Defying the Alpha

by Emilia Rose

  “No,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “Why?”

  “That’s all,” I said, ignoring his question. I waved him off.

  After lingering for a few moments, Cayden sighed and left the room.

  When he closed the door behind him, I nodded to Isabella’s Lycan warrior. I had to be sure that it wasn’t him. “Follow Cayden.”

  Chapter 36

  Kylo

  It took me the entire day to get the courage to talk to Scarlett for the first time in years. After I’d found her with Roman four years ago, I’d vowed I wouldn’t speak with her unless I had gained the strength to sever our mate bond for good. And when I finally had, I hadn’t turned back.

  Somehow though, she had managed to weasel her way back between Roman and me, except this time, she couldn’t tear us apart because neither one of us wanted or cared about her like that anymore.

  “Kylo,” Scarlett purred as I shuffled down the stone steps into the dungeon. She sat with her back against the wall, silver metal bounding and burning into her wrists and ankles. “I never thought I’d see you and Roman be civil.”

  I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms over my chest, and stared at the woman I’d once called mate and luna. Though I wanted to say I felt nothing for her, I still ached because of what she had done. It was unforgivable betrayal.

  “Tell me where Derek is,” I said.

  Scarlett tossed her brown hair over her shoulder. “Why don’t you go ask your lover?”

  Overcome with anger, I stepped forward and grabbed the silver bars. “Are you still fucking angry about Isabella and me? If you hadn’t slept with Roman behind my back, maybe you wouldn’t be sitting in an empty, cold cell. Things could’ve been different.”

  They might have been different between us, but I still would’ve felt the same way about Isabella. We had been fated to be together for seven thousand years and found each other again and again in our past lives.

  Fuck Scarlett and what she had done to me.

  She wasn’t the woman I needed. Isabella was.

  “Why do you care that I slept with him?” she asked through her canines and stood. “You knew that we had been flirting. We did it in front of you! Why wouldn’t I sleep with him? His dick is so much bigger than yours, Kylo … and all that pure, raw dominance”—she snickered—“you have none of it.”

  I released the silver bars and took a deep breath. She wouldn’t get to me.

  “It’s not that you slept with him. It’s that you broke my trust. It’s that you slept with him in my bedroom and in every single room in my pack house.” I breathed deeply through my nose, repeating to myself that this was another one of her many mind games.

  Her lips curled into a cruel smirk. “I don’t regret it. He was the best time I ever had.”

  Kill her, my wolf growled. End her, so she can’t cause any more pain.

  Instead of hurling my fists at her, I clenched them by my sides. No matter how hard I tried, she wouldn’t give me any kind of information about Derek. She would run me in circles until I crumpled beneath her.

  I walked out of the prison to keep my sanity, her whines being drowned out through the thick concrete doors. I headed straight toward the pack house, on a mission to find Isabella to get my mind off Scarlett.

  Yet Scarlett always had a way of getting to me, even after I had rejected her.

  Chapter 37

  Isabella

  Twelve hours on my feet, training Naomi, organizing the Lycans, and contacting a witch competent in corruption magic, I rested my forehead against Roman’s pack house front door and blew out a deep breath. I hadn’t found shit about Derek’s whereabouts and wasn’t closer to finding the mole.

  When I walked into the house, Roman and Kylo were talking tensely with each other at the kitchen table. There was a notebook between them with a dozen words listed down the side of it in bright red ink.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Kylo smiled at me. “A list of a hundred things we want to do with you later.”

  I cocked my brow at him and then at Roman, who had a small smirk on his face and playful hazel eyes. Sitting beside Kylo, I snatched the notebook and read all the names from it, humming to myself.

  “You want all these people to do me later?” I asked, unable to suppress my smile. “Vanessa, Cayden, even Raj. You two are a pair of kinky mother—”

  Roman’s playful eyes hardened as he tore the notebook away from me. “Now that you’ve had a taste of Kylo, don’t push it,” he said. He shut the notebook and placed his pen on top of it, sliding it to the other side of the table. “Those are names of people who could have helped Scarlett out.”

