MATED TO THE COLD ALPHA

Chapter 12

Sera POV

My thumbs moved before my mind caught up.

‘I'm safe. I'm still in the park's territory. I'm ok. Don't worry. I'm fine’

I hit send and set the phone down on the desk, exhaling slowly through my nose. The soup from earlier sat still on the tray, the spoon sitting exactly where I'd left it. I picked up a piece of bread instead and turned it over using my fingers without eating it.

The phone buzzed almost immediately.

‘Good. William is asking for you. I told him you would be back soon. Stay safe, my child.’

My chest tightened. The bread almost fell from my fingers due to the heavy feeling settling in my chest.

I was staring at the message when I heard the sound of the door opening from where I was sitting. Heavy footsteps, leaving my room with the kind of urgency that made something primal in my chest sit up and take notice.

The Alpha.

I stood up and moved before my mind could think. Exiting the room and stepping into the hallway without letting myself think about what I was doing. The corridor stretched ahead of me, long and shadowed. I could see his frame at the far end. Dark jacket, dark hair, the particular way he moved, like the space itself bent around him.

"Wait." My voice came out smaller than I intended. "Please. Will Grethe be safe at the pack? Will those men hurt her?"

He didn't break stride.

"Alpha–" I started walking faster, my footsteps echoing off the walls. "I need to know if she's–"

"Go back to your room!" His voice was cold. Flat. The kind of tone that closed doors and didn't allow them to open.

"NO!" My voice came out louder than a whisper. "Not until you tell me that she will be alright. Not until you reassure me of her safety. You're not just going to leave her there while those men–"

He stopped.

Turned. And the look in his eyes was so dark it was burning through me.

"I said go back to your room." Each word was a separate sentence. A separate threat. "Do not make me repeat myself."

"I'm not going back in there." My hands had curled into fists at my sides. "I'm not spending another second locked in that room. My brother is dying, and Grethe is being targeted. Take me to Ashbone. Give me the roots. Let me leave, please."

His jaw tightened.

I pushed harder. Desperation is climbing through the surface. "You have no right to keep me here. I didn't agree to this. I didn't agree to–"

He moved.

One second I was standing in the middle of the corridor with my anger still rising in my throat, and the next his ,hand closed around my waist. Rough, without warning. I was slammed backwards hard, the impact enough to knock the air from my lungs.

My back hit the wall, and the impact sent pain radiating down my spine, but it was nothing compared to the way his body pinned me against my own. His other hand was placed above my head, his face inches from mine.

"Do not defy me." His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the weight of something vast and predatory. "Do not question my authority. You are an intruder on my pack, in my territory. And the only reason you're still breathing right now is that I allow it."

"Let me go." The words came out strangled. I pushed against his chest, but he didn't budge. Just held me there like I weighed nothing at all to him. "This is torture. You can't keep me locked up forever. This is–"

"Harassment." He said as if he knew what was on my mind. "You think this is harassment."

His grip tightened.

"I don't want you here." His eyes were darker, holding nothing but void and anger and something else I couldn't name. "I would have dealt with you long ago. I could have killed you, disposed of you, or I could even make you my underground slave, if not for this stupid f*****g connection."

My heart stopped.

"You mean the bond?" I whispered.

"That's right." He confirmed, his voice dropping even lower. "If I were to reject you here and now, the bond would leave me weak, vulnerable and basically unstable. And I cannot be weak when I'm the one running this pack. And I will never see you as my mate. Never. Do you understand me? This is just a fatal mistake. Nothing more."

"Then let me go." I was pulling harder now, my nails scraping against the wall behind me. "If I'm such an inconvenience, let me leave. Reject the bond. Get it over with–"

"You think it works that way." His hand moved from the wall to my throat, not squeezing, but holding, resting against my pulse like he was checking whether my heart was still beating. "You think I want to spend the next few years of my life feeling weak because you decided to waltz onto my territory."

“Get off me.” I was arguing. My voice was rising, getting louder, sharper, while he continued to hold me against the wall. His body was pressed against mine, chest to chest, hip to hip, and I could feel the heat radiating off him. I could smell pine and something darker underneath. Something that made my nerves light up in ways that had nothing to do with fear.

The bond was igniting. Pulling me hard.

Like a rope tightening around my heart, shortening itself by pulling mine closer to his, as my mind screamed at me to resist, to keep pushing back, to maintain the anger that was helping me fight against him.

"Let me go," I said, but my voice had changed. Lost its edge.

His hand on my throat shifted, his thumb brushing against my jaw, and his eyes, those golden brown eyes that had looked at me with nothing but coldness, were flashing red now, filling with something that made the breath hitch in my throat.

"I won't." He said it like a declaration of authority.

My body betrayed me first.

The pulse in my neck quickened beneath his palm. My hands, instead of pushing him away, found the fabric of his jacket and held on. The wall behind me felt too cold against my back when all I could feel was his heat, pressing closer, his thigh between mine, his hand sliding from my throat to cup the side of my face with a possessiveness that should have terrified me and instead just made the heat in my lower belly worse.

His breath was hot against my temple.

"This doesn't mean anything." He said, but he was close to the corner of my jaw, his mouth finding the sensitive skin below my ear, and every word held power that felt complicated to hear

My body pressed against his because it didn't care what my mind was trying to reason with me.

Heat pooled in my belly.

The bond snapped taut between us like it was trying to pull us into the same skin.

His free hand was under my jacket, his palm flat against my ribs, and I could feel his heartbeat through his chest where I was pressed against him, fast, thundering. And more than anything else, that made me realise this was affecting him too, what he was doing to me, he was feeling it too.

"Alpha–" my voice came out hitched. I don't know why, but the words died in my throat.

A sharp clack echoed down the hall, making a sudden draft of cold air rush through my skin.

One of his men stood in the doorway. His body went completely still after seeing exactly what we were doing. The Alpha is still touching my hair, my jacket torn slightly at the shoulder, my legs barely touching the ground.

An awkward silence stretched between the three of us like a silent room full of crickets.

The man's eyes went to the floor.

"Alpha." His voice was carefully neutral. “You have a visitor waiting at the gates. She says she came to visit you."

The Alpha released me slowly.

I slid down the wall as his hands flew away. My legs were shaking, my body still radiating heat in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature of the hallway.

"f**k, it must be her. I'll be right there." The Alpha's voice was rough. Controlled.

He turned and walked with the man without looking back.

And because I was desperate and unwilling to spend another second locked in that room, I pushed off the wall and followed him. My jacket falling open, my hair dishevelled, my whole body still vibrating with the aftermath of what had just happened.

I entered the living room and watched from outside the window. Observing the Alpha as he exited the house and stepped into the clearing.

The massive iron gates groaned, the brutal screech of metal tearing through the silence of the night.

Beyond the gates, the low, mechanical growl of a running engine sliced through the silence. A massive Range Rover rolled into the clearing, its glossy black colour swallowing the moonlight and throwing it back in refraction. Even after the engine died down, the car sat in the park clearing, the faint sound of cool metal rhythm against the quiet night.

A man exited the driver's seat and came to the back of the car. The door clicked open.

A woman stepped out of the car and into the clearing. Stiletto heels bit into the ground, sharp as gunfire. The fabric of her designer coat caught the wind, and her dark hair was pinned back so tightly it looked alluring. She walked with passion, clicking off the ground beneath her feet, moving with the weight, like someone who owned the space.

When she saw the alpha, her whole face changed.

"Hey there, coz." She said, her voice carrying a flawless accent that I couldn't place. “It's been a while.”