Jealousy

RORY

“How could you not tell us that you’re the Alpha’s mate?” Cassidy exclaims while all the other kids huddle around me.

It’s been difficult to get away for the past week, as Everett has kept me under lock and key.

He barely let me out of his sight, and the times he did, I was showering or doing my business.

It’s quite unnerving how attentive he has been, not saying anything but just watching me. And he holds me to him every night, like we’re cuddling.

His excuse is to stop me from falling out of bed. But he looks so content when he’s holding me, nuzzling his nose into my hair, my body pressed up against his.

Or maybe I just feel content.

He looked absolutely terrified when he found me in those dungeons, and he didn’t sleep that night either. He just watched me.

And for some reason, I didn’t mind being watched.

He panicked. He was so worried I had been hurt, and furious with the warrior wolves who have been in his pack since birth and who he had grown up with.

But he doesn’t want me. He just feels a responsibility to me because of the mate bond, and he was governed by the power of the mate bond when he thought I was in danger.

“The Alpha wanted it a secret for a while, until I acclimated here,” I tell her.

She narrows her eyes at me and Orion looks confused.

“Why don’t you lot go play hide-and-seek? We’ll come find you.”

The kids run off, but Cassidy and Orion just look to me expectantly. They’re much older than the others, and therefore a lot more curious about pack gossip.

“You are acclimated here. What’s the real reason? He doesn’t think you should be Luna? Is he going to reject you?” she questions avidly, making me gulp at her interrogation.

I don’t know yet. He doesn’t think I’ll make a good Luna, who would?

“You don’t have to answer that, Rory,” Nellie says, giving a sharp glare to Cassidy in a scolding way.

“Well, I don’t know. Really.”

After playing with the kids for as long as I think Everett wouldn’t notice me gone, Ace walks around with me, sent as a bodyguard by Everett apparently, although for some reason, I believe that to be a lie.

I get several stares, and everyone at least looks my way, more than the usual. Gossip like “the Alpha’s found his mate and she’s human” travels in this pack like wildfire.

“Ignore them, Rory,” he tells me with a consoling smile. Sighing, I accidentally trip on a paving slab and almost smash headfirst onto the concrete.

But Ace grasps my arm to steady me a little. But my knees still scrape the rough ground, scratching them up pretty badly.

“Shit, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply with a small wince as I brush the tiny stones off my knees.

“You’re bleeding and you ripped your jeans,” he comments like I didn’t already know that. “Rory—”

“I’m fine, Ace. You sound like Everett,” I complain, pouting at the memories of Everett freaking out over every little scratch and bruise.

“Everett will kill me if something happens to you,” he states firmly, bending down to my knee level and assessing the damage.

“What’s going on?” the booming voice of the Alpha questions behind Ace, and I look up to meet his sapphire eyes. They glisten with jealousy and suspicion as he eyes the two of us together.

Ace has been hanging around me more often, but it’s nothing to do with anything like what Everett’s thinking.

Ace is suspicious of me himself after what happened out in rogue territory.

And he wants to know more about me, a lot more, to figure out what really happened.

I didn’t think he would fully believe my lies, but I had hoped he would believe some version that everything was a dream.

But I don’t think I’m quite that lucky.

Ace snaps back up to standing straight, though, facing away from me and coughing a little nervously.

“Alpha, Rory had a little fall,” he says, gesturing toward my knees. Everett’s eyes darken as he eyes my knees and grows angry at my clumsiness.

He storms toward me, wolves stopping to stare but quickly averting their gaze as they catch sight of their furious Alpha.

“Where were you, little one?” he hisses lowly and dangerously, one hand grabbing my face and the other snaking to my back.

“Alpha, she—” Ace starts, but Everett cuts him off.

“She can speak for herself.”

His tone frightens me whilst his touch sends sparks throughout my body, increasing the dangerous and tense atmosphere.

“I was just taking a walk,” I mutter, gulping at the look in his eyes.

He hates me. He really hates me. I must be a big burden to him, practically begging for his help by being covered in blood and terrified and exhausted.

And from the moment he saw me, he knew I was just another one of his responsibilities that he didn’t ask for, or he wasn’t ready for.

“With him? You were taking a walk with my Gamma, huh? Cause you like him more than me?” he questions in a deep and aggressive voice.

He pulls me with him toward the pack house, attaching me to his side with Ace following behind.

Every wolf averts their eyes, having probably seen their Alpha in a mood like this and having seen the consequences of staring.

Once we get inside, he sits me on the counter in the kitchen.

“We were just walking, Alpha,” Ace states, pulling Everett away from me and facing him. “Rory was bored, and on a walk, and I saw her and went to talk to her.”

“Leave us,” Everett growls in response in that commanding Alpha tone.

Ace does as he’s told, his loyalty to his Alpha above all. But now it’s just me and the big bad Alpha, who’s in a particularly unpredictable mood.

He moves back over to me, standing in between my legs and placing his hands on my waist to hold me still, and perhaps even to stop me from my cursed clumsy ways hurting me from up here.

My feet are nowhere close to the ground; the curse of short legs.

I’m very vulnerable right now, at Everett’s mercy. But I know he won’t hurt me. He can’t. It’s not in his nature. It’s something I admire about him.

Of course he can hurt people—he’s an Alpha after all—but he has his principles that he follows strictly. And I respect that.

It also means that he would never hurt me, no matter how agitated he got. But that’s only hurt me physically.

There are still many ways he can hurt me. One being: he can reject me.

And that might just break me.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, my eyes flickering down. But his hand grips my chin and tilts it up so that I’m forced to look into his eyes.

“For what, little one? Have you done something you should be sorry about?”

I shake my head frantically, showing that nothing happened between Ace and me. I know that’s what he’s thinking.

But I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I have feelings for Everett. Beyond the initial mate bond.

“Yeah? So why are you sorry? Tell me.”

“For making you angry. I didn’t mean to,” I whimper, my lower lip trembling uncontrollably.

His thumb comes up to it, pulling it down lightly and back up again. His eyes soften almost instantly as he just stares at me.

“You’re my mate, Aurora. Mine. You’re not Ace’s,” he states, like I don’t know that.

“I know, Everett. You’re my mate. I was just talking to Ace. I want to have friends here,” I explain. He takes his hand away from my face and back onto my waist.

“You were bored? What about all those books you take from my office?” he asks.

“I’ve read most of them now. I’m trying to keep up my education and learn new things, but I don’t have much to do now,” I tell him honestly.

“I’m the Alpha, I can’t entertain you all the time. I’m busy,” he says.

“I know, Everett. And I’m not asking you to entertain me. I just don’t like to be accused. I was just walking around.”

“I can’t keep you safe when I don’t know where you are,” he states, inching closer to me.

“I’ll be safe here. What those wolves did, it won’t happen again. I’m safe. Plus, Ace is looking out for me.”

He growls at the mention of his name but I touch his face, soothing him.

“He kept me safe out in rogue territory, and he wants to be friends with me. He knows you’re my mate. Plus, I thought you didn’t even want me as a mate.”

“Of course I do. You know that,” he grits out, clutching my waist tightly. “I want you.”

“Maybe. But you won’t keep me. You don’t think I’ll be a good Luna for this pack. And that’s okay. You’ve given me somewhere to stay and... I’m grateful,” I say, a tear slipping from my eye.

“But I…”

“Aurora, don’t ever say that to me. You don’t need to be grateful and you don’t ever fucking say that I won’t keep you. I want you, little one.”

I look down, avoiding his eyes. He doesn’t want me.

I’m just another responsibility.