  After taking my hand from across the table, Roman drew his fingers over my knuckles. “I have a couple of the Lycans watching them,” he said. “No need to worry. I’m not trusting many people here. Whoever it was had to be someone close to us if they knew that Derek was watching Jane. I only told my closest warriors about it.”

  I turned toward Kylo. “And Scarlett?”

  Kylo blew out a breath and sank in his chair, shaking his head. “She won’t talk to me. All she did was run me around in circles. She’s not one to give in easily. Even after all the torture that your guards put her through, she seemed so damn calm.” He frowned at me. “I’ll try again tomorrow, but I don’t think she’s going to say anything.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments, and then I picked up an apple from the center of the table. “Well, I just wanted to check in. I’ll be back home later,” I said, standing back up and starting for the door.

  The witch had made plans to come to the Lycans’ later tonight to aid us, and I wanted to get there a bit early to prepare Naomi.

  Kylo clutched my wrist and pulled me back to the table. “Where are you going?”

  “I have a meeting with a few Lycans tonight at seven. It’s almost six thirty.”

  “I didn’t dismiss you,” Roman said.

  “Dismiss me?” I asked, brow raised. “You don’t have to dismiss me.”

  Kylo stood up and snaked his hand around the front of my throat, his nose in my hair, lips against my ear. “Sit.”

  I inhaled his sweet pine scent and closed my eyes, waiting for Roman to make one of his cold, hard demands. When he didn’t say a word, I opened my eyes and saw him watching me intently, as if he was waiting to see if I’d obey Kylo like I sometimes obeyed him.

  “No.”

  “You have half an hour to waste before your meeting,” Kylo said, voice hardening. “Sit.”

  “No.”

  Within a moment, Roman moved around the table, grabbed my ass in one hand and my breast in the other, and said, “Either you sit or you spend the next thirty minutes between us with your legs buckling beneath you.”

  Excitement raced through me. I knew that defying him would make him snap; it always led to him fucking me, and that was what I needed after today even if it was just a quickie. So, I did what I did best and asked, “Is that a vow? Or another one of your lousy, empty promises?”

  He ripped me from Kylo’s grasp, growled, and bent me over our wooden kitchen table. “Empty promises, Isabella,” he spit my words right back at me. “Empty”—he pulled my pants down—“fucking”—he pulled out his cock and slapped it against my wet entrance—“promises.” He thrust me against the table. “That’s what this is.”

  I whimpered and arched my back for him.

  He snatched a fistful of my hair and pulled me off the table. “Apologize to Kylo.”

  “Fuck you, Roman.”

  “Apologize,” Roman ordered, his voice so cruel and demeaning. Roman continued to pound into me so hard from behind that my breasts nearly fell out of my bra under my shirt. “Apologize like you would to me. Don’t disrespect him.”

  Kylo seized my chin in one hand and stuck his fingers into my mouth, and then he grabbed my breast in his other hand and rolled the nipple around his palm. I tightened around Roman, a wave of pleasure rushing through me,
and reached for Kylo’s black jeans.

  I stroked his bulge through his pants, gazed up at him, and gagged on his fingers. When he pulled them out of my mouth, he wiped the spit across my cheek.

  “Does this make up for it?” I asked, pushing my hand into his pants and stroking him through his briefs. “How about this?”

  Roman stilled behind me and tugged harder on my hair. “Does a halfhearted hand job make up for your disrespect?”

  My pussy clenched on his cock, and I shook my head. “No.”

  After pushing me back down onto the table—closer to Kylo’s bulge—Roman thrust into me from behind, sending me harder against the wooden edge. I stared at Kylo’s bulge through his briefs and pushed my hand under his underwear to grasp his cock in my hand.

  I hesitated and glanced back at Roman, who watched me with those demanding golden eyes. I gulped and pulled out Kylo’s cock, my mind buzzing, my fingers tingling. This was really happening again.

  “Isabella,” Raj said through the mind link.

  I wanted to ignore him so fucking bad. There was still at least fifteen minutes before our meeting, and I was so close to coming and relaxing for once today. But I couldn’t ignore him, not when there was a war in our forest.

