Mated To My Cheating Ex's Powerful Alpha novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Look at Me

On the terrace the Apex looks at Freja and the mate bond snaps into place; he tells her to run, she burns the ruined dress at home, and at two in the morning he knocks on her door.

"I disagree with that," the Apex said again, and stepped out of the shadows.

My face was wet and my nose was running, and I wiped both with the back of my hand.

"I didn't know anyone was out here."

"I know." His voice was low and level. "You should go back inside."

"Why? So I can watch him celebrate?"

He went very still.

Something in the air between us shifted.

A low pull started in my chest, and I understood I had half felt it my whole life.

"Freja," he said. "Go back inside."

I had never told him my name.

"You know my name."

"Everyone in that ballroom knows who you are now." He said it without any cruelty. "You walked up to a stage and told a man to look you in the eye."

My throat closed.

I was tired of being told where to stand.

"No," I said. "I'm not going anywhere because you told me to."

He crossed the terrace and stopped close enough that I could see the scar through his eyebrow.

I could see the muscle jumping in his jaw.

"Look at me," he said.

It wasn't a command.

It was almost gentle, and I looked.

His eyes caught mine, and something inside my chest pulled tight.

It was a thread, hooked deep behind my ribs, and the other end of it was in his hands.

Mine, said a voice in me that I had never heard before.

It frightened me how much I meant it.

His breath changed. He felt it too.

His hand rose toward my cheek, and stopped an inch away.

Then he stepped back.

His whole body was working to hold something down.

"Run," he said. His voice cracked on it. "Freja, please. Now. Before I do something neither of us can undo."

"What are you..."

"Please."

I ran.

I ran through the gilded hall and down the service stairs and out into the night.

I do not remember the drive home.

I was standing in my kitchen with my keys still in my hand, and the stained dress still stuck to me.

It had been Rhett's gift.

He had picked the silk himself, and he had told me I looked like a woman who was about to be somebody.

I peeled it off and turned on the gas stove.

The first corner caught fast and curled black.

I held it over the flame until the heat bit my palm, and I dropped it into the sink.

It burned in the basin, and the smoke alarm went off.

I flapped a dish towel at it until it quit.

My hand throbbed.

I ran cold water over it and watched ash circle down the drain.

My phone had been buzzing in my bag since the terrace.

Rhett: Where are you? Please answer. It's not what you think.

Rhett: I can explain everything. Give me one hour.

Rhett: Nor, please. Don't do anything dramatic.

I read that last text twice.

Then I turned the phone face down.

It lit up again right away, with a different name.

June: Somebody posted the stage on the pack feed. Where are you? I'm coming over.

I typed with my good hand: Don't. I can't talk tonight. I'll call you when I can.

June answered at once: Okay. I'm here. Call me at 3 a.m. if you want. I don't care.

I put on sweatpants and an old college shirt and sat on the couch with my knees against my chest.

The ballroom was still full of wolves.

Rhett was still smiling.

Marianne's ring was still catching the light.

And all I could think about was a man with silver eyes telling me to run, like it hurt him to say it.

The thread behind my ribs had not gone slack.

It was worse now.

It felt sharper, and it pointed back across the city to one place.

I told myself it was shock.

I told myself a lot of things that night.

I sat there until my eyes stopped burning and the clock on the stove said ten past two.

Then someone knocked on my door.

Three slow knocks.

I got up and stood with my hand flat on the wood.

"Rhett, I don't want to hear it."

"It isn't Rhett."

I knew that voice before he finished the sentence.

"How do you know where I live?"

There was a pause on the other side.

"Does it matter right now?" the Apex said.

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