The Alpha CEO's Runaway Bride: Marked, Pregnant, and Claimed by His Rival

CHAPTER 5

SCARLETT

The door slammed against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster, and a man I had never seen filled the doorway, soaked from the rain, chest heaving like he had run the whole length of the property. Mud streaked his boots. A long scar ran down one side of his face, and his eyes were wild with the kind of fear that only comes from bad news.

"Alpha," he said, eyes flicking from Axel to me and back again. "They're at the north fence. A full team. Trackers, security, the works."

Axel did not move from where he stood in front of me, but I felt the air in the room change, thicken, like the storm outside had stepped inside with us.

"Wilder's men?" he asked, voice low and even.

"Yes, sir. And Zane Wilder himself is with them."

My stomach dropped. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, suddenly very aware of how thin the borrowed shirt was, how exposed I felt standing in the middle of enemy territory with my wolf still humming under my skin from a single touch.

"How many men?" Axel asked.

"Twelve. Maybe more behind them."

"Get everyone to the east wall. No one crosses our border tonight, but no one fires first either. I want Wilder to be the one who breaks pack law, not us."

The man, Damon, nodded once and disappeared back down the hallway, his footsteps fading into shouts and the heavy thud of doors.

For a moment, Axel and I just stood there, the rain hammering the windows, the crest of his enemy carved into the wall behind him, and the word Mate still echoing somewhere deep in my chest, louder than any sound in the room.

"You're using me," I said quietly.

His eyes snapped to mine. "What?"

"If Wilder attacks your land over me, he breaks pack law in front of every Alpha who hears about it. That helps you. That's why you're letting him get this close instead of just turning me over or sending me home."

For a second, something flickered across his face, guilt, maybe, or surprise that I had pieced it together so fast. Then it hardened again.

"That's part of it," he admitted. "I won't lie to you about that. Eight years ago, your future father in law took everything from my family and made sure no one could prove it was wrong. If Zane crosses my border tonight chasing you, the whole region will see exactly what kind of man he is, and exactly what kind of family I'm protecting myself from."

"So I'm a weapon," I said. "Just like I was a signature to Zane. Just another piece on someone else's board."

"You're not a weapon, Scarlett."

"Then what am I?"

He reached out, slower this time, and rested his hand against the side of my neck, his thumb brushing the line of my jaw. My pulse jumped under his palm, and Aria, my wolf, pressed forward inside me like she was trying to lean into his touch herself.

"I have spent eight years planning how to destroy Zane Wilder," he said, his voice rough. "Tonight, I had every reason in the world to let his men find you and walk away clean. Instead, I'm standing here, and the only thing I can think about is how I'm going to keep you safe."

"That doesn't make sense," I whispered.

"No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

His forehead dropped to rest against mine, and for one long moment, the war outside, the contract, the crest on the wall, all of it disappeared. There was only his breath against my lips, warm and unsteady, and the heat of his hand on my skin, and the ache low in my body that had nothing to do with fear.

"Tell me to stop," he murmured, "and I will."

I should have. I had a fiance who had betrayed me hours ago, a baby that was not his, and a family on the other side of that border who would call this the worst kind of betrayal. My whole life I had been told I was broken, wolfless, the disappointing Hale daughter who would never know a mate bond. Now that bond was standing in front of me, asking permission, and every reason in the world told me to step back, to remember who he was and what his last name meant to mine.

I did not move.

His lips brushed mine, soft at first, testing, like he expected me to pull away. When I did not, his hand slid back into my hair and the kiss deepened, slow and certain, like he had been waiting eight years for this too, not just for revenge. His other arm wrapped around my back, pulling me flush against him, and I could feel his heartbeat hammering hard and fast against my own chest, matching mine beat for beat.

For one perfect, impossible moment, I forgot about Zane. I forgot about Ivy. I forgot about the contract, the crest, and the war breaking out at the edge of his land.

Then a sharp pain tore through my lower stomach, so sudden and so wrong that I cried out against his mouth and stumbled back, both hands flying to my belly.

Axel caught me before I hit the floor, his eyes wide with alarm. "Scarlett, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," I gasped. The pain came again, worse this time, twisting through me like something inside me was being pulled apart. "Something's wrong, Axel, something's wrong with the baby."

His arms tightened around me, and for the first time since I had woken up in this house, I heard real fear in his voice. "Stay with me. Look at me, Scarlett, stay with me."

He looked down, and I followed his eyes to the front of the shirt I was wearing.

Dark red was spreading slowly across the pale fabric, blooming outward like ink dropped into water.

"Damon!" Axel roared, the sound shaking the windows, more wolf than man. "Get the healer, now!"

Outside, a howl ripped through the storm, long and furious, followed by the sharp crack of gunfire echoing off the trees, and then a second howl, closer, answering it.

Somewhere past the east wall, the first shots of a war that had been eight years in the making had just been fired, over a woman neither side truly understood yet, carrying a child that might already be slipping away.

The war had started.

And so had something else.