“Jace is my Alpha and nothing more.” I took another deep breath to cover the hitch in my pulse. “I’m wearing your ring.” I held up my left hand, and the diamond glittered in the moonlight. “Does that make you feel better?”
Brian nodded. “I guess I just needed the reminder. Sometimes, it seems like everyone else knows you better than I do.” He took my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles. “I love seeing that on your finger.”
Yet somehow, I couldn’t get used to the bulk of the ring, as if that one third of a carat weighed as heavily on my mind as it did on my hand.
Brian cleared his throat, then met my gaze with more boldness than I’d ever seen from him. “I’ll be so good to you, Abby. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”
My chest ached as if he’d punched me square in the sternum, but my heart was the real target. Brian was sweet, and honest, and my parents loved him. Maybe someday I could too.
Maybe…
“I know you will,” I said at last. His eyes lit up, and it worried me that a few words from me could change his entire demeanor. I didn’t want to be responsible for his mental state. Hell, I didn’t want to be responsible for my own mood.
“Okay. I need some space now, if you don’t mind. I need to think.”
Brian frowned and glanced around at the dense woods. “I’m not supposed to leave you alone out here.”
I made sure he could see me roll my eyes. “I’m an enforcer now. Besides, we’re in the middle of the South-Central Territory, less than a mile from the ranch. I’ll be fine.”
He glanced in the direction of the main house. “You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll catch up with you before you even get back. I just need a few minutes. Please.”
“Okay. But hurry.” He took one last look at me, then walked off through the woods. When his footsteps finally faded from earshot, I exhaled and leaned against a tree, staring up at the moon between its bare branches.
Why did I find every conversation about my impending marriage utterly exhausting?
A twig snapped in the dark and I jerked upright, instantly on alert. I scanned the woods to my left and right, suddenly wishing I’d taken the time to shift my eyes. But then I inhaled to survey the ambient scents, and…
“How long have you been there?” I demanded in a whisper I knew damn well he could hear.
Jace stepped out of the shadows, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his arms relaxed, as if he were on a casual midnight stroll. Through the deep woods, exactly where he’d sent me on “patrol” with Brian. “Long enough.”
Shit. He’d heard everything Brian had said about him. “It isn’t nice to eavesdrop.”
Jace took a silent step toward me, and the gravity of his gaze belied his casual posture. “‘Nice’ isn’t in an Alpha’s job description.”
“Brian just bared his soul, and he had no idea you could hear him.”
“I gave him every opportunity to notice me.” He took another step forward, his intense focus pinning me where I stood. Was that anger in the line of his jaw or…something else?
My heart hammered so hard, I was sure he could hear it. “Don’t blame him. I didn’t notice you either.”
“You’ve been on the job for all of twenty minutes. Brian’s been an enforcer for nearly five years. He should have noticed. And he should never have left you out here alone. Patrol always works in pairs.”
“He was a little distracted.” And now so was I. Jace was three feet away, and I could see every cerulean striation in his irises. Even in the dark.
“An enforcer can’t afford to be distracted.”
Was he still talking about Brian? Or was this about me now? “It wasn’t his fault. I was…”
“Giving him false hope.” He stepped closer, and I caught my breath. Something was different. His pulse was steady, but each beat of his heart sounded harsh and tight, as if the muscle was working harder than usual.
“No I… It might have been hope, but it wasn’t false,” I insisted.
“You’re lying.”
I’d heard his heart beat like that many times before, right before he pounced on prey. Yet he no longer looked angry enough to pounce on me. Maybe hungry enough, though.
That was it. Jace looked hungry. And not for food.
My heart jumped up into my throat. I’d seen glimpses of that craving in him before. When he’d seen the carnage I’d unleashed in the hunters’ cabin. When he’d seen the short cut of my skirt. But both of those times, professionalism and willpower had overruled any inappropriate appetite.
Now that hunger seemed to have been unleashed somehow, and I couldn’t decide how to react. Surely, anything was better than the icy gaze he’d turned on me after the council meeting.
I was suddenly hyperaware that my idle hands wanted…something. “I’m going to marry him, Jace.”