  “What?” I asked, hoping his response would be quick.

  “Scarlett is gone.”

  Chapter 38

  Isabella

  “I thought that you said Scarlett was locked in the fucking cell?” I asked Kylo through clenched teeth as I pulled up and buttoned my pants as quickly as I could and hurried toward the front door.

  Stricken with sudden surprise, Kylo redid his jeans and followed me. “She is.”

  “What’s happened?” Roman asked, hurrying after us.

  I stormed out the front door in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. I had worked my ass off today at the Lycans’ and made no progress. Scarlett had been my only hope at finding Derek alive and getting him through these corrupt times. I should’ve gone to see her myself before I came home.

  What if Kylo or Roman had helped her escape?

  Kylo was her ex-mate, and Roman had just spent two days with her doing Goddess knew what. She could’ve hurt one or both of them, mind-controlled them, or promised them something that I would never be able to give them.

  Yet I couldn’t get myself to believe that either of them was corrupt.

  The Moon Goddess had given Kylo and me the responsibility to destroy Dolus. And Roman was my mate, who had loved me since we were just children. They wouldn’t betray me. They couldn’t.

  “Scarlett escaped and killed three guards at the prison,” I said, running through the forest.

  Roman growled fiercely, shifted into his huge brown wolf, and sprinted ahead of me toward the prison. Kylo and I shifted a couple moments later. Instead of running into the prison with Roman, I ran toward the borders. Scarlett couldn’t have gotten far. Someone had helped her escape, and while that someone was good at hiding their tracks, I had people here now who could pick up their scents.

  “Get the best trackers we have, Raj,” I said through the mind link. Sticking my nose to the ground, I picked up a sweet, feminine scent. “Raj?” I asked when he didn’t respond. My heart pounded inside my chest as wind whipped around us, blowing my fur in every direction.

  “We don’t need a tracker …” Raj finally said, voice a mere whisper in my mind.

  “Tell me that you’re all right. Tell me that—” I cut the mind link and stopped dead in my tracks.

  Standing at our borders, Scarlett had her hand wrapped around the front of a warrior’s neck and viciously strummed her claws against her throat. It wasn’t just any warrior. It was Vanessa.

  I howled, calling for Roman and Kylo to follow me, and sprinted toward a deathly still Raj. Instead of trying to deescalate the situation, Raj gaped at Scarlett with wide, shocked eyes.

  Was he … was he all right?

  Scarlett turned toward me with bright, evil eyes and the same smirk she’d had when she drew her dirty claws against my mate’s chest at the Lycans’. “Isabella,” she purred. “I’m glad you could make it.”

  Vanessa grabbed her wrist to yank her away as Scarlett threatened to kill her.

  “Put her down,” I ordered, voice stern.

  Vanessa looked at me with guilt in her wide eyes. She clamped her canines into Scarlett’s wrist, and Scarlett actually tensed.

  I straightened my back and glared at Scarlett to show her that I wasn’t afraid. “Now.”

  But I was terrified because if I stepped toward her, she’d kill Vanessa, and if I didn’t do anything, she’d probably kill her too. We were in a lose-lose type of situation, and nobody was being helpful at the moment.

  I glanced back at Raj and followed his stare past Scarlett to … Jane.

  Jane stood off to the side as the wind blew her long, pin-straight brown hair into her face. She tucked a strand behind her ear, eyes glazed over and fixed on Scarlett in amazement and pride.

  Jane was the mole, not Roman, not Kylo, not Raj, and certainly not Vanessa. Jane.

  When Roman and Kylo appeared and shifted next to me, Scarlett tossed Vanessa to the side and clapped her hands together. “We’re all finally here. No need for you anymore,” she said to her.

  Vanessa collapsed onto sticks and branches, clutching her neck.

  I glanced at her for a moment to make sure she was okay and then growled at Scarlett, “What do you fucking want?” I asked through clenched teeth, feeling nothing but rage. “I should’ve made them kill you already.”

  She smirked. “But then I wouldn’t get to tell you all the things that happened between Roman and me the other night.” She cackled.

