Home > Alpha Girl (Wolf Girl #3)(5)

Alpha Girl (Wolf Girl #3)(5)
Author: Leia Stone

‘No?’ I felt his pain slice into my chest. ‘Demi, your parents are hiding in a bomb shelter. Raven just got here asking about you. I’m waiting for my future wife to show up so I can wrap my arms around her as I bury my father in the ground, and now you tell me you’re not coming back? What am I supposed to do with that?’

For someone who couldn’t have a conversation right now, he sure was chatty. Guilt wormed its way into my gut. He was right, it was awful—I was fucking awful for doing this to him in the middle of a war with his father dead. But… ‘Sawyer, they wouldn’t help without me giving them something. Their land is dying, the people are hurting, and I’m not just going to leave them. It’s not who I am, and not who you fell in love with.’

I felt him soften. Tender feelings of love and compassion bled into me.

‘Okay, babe, I get it, but I can’t just traipse into the woods and camp out with you there. I’m alpha, my father just died, we are at war, and I have an ankle monitor on that we still can’t get off. What do you expect me to do?’

My heart panged at the mention of his father again. I wanted to be there with him, and I still didn’t know what this alpha stuff required of me. ‘I know, and this won’t be like last time when I got lost in the Magic Lands. I can come see you. I’ll send the warriors in the morning at first light, and then I’ll check things out here and see how I can help. By tomorrow night I can zip back over and see you again and we can come up with a plan.’

There was silence and I felt his attention divided. Finally he spoke back to me, his voice strained.

‘Zip back over? Demi, my love, we are at war. Our woods are on fire. They’ve just released dark fey into the school grounds and the Ithaki are getting involved. It’s now or never. Come home and you can go to the Paladins after the war settles down, after my ankle bracelet comes off. I’ll go with you. I’ll live in a tent by your side, do whatever it takes, my love—just not now.’

A sob ripped from my chest, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth to muffle it.

‘Sawyer, the land is blackened and dying. They aren’t like your wolves, they will start to get sick too if I don’t step up to my responsibilities. I have to be here right now.’

He was silent so damn long I had to call his name again.

‘Sawyer?’

I felt my agony mix with his, merging together through our bond, coalescing like a tornado, threatening to rip us both in two.

‘Demi, loving you means I support whatever your desires are. If you really want to stay there and … help the Paladin people, then … I support you.’

My heart felt heavy, like a stone in my chest. Sawyer was the epitome of the perfect man and I felt like I was letting him down.

‘We will be together soon. I promise,’ I assured him.

‘I gotta go now. Read the note I gave you, okay?’ He sounded disappointed, but there was nothing more I could say. I’d completely forgotten about the note he’d shoved in my pocket when I’d seen him in the war room in his parents’ house.

‘I will. I love you, Sawyer. I love you so much. Thanks for supporting me.’

‘Goodnight, Demi. I love you too.’

I lay there for a moment letting this hollow feeling spread from my chest through my limbs. There was no good way out of this situation. It sucked no matter what. Either way, someone was going to be disappointed.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the letter and sat up, leaning into the window and letting the outside porch light cast its glow onto the white paper.

I unfolded it, confused about what it was and how he could have written me a letter before he even knew I was coming here. He’d have had no time between the vampire attack at the hotel and getting his mother back to his house after his father’s death.

The second I saw his cursive script across the page, I finally let the sobs free.

Engagement speech was scrolled across the top.

He’d written a speech for our special night, something I hadn’t even thought to do—one he never got to read.

My heart pounded against my chest as I read the next line.

Demi, loving you is easy.

From the first day I met you, I saw your strength, your fire, and a little bit of your pain.

Tears streamed down my face and onto the paper.

And I knew that day that I had met my equal, my better half.

Where I am hard and unyielding, you are soft and forgiving. Where my mind thinks in straights lines and squares, yours thinks in swirls and arcs.

Demi, we are not exact copies of each other, but we are perfect for one another. You are the one I choose to love, the one I choose to place all my bets on, my future wife.

You love your family and friends with a loyal fierceness that gives me pride to watch, and I am lucky enough to be one of those people.

Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for saying yes.

I burst into tears then, my vision blurry as I read the last line.

(Now kiss her).

I fell back onto the pillow, clutching the letter in my hands, and sobbed into the blanket as my emotions overwhelmed me. I just wanted to marry him and be normal.

But there was no normal here, no going back now. We were at war, and if I was honest, my time running for my life through the Magic Lands had changed me. I was a fighter, a survivor, a Paladin alpha. I couldn’t just ignore that and sit back in a glass castle with Sawyer and be his wife.

I did want to be his wife, I wanted a life with him, but I had my own path to walk too, and the agony of not knowing an immediate solution for Sawyer and my relationship tore at me until I finally dozed off.

 

 

Sage woke me while it was still dark out. I’d had to pull myself from the comfortable bed and brush my teeth quickly before rushing outside. Murmured low voices came from the church across the street. Sage and I crossed the brick walkway and I balked at the sight of nearly a thousand warriors. They were all bare chested despite the chilly air breezing through the town, and they held a variety of deadly looking weapons. The bright blue streaks of paint across their faces and chests gave me chills. These men were true warriors. You could see it in their eyes, the way they not only looked like they weren’t afraid of death, they welcomed it. Most of the warriors were men, but I spied a few women, just as deadly and fierce looking.

Arrow and Rab were talking animatedly to each other, while Astra had her hands on a man’s shoulders as she seemingly prayed for him. Being in such a different culture was fascinating. I wanted to know everything about the Paladins and their customs, but now was not the time to learn. Footsteps sounded behind me and I turned to see a large pack of wolves coming down the street, a hundred of them or more.

These wolves were large, larger than our city wolves, and all black, with bits of rust fur at the tips.

“Paladin wolves,” Sage whispered.

Oh.

“What if someone attacks us while you’re gone? You’re taking our best warriors!” Rab shouted, and I turned my attention back to the front of the church.

“They want to show the new alpha that they will fight for her cause,” Arrow stated passionately. “They have faith that she will heal our lands and people and not leave us.”

Guilt shot through me. These people that I didn’t even know were willing to fight for me so that I would help them. It just reaffirmed that I couldn’t go back to Sawyer until I had given my all here and helped them.

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