Alpha Divided (Alpha Girl Book 3)

“Yes. War.”


A chill ran through my body, but the question remained the same. “Why, though? I’m not that important.”

Dastien ran his fingers through my hair. He was quiet for a second. “She knows something about you that we don’t. Or she wants to use you somehow.”

He was on to something with that one. “Like what? What could she know? How could she use me?”

“I have no idea, but if she’d risk centuries of peace over this, it’s got to be big.”

I rolled over and pressed my face against his sternum, breathing in his scent. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For the way things went last night. For not fighting for us.”

He ran his fingers through my hair. “It’s never a good idea to fight when it can be avoided.” He tugged on my hair a little until I looked at him. “But I wished we’d gotten to do the ceremony.”

“Me, too.” I pressed my lips gently to his. “Me, too.”

***

Since I still hadn’t fully moved over to Dastien’s cabin, I made my way back to my room to shower and change. And call my parents. They’d want an update.

Mom was shocked about what’d happened. She didn’t trust Luciana at all. It was the whole reason she’d kept me away from the coven growing up. She made me promise to keep her updated before hanging up.

I plopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

This wasn’t how my day was supposed to be going. It wasn’t like we were going to get a honeymoon or anything. We had to stick around for the Tribunal, but I’d been looking forward to relaxing the day away with Dastien. Instead, he was revising his speech, which I should’ve been working on, too, but I couldn’t. The words weren’t there. How many ways could I say ‘leave me and Dastien the fuck alone’?

I dug through my bedside table until I found my red and blue bouncy ball. I threw it against the wall by my tiny window as I thought.

There had to be something more that I could be doing. This was my fault…well, not exactly my fault, but still. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make this whole situation with Luciana go away.

When I tried to talk to her rationally about the curse she’d put on Meredith, it’d been a disaster. A complete waste of time.

Damn it. Why had I told my cousins we were doing the ceremony? That was so dumb. They’d been so helpful before, I’d just thought they were my friends. They were my family.

A blur of movement caught my eye before the ball was snatched out of the air. “You’re killing me with this.” Meredith wore a pair of pink camo sleep shorts and a tank, and her hair stuck out all crazy.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Donovan already left, so I was up-ish. Just not physically up.” She sat on my bed. “You’re not doing so hot, huh?”

When I first got here, she’d walked right into my room and made me feel better about everything. It was pretty damned awesome of her to do that for a total stranger. But this time she had her work cut out for her. It felt like I couldn’t catch a break. All I wanted was a little peace. I wanted to enjoy Dastien and my friends. It’d taken me so long to get to where I was—a really good, happy place—that I really resented what was happening.

Meredith nudged her shoulder against mine. “Brunch? I’m feeling like it’s omelet time.”

“I seriously don’t think food is going to fix this.”

She scoffed at me. “A good meal can fix just about anything.”

Werewolves and their food addiction…

My stomach growled. The traitor.

“I’m going to throw on some clothes.” She jumped up from my bed. “I won’t even shower. Give me five.”

“Cool.” I reached my hand out. “Can I have my ball back?”

She narrowed her gaze at me. “Are you going to bounce it against the wall again?”

“No?”

“No. I don’t trust you with it.” She threw the ball in the air and then caught it. “Your bouncy ball privileges have been revoked.”

I pouted. “But I had a really bad birthday.”

She pointed a finger at me. “Don’t give me that face. It’s not going to work.” She closed the bathroom door. “Read one of your steamy romance novels. I’ll be ready in a sec.”

By sec, Meredith definitely meant at least fifteen minutes. It’d been a while since I’d actually had time to sit down and read a book. I scanned my shelves, picked up a random one, and flipped through. The scent of forest and wolf filled my senses. I put my nose to the spine and inhaled.

The books still smelled like Dastien. When I’d first moved in, he’d brought all my stuff. He even made sure to put all my books in order alphabetically by author and separated by genre.

I grabbed a Christine Feehan book, one of her Sea Haven novels. That series was seriously awesome. I got swept away by the sisters that all had special powers. Kind of like the coven.