After My Alpha Drugged Me for Ten Years novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: What He Wants

The Chair adjourned the Court at full dark, with his jaw set and his hands folded.

The doctor was marched off to a tent with two Alliance guards at the flap.

Ramsay walked out of the ring alone, and nobody walked with him.

I didn't see where Ruby went.

Rowan took my elbow, and I let him.

We didn't speak across the grass, past the torches and the cook fires, until he held his tent flap open and I went in.

He tied the flap shut behind us.

"You're shaking," he said.

"So are you."

"I know."

I turned around.

An hour ago I had stood in front of forty Alphas and said the worst thing about my life out loud.

That was behind me now.

What was in front of me was a broad man in a dark tent who wouldn't look at me.

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you've been holding since the creek."

He drew a breath.

"I have to tell you something flat, because I think you've been hearing it wrong."

"Go on."

"I'm not rescuing you."

I stared at him.

"I didn't pick up that phone because I felt guilty, or sorry, or because I'm the kind of man who saves things."

His voice was rough and very even.

"I picked up because it was you."

"I've wanted you since the moot, since your hand in mine. I haven't wanted anyone else in ten years."

My throat closed.

"I thought," I said. "I thought you answered because you pitied the ruined girl."

"You aren't ruined. You're the bravest person I have ever stood next to."

"Rowan."

"I'm telling you because you get to choose with the facts in front of you."

He swallowed.

"Tonight I want to put my hands on you, and I want it to be slow."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll sit outside this tent till morning."

"You've said that twice now."

"I'll say it every time."

I crossed the tent and put my hands flat on his chest.

"Then ask me properly," I said. "Your rule, Alpha. Nobody touches without asking."

A breath of laughter shook him.

"Hazel. May I put my hands on you?"

"Yes."

"May I take your shirt off?"

"God, yes."

His fingers shook on the buttons of the borrowed flannel, and I watched his face while he opened it.

He pushed it off my shoulders and looked at me, at my ribs and my thin hips and the silver scars on my wrists.

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