The Widowed Alpha's Omega

Chapter 3

The next morning, I had to force myself out of bed.

I made breakfast for my stepfather and brothers like I usually did. I laid out the table and left the house before they got up. I just needed some fresh air to think about everything that had happened.

Ember was quieter than usual. I knew it must have been hard for her. She probably felt more pain than I did. But she stirred when I got closer to the mountains.

"Everything will be alright. We don't need him," I told her, and she whimpered. "How about a run? It's been a while, and I don't have to get back until later."

At the offer, she purred, and I grinned. I would have shifted, but for an omega the change was hard and painful, and I could run faster in my human form anyway. So that was what I did.

I forgot about everything. Alpha Lucan, Cade, Bram, Warrick, everybody who had hurt me deeply when I had done nothing. I let go of the pain and the heartache as I felt the wind in my hair.

I ran with no direction, weaving through trees and thick bushes until I was out of breath and stopped at a river.

I stood at the water's edge, gasping, hair stuck to my face, my hand still wrapped in that stupid bandage. The clouds slid apart and the sun beamed down on the water.

There was something standing in it.

A wolf. Black as a hole in the night and taller than any wolf had a right to be, standing in the shallows with water running off his shoulders. His eyes were silver, like two coins. They were fixed on me.

He didn't move. Neither did I.

Somewhere under my ribs, Ember lay down flat on her belly and whimpered. It wasn't fear, but I still held my breath as the wolf walked out of the water.

Halfway up the bank, his shape rippled. His bones slid, the fur drew back into skin, and I did what any well-raised girl would do. I spun around and stared very hard at a tree.

"I'm dressed," said a low voice behind me after a few seconds.

I turned slowly. He had pulled on a pair of trousers from a neat pile beside a flat stone, and the rest of him was bare and wet, glistening in the scorching sun. I looked at his face, only his face. I should have known it was him from the eyes.

"Alpha," I said, bowing my head, though I wanted to run.

"You're trespassing," said Lucan Thorne.

"I'm what?"

"This river has been closed for six years."

I looked past him. The flat stone had a letter cut into it, small and neat. *E.* Dried flowers lay at its base, brown and crumbling, with one fresh rose on top of the pile. The whole bank was swept clean, as if someone came here often and tended it with great care.

Elara. This was her memorial ground.

"I didn't know," I said.

"No. You wouldn't." He scoffed.

Something hot rose in my throat. It had been building since the dining room, through the hallway and the whole sprint through the woods, and it finally had nowhere left to go.

"You know what? I'm tired of being sorry," I said. "I was sorry in the dining room. I was sorry in the hall. I'll probably be sorry in my grave. I didn't ask the Goddess for you either. I didn't ask for any of this. I came out here to breathe for a few minutes before I have to go back to my terrible life, and you're standing in the river like a very rude statue, so if anyone's trespassing—"

"This is mine," he growled, not amused by my big, stupid speech. He looked like he had spaced out from the moment I opened my mouth.

"It's your dead wife's."

The words were out before I could catch them.

He went very still. The muscles in his jaw ticked. In the quiet I could hear the river and my own awful breathing, and I had only one thought: he could kill me and throw me in that river right now. No one would look for me.

"Don't," he said. It wasn't a growl. It was almost a plea, and that was somehow so much worse.

"I'm sorry," I said at once. "That was cruel. I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't have said anything." I turned around, ready to leave.

"Did it work?" he asked, stopping me in my tracks.

"Did what work?" I asked, turning back.

"The rejection." He said the word like it tasted bad. "A bond takes two voices to break. I said mine. The bond is still alive. It's been burning in my chest for hours, and I have no intention of living like this." His silver-gray eyes met mine. "So say your part. Say it, and this is over."

I opened my mouth.

Ember whined, high and thin, like a kicked puppy.

"I'd be a fool to refuse," I said slowly. "You hate me. I clearly bother you. My family thinks I'm garbage. Saying yes should be easy."

"Then say it."

"No."

His eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"I don't know," I said, furious to hear my voice c***k. "My wolf won't let me. She's never refused me anything in her life, because she never says anything, and now she's crying in my head, and I'm not going to make her do something she doesn't want to do. So no."

"You are an omega," he said, his eyes darkening. "You do as you're told."

"I'm an omega, not your dog."

The Alpha of Blackridge, a man whose voice made grown warriors apologize for breathing, looked at me like I'd spoken another language.

Then his eyes dropped to my wrist.

The bandage covered only part of it, and the silver crescent glowed softly in the sunlight. His whole face tightened.

"That's not possible," he muttered, but I heard him loud and clear.

"It showed up after you left. I didn't accept anything. I swear."

"I know you didn't."

"Did you get one too?" I asked, but his arms were folded tightly across his chest the moment the words left my mouth.

He said nothing.

"Alpha."

"Stop talking." But he didn't move away. He took a step closer instead, and then another, until I had to tilt my head back to keep his face in sight. He was looking right at me.

"Forcing your wolf to accept the rejection might kill you, and I would not like your blood on my hands. So I will let you recover. But the minute I return for your acceptance, you had better be ready to give it."

He picked up a dark coat from beside the stone and shrugged into it. "Go home, Tilly."

He walked into the trees without looking back.

He remembered my name.