Protecting the Alpha

Chapter 3

Hot.

Heavy.

Heaving.

Fingers trembling, eyes burning, neck scorching, I collapsed into the bathtub. Desperate to cool off. Desperate to ease all this pain. Desperate to stop feeling all this—this fiery vengeance rushing through every one of my bodily veins.

My body roasted in the frigid tub as sweat rolled down my forehead. I turned on the cold water, letting it pour out of the faucet and gush against the bare side of my neck, hoping to the Moon Goddess that it cooled me down.

Through teary eyes, I stared at the closed and locked bathroom door and caught glimmers of the moonlight shining into the dark room from the window. It must’ve been four a.m. I whimpered and rubbed my neck, the pain unbearable.

Goddess, help me.

Goddess, help me.Starting at my neck, every part of my body felt like it was in flames.

I hadn’t been this hot since … since Roman had refused to mark me and I fell into heat.

But how could I be in heat again? Roman had already marked—

“Kylo,” my wolf purred.

“Kylo,” Thighs burning, I spread my legs in the bath in hopes to cool the blazing path to my core. The water must’ve almost been freezing, but I could only feel the feverish ache inside my body. When I squeezed my eyes closed to ease the pain, all I imagined was Kylo lying in the bath with me, his taut body between my legs, his c**k buried deep inside of me, and his canines sinking into my neck.

“No,” I growled at my wolf, shaking my head from side to side. “Stop it.”

“No,” “Stop it.”Barely a week had gone by since the night that Roman and I had spent with Kylo, the night he thrust himself inside of me and filled my tight p***y as Roman took me from behind. And I’d be a damn liar if I said I hadn’t thought about it happening again, imagining Kylo taking control this time and forcing me to take his c*m.

“Find mate,” my wolf commanded. “Find mate and let him mark us.”

“Find mate,” “Find mate and let him mark us.”I gripped the edges of the bath, body tensing. “Stop it. Now.”

“Stop it. Now.”“Mate. We need to mate.”

“Mate. We need to mate.”“Roman!” I screamed, sinking down further in the bath.

“Not Roman. My mate,” my wolf said to me. “Kylo.”

“Not Roman. My mate,” “Kylo.”Water sloshed over the edge of the tub, the bath overflowing with nearly freezing water. The doorknob jiggled as Roman banged on the door and ordered me to let him into the room so he could help me. But as crazy as it sounded, I didn’t trust myself not to sprint right past him, out of the house, and toward Kylo.

If Roman opened the door right now, my wolf would take full control of my body.

I’d do something with Kylo that I’d regret.

“Go away,” I yelled back at him, knowing that I had just called for him. It sounded insane. I sounded insane. Tears streamed down my cheeks from the sheer amount of pain attacking my body. “Go away. I’ll be okay.”

I “Isabella, let me in,” Roman demanded. “Before I break this door down.”

“Don’t come in!” I pleaded. I stumbled out of the bathtub, slipping over the edge and landing on my hands and knees, and cursed, knowing that it’d leave a bruise on my knees—and it wouldn’t be the fun kind.

“Isabella, open up,” Roman growled, jiggling the door handle harder. “You’re in pain.”

“Please,” I begged, staggering to the door in the sheet of bathwater covering our floor.

“Why can’t I come in and help you?” he asked, banging against the door.

“Because I’m in heat!”

Though it was a mate’s job to soothe pain, especially during heat, I … I didn’t want my wolf to hurt Roman just in an attempt to find Kylo and force him to mark me. I needed this heat and pain to disappear. Now.

“Kylo,” my wolf whispered. “Find him now.”

“Kylo,” “Find him now.”When Roman burst through the door, my wolf forced me to shift faster than ever before. I sprinted out of the room so fast that I knocked him on his ass and then continued right for our second-story bedroom window, forgoing all sense of running down the stairs and to the front door.

When I shoved my body through the glass, it shattered onto the ground underneath me as I swayed in the air by Roman’s death grasp on my neck. He sank his teeth into the back of my neck and yanked me back into the room, throwing me onto the bed and growling in his wolf form.

“Did you think I’d let you run away from me?” he asked through the mind link.

“Did you think I’d let you run away from me?”Standing, I growled back at him as he stalked toward me. In the distance and through the woods, I listened to the howls of our packmates on their night runs around the property to secure the perimeter. Dolus hadn’t been seen for a week, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Let me leave,” I said through the link, not even thinking about the words before I said them. It seemed like the heat had taken control of my wolf and wanted to desperately find the man I had supposedly been mated to for four thousand years.

“Let me leave,”Roman stared up at me with those golden eyes and then hopped up onto the bed with me. I lunged at him, but somehow, he snatched me by the back of the neck again and held me down, belly on the mattress. “Shift.”

“Shift.”After struggling against him for another few moments, I growled and shifted under his body, my skin cooling a bit under his touch. He shifted behind me, still holding me down by the canines lodged into the back of my neck. I took deep breath after deep breath, slowly regaining both my composure and control of my wolf.

“Why are you in heat?” he asked me. “We’ve mated.”

“Why are you in heat?”“We’ve mated.”Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Kylo,” I whispered. “She wants Kylo.”

When the heat nearly disappeared—only a lingering ache left—I relaxed fully against the mattress and closed my eyes, a sudden tiredness overtaking my body. Roman pulled his teeth out of my neck and lay behind me on the bed, his naked body against mine. Though he stayed quiet, I could tell that he’d tensed when I said Kylo’s name.

We had talked endlessly about my relationship with Kylo this past week, but this never came up. I never even thought about marking that man, and now … now, my wolf ached for it. It was as if they were mates in this lifetime too.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, turning over to face him. Instead of looking him in the eye, I stared at his perfectly sculpted chest and curled into him. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you. My wolf … she … I can’t control her. And she wants … she wants his mark.”

“Do you?” he asked softly, unsteadily grasping my waist.

Did I want Kylo’s mark? Hell, I hadn’t even thought about it yet. I just wanted to get through this damn war against Dolus and save the wolf species. The thought had crossed my mind once—once—after Roman asked us if my bond with Kylo was similar to my bond with him. But I had been too caught up with other stuff to give it much thought.

once“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my wolf not even allowing me to answer his question.

Instead of getting angry like I’d thought he would, Roman trailed his fingers on my face and laced them into my hair, scratching lightly and shushing me to sleep. “It’s okay, my dear Isabella. You have a lot on your mind.” He drew his nose up the side of my neck, against his mark. “If you don’t want to tell me now, you don’t have to. But … I want to know before it happens.” He gulped. “I need to prepare myself to see you with someone else’s mark on your neck.”

The words came out so … so heartbreakingly sad.

My bond with Kylo had taken such a toll on Roman. I could see it in his eyes. He was tired.

I just hoped that didn’t mean he’d be easily corrupted. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t f*****g lose him. I loved this man more than I loved Kylo, and I would never, ever let him go and be blinded by such chaos.

ever “I’ll always be here for you, no matter what,” he whispered.

My stomach tightened at his words, an uneasy feeling sitting heavily inside of me. But … while I told myself I wouldn’t let Roman get hurt in this mess, I was the one who had knocked him down tonight, the one who had wanted to find Kylo during that wave of heat. Roman was my mate, the mate the Moon Goddess had blessed me with before she even knew about Kylo. If I was willing to do that to Roman just to have Kylo mark me, what else would I do to him for Kylo?

Tears welled up in my eyes, yet I forced my eyes closed and shook my head. No, I couldn’t think that way right now. I couldn’t let the chaos and corruption around me affect the way I thought about my mate because once I let those thoughts slip into my mind, they would become part of me.