The Alpha's Softest Weakness

Chapter 3: First taste of hate

Bianca’s POV

They left me alone long enough for the blood on my shirt to dry stiff and the bruises on my arm to darken. The concrete room held the cold. Every time I shifted on the cot the metal frame creaked. My side still burned. Someone had shoved a bottle of water and a roll of gauze through the slot earlier. I had cleaned the cut as best I could and wrapped it tight. It was not pretty, but it had stopped leaking.

The locks turned without warning.

Jax stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He looked like he had not slept. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw. His eyes found me immediately, then dropped to the bandage at my side, then to the bruises his own hand had left on my arm. Something flickered across his face before the hard mask settled back into place.

“On your feet.”

I stayed seated. “You came back. Brave of you.”

“I said on your feet.”

The tone left no room. I stood slowly, careful of the pull in my side. The bond stirred the second I was upright, a low electric hum under my skin that made my pulse jump. I hated that it reacted to him so easily.

He crossed the small space until only a few feet remained between us. The air felt tighter.

“Start talking,” he said. “Who sent you?”

“No one.”

“Wrong answer.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got. I told you. I ran.”

His eyes narrowed. “From what?”

I met his stare. “From a coven that decided a half-blood with a curse was more trouble than she was worth. They don’t like reminders that their precious bloodlines can break.”

“What curse?”

“The kind that makes pure-bloods nervous. The kind that gets you hunted by your own people.” I shifted my weight. The concrete was cold through my boots. “I didn’t come here looking for your pack. I needed a place to stop bleeding. Your bar was the first door that opened.”

Jax’s jaw flexed. “Convenient.”

“Not from where I’m standing.”

He took another step closer. The bond flared harder, heat and static crawling up my arms. I saw him feel it too. His shoulders tightened.

“My family died screaming because of vampires,” he said, voice low and rough. “Not half. Not cursed. Full-blooded monsters who tore through our den and left nothing but pieces. And now you walk into my bar smelling like them and expect me to believe you’re harmless.”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” I said. “I expect you to either kill me or let me go. This middle ground is getting old.”

His hand shot out and gripped the edge of the cot beside me, caging me in without quite touching. The near-contact made the bond snarl under my skin. My breath caught. His did too.

“You feel that,” he said. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“And you still want me to pretend it doesn’t exist?”

“I want you to ignore it. Your pack already thinks you’re weak for keeping me alive. Don’t prove them right by listening to whatever this is.”

Something dark moved behind his eyes. He leaned in until I could smell leather and steel and the faint clean scent underneath his anger. The gold in his eyes had brightened.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do with my pack,” he said. “Or with you.”

“Then stop standing there looking like you can’t decide whether to throttle me or something worse.”

The words hung between us. His gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second. The air went thin. I felt the shift in his body, the slight lean forward, the way his fingers tightened on the metal frame of the cot until it creaked. The bond pulled hard, like a hook behind my ribs dragging me toward him.

I should have stepped back. I did not.

His free hand came up and caught my jaw, not as rough as the night before but firm enough to tilt my face up. The second his skin met mine the bond roared. Heat flooded my chest. My pulse slammed against his fingers. I saw the same shock hit him. His eyes went almost fully gold.

“This is a problem,” he said, voice scraped raw.

“Then stop touching me.”

He did not stop. His thumb pressed once against the edge of my jaw, testing. The contact sent another sharp pulse through both of us. I hated how my body leaned into it. I hated the way my breathing had gone uneven. I hated that part of me wanted him to close the last inch of space.

“You should be dead,” he said.

“Then finish it.”

For one stretched second I thought he might. His grip tightened. His face was close enough that I felt the warmth of his breath. The bond screamed for more contact. Hatred and hunger tangled so tightly I could not tell where one ended and the other began.

Then he shoved himself backward like I had burned him.

The sudden loss of touch left a cold ache in its place. He stood there breathing hard, eyes bright and furious, hands flexed at his sides like he did not trust them.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he said. “You’re still a prisoner. You’re still a risk. And if that bond tries to make me forget what your kind did to my family, I will rip it out by the roots.”

I stayed where I was, pulse still racing, the ghost of his grip lingering on my skin. “Good luck with that.”

He turned toward the door. His shoulders were rigid. When he spoke again his voice was lower, almost rough enough to count as a warning.

“Someone will bring food. Eat it. You’re no use to me if you pass out from blood loss.”

“I didn’t realize I was useful.”

He glanced back once. The gold had not fully faded from his eyes.

“You’re not. Not yet.”

The door closed hard behind him. Locks slid into place, one after another, heavy and final. I stood alone in the concrete room with the taste of static on my tongue and the bond still thrumming under my skin like a live wire neither of us could cut.

Outside in the corridor I heard his footsteps pause for a long moment before they finally moved away. The silence that followed felt heavier than the door.