Protecting the Alpha

Chapter 4

Lying in bed next to Roman, I stared up at the ceiling. Though the heat had worn me out, I couldn’t seem to fall asleep. With loud and irritating thoughts racing through my mind, I turned over onto my stomach on the mattress and groaned into my pillow. While Roman slept, his arm slipped off me, but he quickly wrapped it around my waist and moved closer to me, mumbling something incoherent into my hair and smiling against me.

I intertwined my fingers with his and inhaled deeply, trying to sleep. I just wanted the thoughts to stop for one damn moment, so I could rest in peace. But all that ran through my mind was the Moon Goddess confined in one of Dolus’s evil traps, unable to perform her duties to protect the werewolf species.

If we ended Dolus’s corruption, we might be able to save her.

Yet Kylo, Roman, and I had come up with hundreds upon hundreds of ways to stop the chaos this past week, and nothing had seemed to hold up. Every time we had a theory, an idea, a mere thought, it never came to fruition. Something always either came up, didn’t add up, or just wasn’t feasible to do with the wolves we had at our disposal and the lack of knowledge we had of Dolus and his true powers.

Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to sleep any longer, I kissed Roman and crawled out of bed to get some water downstairs and to go through a couple more plans. I needed to figure out something. I hated just waiting around for Dolus to come to us. But we knew nothing of him—absolutely nothing.

Turning on the downstairs light, I jumped when I saw Kylo standing in our kitchen. “Did I wake you, princess?” he asked, sipping on a glass of water. With a gray V-neck draped over his chest and a pair of loose washed jeans hanging from his hips, he smirked and leaned against the counter.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, scooting by him to grab a glass for myself and hoping to the Goddess that my wolf wouldn’t wake up and decide that it was time to have her mate mark us. I turned on the faucet. “Shouldn’t you be at your packhouse?”

Before I could utter another word, he pushed me against the counter from behind me, one hand around my throat and the other clutching my waist. He trailed his nose up against the bare side of my neck. “I could feel you, Isabella. Your wolf …” he growled. “Goddess, your wolf was calling out to me, begging me to come to you, to take you.”

takeBreath caught in my throat, I clutched on to the countertop and let the glass overfill in the sink, my fingers paling. “Kylo,” I whispered, feeling my wolf start to awaken. “Please, I … I … please stop before I lose control. My wolf, she’ll demand it from me.”

His canines grazed against my neck, and I moaned. He pressed himself against me from behind, grinding his hard c**k against my ass, teasing me just the way he knew I liked it. I closed my eyes and vowed that he wouldn’t get to me this time.

He couldn’t.

“Goddess, princess, those moans do something sinister to me,” Kylo murmured against my neck, tilting my head back slightly and kissing my skin. “Moan for me again.”

Heat gathering in my core, I let go of the death grip on the counter and moaned softly again, unable to even think straight. My vision clouded, and my mind fogged with pleasure as my wolf slowly ripped control from me.

“Kylo,” I whispered, voice cracking.

“Yes, princess?” he murmured against me, sucking my skin between his teeth.

“We have to … to …”

“To?”

I had the urge to call for Roman, to scream at him to get his ass out of bed and come down to the kitchen, where Kylo was seconds away from taking me himself. His wolf must’ve been on edge all night too, because, while he had always been forward, we had come to a mutual agreement to keep our hands off each other unless we were with Roman.

He could tease me all day long, but he hadn’t touched me this past week.

“To wait until Roman … until he gets up,” I said between raspy breaths.

“I want you now.”

It wasn’t a thought, wasn’t a request, wasn’t even a question.

It was a demand from a ruthless alpha—an alpha who ached to claim his mate.

Inhaling deeply, I gathered all the strength inside of me and pushed him away. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle him that close for much longer because I … I wanted to sink my canines in his neck and take him. Him being here just made me more anxious for it to be done already.

But I didn’t want to just rush into it. Hell, I didn’t even know if I wanted him to mark me. My wolf did—and she forced me into thinking that I did too. But I was too committed to Roman to ruin the bond I had with him. Sleeping with someone else and marking them were two different things. If Roman wasn’t comfortable with me marking Kylo, then I had to hold back every urge.

Now wasn’t the time to deal with mate drama either. We had a war to stop and a Moon Goddess to save.

After blowing out a deep breath, I crossed my arms over my chest to hide my hardened n*****s, grabbed my glass of water, and walked backward and away from Kylo. He watched my every move with his fury-ridden gold eyes, canines still extended past his lips.

“Wait until Roman is awake,” I said to him, the corner of my lips curled. “Then, maybe you’ll get to taste me. Until then … we have work to do.” I nodded to the stack of papers about Dolus and corruption on the dining room table.

Taking one last step back, I bumped into someone’s chest.

“And what kind of work is that?” Roman asked amusedly behind me, possessively wrapping his arm around my waist and drawing a finger up the column of my neck. “Hmm?”

“Roman, I—”

“Answer me, Isabella,” he murmured against my ear, eyes flickering to Kylo. “The kind that lands you on your knees perhaps?”