The Fury Pack Alpha's Secret Mate

Chapter 7- The Rival

My body is on fire.

It’s not the memory that hurts, though. No, what hurts me most is the craving it awakens. Every nerve in my body is lit, every breath feels too thick to drag in, and my thighs squeeze together like they remember how he felt inside me.

Shit. s**t. s**t.

I stagger backward from Adam like he’s touched me again, like the weight of that night is too heavy to carry in my bones, and curse him more when my shoulder stings, pulsing out a hot plea that settles in my core. My thighs ache. My skin hums with ghost heat.

And deep down, part of me knows the truth.

“Rogue?” His voice is soft now, too soft, as if he knows what I just felt.

Maybe he does.

“You...” I whisper, swallowing around the lump forming in my throat. “What the hell did you do to me?”

Adam blinks and tilts his head slightly, almost like an animal catching a new scent, and then sighs with a shrug so nonchalant I want to reach out and rip his head off with my bare hands. How dare he be this casual about something that’s exploding inside me? Ripping me apart.

“I claimed you.”

“No.” I shake my head, backing up toward the kitchen doorway like I can outrun the ache in my chest. “No, you screwed me. Then you left. That’s what you did. Don’t rewrite it.”

It’s an accusation, and I intend for it to hurt, but as usual, with Adam Fury, it rolls off his back and he shrugs. As if my feelings don’t matter.

“I didn’t just screw you, Rogue.” His voice deepens, darkens. “I mated you. My body recognized you. My wolf chose you. You’re mine. And you always have been.”

The sound I make is half laugh, half scream. Because I don’t know if that’s better or worse. His wolf chose me? What does that mean? Does that mean…he didn’t? Oh, God, I’m so confused. And Adam isn’t helping.

“Are you hearing yourself? You say that like it’s a normal thing. Like people don’t warn others when they’re about to…infect them with werewolf sperm or something!”

“I didn’t infect you,” he says flatly, like I’m being ridiculous.

I am, but that’s beside the point.

“Then explain why every time I get within five feet of a man I’m ready to hump a wall or murder someone,” I snap. “Explain the headaches, the voice in my head, the dreams I can’t wake up from, where you’re—”

My cheeks go hot, and I snap my mouth shut, cursing myself for revealing too much.

“Oh,” he says, his voice a smooth drawl dipped in sin. “You’ve been dreaming about me.”

“I’ve been dreaming about burning you alive in a pit of acid.” I snarl, but Adam just smirks.

“I bet you scream my name first.”

God, I hate him. I hate how smug he looks and how sure he is of this mating crap. How every part of me wants to throw something at his face, and then throw myself at his chest.

I don’t know what’s happening to me.

“I’m not yours,” I snap. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“You don’t have to ask,” he says simply. “It’s done.”

My eyes burn. Not from anger this time, from helpless, aching grief for the girl I used to be. For the woman I’ve had to become. For everything I didn’t get to choose, and for this, because if he’s telling the truth…

“I don’t want this,” I whisper.

“You need this.”

I shake my head, pressing a hand over my stomach like that can quiet the storm building beneath my skin.

“I needed a father for my son. I needed a man who would show up. You weren’t there,” I whisper, but Adam shakes his head and peers at me with a look of derision.

“I didn’t know about him, Rogue.”

“And whose fault is that?!” I shout, chest heaving. “You left me, Adam. You vanished. I tried to call you. I tried…I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I thought I was dying. And I couldn’t tell anyone because how the hell do you explain to a doctor that your v****a is melting and you can’t sleep unless you hear a phantom voice in your head whispering Mate? How the hell do you tell a doctor that you’re only three months pregnant but your belly’s grown overnight! I was alone while I went through it. Scared. Terrified something was wrong with him. I’ve been terrified since he took his first full step at six months and started speaking to me in full sentences not long after. You weren’t there!”

His expression shifts, and that smug, unshakable confidence cracks just a little.

“I thought I was protecting you,” he says finally, his voice hoarse.

“From what? A damn orgasm? Too late for that, Romeo.” I sneer.

“From me. From my world. From the s**t that follows my bloodline.” Adam snaps, and now, I stop.

His tone... it’s different now. Lower. Broken. Nothing like the arrogant asshole I know.

“I left because I thought it would save you. And now I see it only made everything worse.”

There’s a long silence between us, broken when Jackson hums quietly as he watches something. He’s blissfully unaware that his mother is two seconds away from combusting from truth overload, and I’m happy for that as I cross my arms, clutching myself tight.

“So what now, huh? You stake your claim like a caveman? Drag me back to your... wolf house or whatever, and what? We bang out the mating heat and play house? Because that isn’t okay. I don’t even know if I believe any of this crap. In fact, I shouldn’t.”

“I want my son,” he says simply. “And I want you. But I won’t force you. Not unless you run.”

My heart stutters.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I’m giving you time to accept what you already feel. Time to realize the bond isn’t going away. But if you try to leave Ash Valley... I’ll come for you. And I won’t be gentle,” He warns, making my knees go weak.

And not from fear. No. I melt a little when he steps closer and smell him again.

Alpha. Ours. Take him.

I shut my eyes and try to breathe, but my body is pulsing now, the heat rising in waves when the scent of him, wild, woodsy, heady fills my senses.

“f**k this,” I mutter, heading for the walk-in fridge. “Jacky! Come on, baby. You and Momma are gonna eat ice cream in the cooler.”

“Where are you going?”

“To hide in cold storage and hope my uterus stops singing the Hallelujah Chorus, thanks.” I snap, but just as I grab the cooler handle, the bell above the café door chimes again.

I freeze. Adam growls. And a voice I know all too well invades, adding to the already smoldering tension.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

I turn slowly. Jace Stone stands in the doorway, hands in his jacket pockets, dark eyes flicking between me...and Adam.

And the air between the two men goes razor-sharp.