  Roman clenched his jaw. “Nothing happened.”

  I trust Roman. I trust Roman. I trust Roman. I have to trust Roman.

  Scarlett stepped forward and tilted her head. “Are you sure about that, Romie?”

  I moved between the two of them and focused all my attention on that lying, man-stealing piece of shit. “I’m not going to fall for your stupid mind games. You didn’t—” I stopped short when she pushed some hair off of her shoulder and showed me her freshly marked and blistering neck.

  No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

  Scarlett was just playing a game with me. Another fucking game.

  It wasn’t real.

  Roman hadn’t marked her.

  Pushing all my fears to the side, I stepped closer to her, clenched my jaw, and really looked at it. Everything else seemed to blur. And all my wolf could focus on were the large canine marks and the disgusting arrogance radiating off of her.

  Though the mark was almost alpha-sized, the canine marks weren’t as big as Roman’s. I knew firsthand. I had stared at my mark for hours after Roman claimed me; I knew how they looked. He hadn’t marked her, which meant that—

  I glanced over at Kylo, feeling heartbroken. “Did you—”

  Before I could finish the sentence, Kylo flashed me his canines, which were just as big as Roman’s. No, he hadn’t bitten her either. I furrowed my brows and stepped away from Scarlett, everything seeming to click in my head.

  This was a setup. She had something planned.

  “Whoever is near Roman’s pack, I need you at the west border now,” I said through the mind link to my Lycans. Something was about to go terribly wrong. I could just feel it. “Doctors, trackers, warriors.”

  Nobody moved. Deafening silence fell over the forest. Dolus was here.

  “Roman didn’t mark you,” I said to Scarlett, trying to buy time for my warriors to get here. If Dolus had taken down the Moon Goddess, then two alphas, two Lycans, and a warrior wouldn’t be able to defeat him alone. “You’re a liar.”

  “Wow,” she said. “You’re really good at picking up on things, aren’t you?”

  “Who marked you?” I asked, pushing Roman and Kylo back a few feet. “Go protect the—”

  “She-she did it,” Raj said, his voice a mere whisper as he pointe
d at Jane.

  My heart dropped at how Raj must’ve felt, knowing that his mate—the one woman he was supposed to love for eternity—had marked someone else.

  Jane sneered at Raj and stepped forward. “I did mark her.”

  “You marked Scarlett?” Roman roared, his mind link buzzing with vengeance and fury and every curse word in the damn book. “You were the one working with Scarlett? You helped her escape? You kidnapped Derek?”

  “Derek?” I whispered, thrusting a hand to my chest. I looked around for him, hoping that they had been dumb enough to bring him back here and hide him behind some blowing tree branches. “Where is he?”

  Jane took a threatening step toward me, her hands clasped behind her back and her lifeless, almost-hazy eyes narrowed at me. “It doesn’t matter where he is. All you have to know is that he’s not coming back for you. Nobody is.”

  It took everything I had in me not to lunge at her and kill her. She was being controlled by Dolus. This wasn’t the Jane that I had grown up with, this wasn’t the Jane who loved Vanessa, this wasn’t the Jane who annoyed Roman every chance she got.

  “Jane,” Raj said. He moved his lips more, but no words came out. His chin trembled, yet all he could do was stare at her. His mate had marked someone else. It had to hurt worse than the heat I had gone through without Roman.

  She slowly approached me and stopped a foot away from me, her dreary green eyes darkening by the second. I stood my ground and refused to look at her or back away from her. If Dolus had taken control of her, if he were inside of her, he had another thing coming. I wouldn’t be intimidated by Roman’s sister.

  “Jane,” Roman said, voice barely above a whisper. Though he tried to show no signs of being intimidated, I could feel just how badly he hurt on the inside. We were connected and shared emotions like no other, and his were agonizingly painful right now. “No, this can’t be happening. I can’t lose you too. Mom and Dad and now … now you.”

  My heart clenched. Roman had already been through a world full of pain. Now that his sister had been taken by Dolus, I didn’t know if he would ever recover from something this devastating. This would be the first step to Dolus controlling his mind.