.

# VOTE #