Alpha Hayley's Destined Mate novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Gold

I let go of the door.

I didn't let it show. I let my shoulders drop, and I smiled at my uncle.

"No," I said.

Lon blinked.

"An Alpha doesn't do tricks on command, Uncle Lon. I'm not a dog at a county fair."

I said it to the room, not to him.

"You want to see my wolf? You'll see her on the Harvest Moon. In the ring. With your son on his back."

Somebody at the side of the room stamped a boot. Then two more did.

Somebody else muttered, "Convenient."

The room broke down the middle.

Half of them looked at me, and half of them looked at Lon.

The Charter keeper sat back in her wheelchair and folded her hands on the ledger. She didn't say a word.

I walked out.

I didn't run. I made myself walk the whole aisle, and through the door, and down the clubhouse steps.

Torrey came out behind me.

"Don't," I said. "Not now. Please."

He stopped on the steps.

I crossed the dark pit lot and climbed the grandstand.

I went all the way to the top row, where the wind comes down the canyon and nobody ever sits.

Three thousand empty seats sat below me, and only the moon lit the clay.

I sat down, and it came out of me all at once.

I cried like I hadn't since the funeral, ugly and loud, with my face in my knees.

Every one of them saw it, I kept thinking. Every one of them saw me reach for her and come up empty.

I don't know how long it was. Long enough for the clubhouse lights to go out.

Then the bleacher boards creaked below me.

He sat down one row lower, so he wasn't looking at me. His back was to me, his elbows on his knees.

He didn't say anything.

After a while I did.

"It was so cold," I said.

He turned his head a little, not all the way.

"The water. September, and it was like ice. It came over my head and I couldn't tell which way was up."

My voice wasn't steady. I let it not be.

"Something grabbed my shoulder. It hurt so much. I thought it was the thing that killed him, finishing me."

"It was me."

"I know that now. I didn't then. I just remember thinking, this is it, this is how it ends, cold and dark and something's got me."

I wiped my face with my sleeve.

"Every time I try to shift, I'm back in it. I go down into the cold and I can't find my way up."

He turned around then.

He came up one row and sat beside me. He didn't touch me.

"You came up," he said. "I was there. You came up coughing and swearing. You called me a son of a bitch before you passed out."

I laughed. It hurt my chest.

"I don't remember that."

"I do. I liked you right away."

I looked at him in the moonlight, at the silver chain at his throat.

The red mark from my hand a week ago was gone from his cheek.

The scars on my back were warm, not burning.

"Stay," I said.

He went still.

"Tonight. At my house. Not because of the moon or the Charter or what they all think in there." I made myself look at him. "Because I don't want to be cold tonight. And because I want you. That's all."

"Hayley."

"Yes or no, Ossler."

"Yes," he said.

My house is a mile up the river road from the track.

We drove it in my father's truck without talking.

His hand was on the seat between us.

Halfway there, I put mine on top of it.

In the kitchen I put the kettle on out of habit, and then I turned it off again.

He stood by my back door, looking at the river through the glass.

"You can hear it from every room," he said.

"I know. I used to love that."

I took my father's watch off my wrist and set it on the windowsill.

Then I took his hand and led him upstairs.

He took my hand and let me lead him into my bedroom.

The window was already open above the bed.

The river was loud below it.

I turned to face him.

I pushed his shirt off his shoulders.

It fell to the floor.

The silver chain lay flat against his chest.

I worked the button of his jeans.

He watched my hands.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I know."

I got his jeans open and pushed them down his hips.

He stepped out of them.

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend