She wasn’t sure what the outcome of that fight had been.
Her memories grew blurry, a mishmash of being cut free, seeing her home, and then the faintest sense that someone had placed her into a hot bath and had taken care of her.
The last part must have been one of the females who had cut her free from the post and had pulled her away from the battle.
Eloise pushed the covers back, her muscles aching with the strain. She cursed how weak she felt and fought it, unwilling to let it get the better of her. She was stronger than this. She had to see what had happened.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, pressed her hands into the mattress, and slowly pushed onto her feet. Her knees threatened to buckle but held firm when she locked them. She used the furniture in her room to move around it to the wardrobe and opened the wooden cupboard. She took out her tan thick thermal trousers and a white thermal top, and slowly put them on, gaining balance and strength with each second she managed to remain on her feet. She followed them with a pair of wool socks and her boots, and then put on her white woollen jumper.
The stairs down to the ground level proved more of a problem than moving around her small bedroom and she almost fell at one point, saving herself by clutching the wooden bannister. She huffed, gave herself a moment to recover, and then continued, pushing past her fatigue. She needed to reach the centre of the village.
She had to see what was happening.
She carefully walked across the ground floor, slowly manoeuvring around her couch and armchair, and opened the wooden door. The cold hit her hard despite all her layers and she shivered, wishing she still had the gloves and hat that Cavanaugh had given her.
Her heart fell again at just the sound of his name.
Her eyes sought the source of the noise in the village.
A huge bonfire blazed in the centre of the square ahead of her, partially hidden by the other buildings between her and it.
She closed her eyes and clung to the wooden doorframe for support as her knees weakened again. It was a celebration.
Cavanaugh had won.
Tears burned the backs of her eyes.
He was their alpha again.
Eloise pulled down a deep breath, hoping it would steady her. Her heart told her to go back inside, lock the door, and return to her bed. She didn’t need to see this. She didn’t need to hear the joy of the village.
She shook her head and growled through her clenched teeth. She was stronger than this. She had to see him, even though she knew that it would only hurt her. She needed to see that he was alright, and then she would come back and do as her heart wanted, sealing herself away from the world for a while.
Eloise trudged down the wooden steps to the snow and slowly wandered towards the celebration. All of the pride were there, talking and laughing as they surrounded the fire. It burned brightly, chasing back the dark of night. She looked up at the thick clouds that obscured the stars.
More snow was coming.
She could smell it in the crisp air.
She tried to busy her mind with everything she would need to do to prepare for the storm, but it kept slipping back to thoughts of Cavanaugh as she drew closer to the rowdy celebration. She approached from the main avenue between the houses, directly opposite the large stone platform on the other side of the square.
Cavanaugh stood there, dressed in dark winter clothing that hugged his tall, broad figure, his silver-white hair stark against the blackness beyond him, and the firelight twinkling in his eyes as he laughed with someone.
His cousin stood beside him, looking like a fire god with his vivid red hair and his pure silver eyes. The male raised a steaming mug and Cavanaugh did the same, knocking them together. The local brew. It had always been too strong for her.
Cavanaugh had laughed his backside off the one time she had tried it and had fallen drunk almost instantly, and then he had taken care of her.
The smile that had been blooming on her lips died as she saw the females around the base of the platform, and some of the ones on the platform, were looking at Cavanaugh.
Her heart fractured, as fragile as ice in her chest.
Eloise clenched her fists and forced herself to look at the pride, at how happy they were now, freed from Stellan’s rule. She was glad they were safe.
But it hurt too.
She felt as if she had just destroyed all of her hope and had sacrificed her one chance of being with Cavanaugh.
The celebration was about more than the defeat of a tyrant. It was a celebration of Cavanaugh becoming their alpha.
The same celebration she had been forced to endure a decade ago.
It had broken her heart back then, just as it broke her heart now.
Eloise sniffed back the tears that tried to fill her eyes and turned away from the celebration.
“Eloise,” Cavanaugh called, his deep voice unmistakable as it rose above the noise, cutting at her with its warmth. She couldn’t look back at him. She couldn’t bear to see how he would be smiling, as if nothing was wrong. As if he felt no pain in this moment, only happiness. “You’re up… I’m glad to see it. Where are you going?”
She felt the eyes of everyone coming to rest on her and cursed him for singling her out when she had only wanted to quietly slink back into the darkness.
The storm wouldn’t hit for a day.
She had time to slip away and be far from this place that only brought her pain before it reached them.
“Eloise.” His tone held a sharper note, one that demanded she look at him and answer his question.
She couldn’t deny him. He was her pride’s alpha after all.
She turned back to him and her breath hitched in her throat as she found him standing near the edge of the platform across the square, bathed in firelight. Gods, he was so handsome. The sight of him only increased the pain burning inside her, a terrible reminder of what she had sacrificed for the sake of her pride.
She bowed her head, unable to look at him any longer. “Away.”
“Away?”
She nodded.
“Away where?”
Eloise clutched her hands in front of her hips and considered what she was about to say. She couldn’t tell him the truth, but she wouldn’t lie to him either.
“Anywhere but here,” she said.
His tone hardened. “Why?”
She frowned, screwing her eyes shut. She didn’t want to do this in front of everyone, but she had to abide by pride rules and answer him.
Eloise sucked down another sharp breath of cold air that cleared her lungs and her mind, and found the strength to lift her head and look straight at him. “I cannot remain here.”
Cavanaugh’s face darkened, the silver slashes of his eyebrows dropping low above his grey eyes. “Why not?”
She wanted to look away, almost gave in to that need, but managed to keep looking at him. “Because… I can’t bear it.”
He moved right to the edge of the stone platform and the crowd between them parted, leaving her feeling as if there was only her and Cavanaugh.
“You can’t bear it?” He frowned at her, a confused edge to his gaze. “You have no reason to leave when you’ll no longer be in danger of being forced into a harem.”
She cursed him for seeing through her words to the truth beneath, that she wanted to leave this place entirely and never come back, and she cursed him for mentioning the harem. It made her look at the females surrounding him, staring at him with a mixture of adoration and surprise. Females of status. Women he would be expected to bed now that he was their alpha again.
Eloise’s heart caught fire.
She took a hard step forwards, towards him, clenched her trembling fists at her side, and stared into his eyes. “I refuse to stay. I need to leave.”
Cavanaugh shook his head. “I refuse to let you leave.”
She stumbled back a step, her eyebrows furrowing as she searched his gaze, seeing that he meant what he had said. Shock rolled thro
ugh her, anger that he would do such a thing to her following in its wake.
Eloise scowled at him and snapped, “Why?”
A collective gasp ran through those gathered around her. They murmured, no doubt speaking about her and what she had just done. She caught one person calling her disrespectful.
Cavanaugh smiled, as if her audacity had amused rather than angered him. Or maybe he liked that she had spoken out to him, treating him in the same manner as she had when they were younger, before he had become an alpha.
He set his mug down beside his boots and straightened, pinning his grey gaze back on her. “Why? You brought me back here, and now you’re leaving. I’m the one who should be asking why.”
Eloise almost lowered her eyes and then resolutely said, “There’s no reason for me to remain. I left this place to bring you back for the sake of our pride. I’ve done that, and now I’m going to leave.”
He didn’t look as if he was going to listen to a word she had to say about what she wanted. “You have every reason to remain. This is your home.”
“I’m still leaving.” She ignored how everyone murmured again, casting scowls in her direction.
They couldn’t stop her and neither could Cavanaugh. She had made up her mind.
“I cannot let you do that.” He frowned at her, his expression darkening again. “You belong here.”
Eloise took another step closer and stared at him, her anger burning in her veins and mixing with her pain, forming an explosive and dangerous combination that threatened to have her forgetting everything about pride rules and politics, and giving him a piece of her mind.
She barely bit back the growl that wanted to rumble up her throat and exhaled hard, trying to expel her fury so she could speak reasonably with him and make him listen to her.
If he felt anything for her, if what they had shared meant anything to him, he would listen and he would let her do what she felt was right for her.
He would spare her the pain that staying would only cause her.
She whispered, “Let me leave.”
His eyebrows furrowed, his eyes leaping between hers, and she feared he would tell her no again.
He lifted his right hand towards her. “There are tears in your eyes.”
She lowered her head and dashed them away, cursing herself for not realising and letting him see them and how much this was hurting her.
“You really don’t want to stay here with me?” he husked and she lifted her gaze back to his and shook her head.
She swore he looked wounded in the instant before he smiled.
“What if I asked you to stay?” he said.
It wouldn’t change anything. She wished that it would, but it wouldn’t, and she didn’t want to live that way again, hurting every time she saw him.
She closed her eyes, drew on her strength, and looked at him again, hoping he would see in her eyes everything she felt in her heart. There was only one way to make him let her go, and that was to say things straight and make her feelings clear. It would hurt like hell, and it might hurt him too, but it was better than staying and enduring years of hurt. She would take a swift stab straight through her heart over a long drawn out torture.
“No. I can’t bear it. I couldn’t back then and I can’t now. I’m not strong enough. Please, Cavanaugh, let me leave.”
His expression didn’t shift. It remained impassive. “I cannot.”
“Why not?” she barked, her voice echoing around the dark mountains.
He didn’t answer her.
Tears filled her eyes and she tried to hold them back, but she no longer had the strength, not when a terrible realisation went through her.
He would force her to stay. He would force her to see him with other women, never with her. She clutched her chest, tugging her white jumper into her fist.
“I cannot be here, Cavanaugh. Please don’t make me stay. Please don’t make me see you again… with others.” Her eyes searched his, a wildness consuming her, driven by panic and overwhelming pain.
“Others?” Confusion flickered on his handsome face.
Eloise closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “I understand. I know my place.”
“I don’t think you do.” The hardness in his deep voice made her look at him.
He leaped down from the platform and strode towards her, the snow crunching beneath his boots. She backed off a step, sure he meant to put her in her place.
His right hand lifted.
His face softened and surprise claimed her when he carefully wiped her tears away with the pads of his thumbs and then cupped her cheeks, tilting her head up. Her eyes met his.
“I cannot let you leave,” he whispered.
Eloise closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, trembling as his warmth seeped into her and his scent curled around her, soothing her pain.
“I cannot let you leave without me.”
Her eyes shot open, leaping up to his.
He smiled and it hit her hard, knocking the breath from her. “There are no others, Eloise, and there never have been. There has only been you.”
Her eyes widened.
His smile followed suit, curving wider, lighting up his eyes. “Whatever you think you saw, it never happened. There is only one female for me… there is only one I have ever craved… and only one who gave me the strength to do what I wanted. You.”
She opened her mouth to speak but he shook his head, silencing her.
“I left the pride because I couldn’t have you, Eloise. I left because I wanted you and I hated the damned rules that meant I could never have you.”
She stared at him, reeling and struggling to take it all in. He had told her back in the cave that she had been the reason he had left, but she hadn’t realised the true depth of what he had been trying to tell her.
She knew it now.
It beat within her, a drumming in her blood. It flowed through her veins and gave her strength and courage as everything she had felt during the course of her entire life suddenly made sense.
“You don’t know your place,” Cavanaugh whispered, earnest and beautiful as he looked down into her eyes, his grey ones soft and filled with affection. “Because you clearly haven’t realised that your place is with me. Nothing can keep me from you, can’t you see that? Nothing. I left because I wanted you and nothing else. I wanted the only thing that could make me happy… make me strong… and make me feel like the king of these mountains.”
He lowered his head towards hers, narrowing her focus down to only him.
“I wanted my mate.”
Shivers ran down her arms and her thighs, spreading over her scalp as a smile burst onto her lips and all of her fears and her pain fell away.
“I know you feel it too now,” he murmured and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, his gaze searching hers. “Deep inside you, you know that we were made for each other. We were destined to be mates.”
She nodded and he smiled at her, a light filling his eyes that warmed her. Her Cavanaugh. She had thought she had lost him again, but he was right here in front of her, holding her and speaking his heart to her.
Her mate.
“When did you realise?” she said, needing to know because it had only just dawned on her. She had only just pieced together everything and made the discovery that he had clearly been aware of for much longer.
He smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks again. “The night before my father died, when we—”
Eloise clapped a hand over his mouth and blushed as he mumbled the rest into her palm. She didn’t need him telling the entire pride about their personal affairs and how they had been each other’s first, and only.
Cavanaugh released her left cheek, curled his fingers around her wrist and drew her hand away from his mouth. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles, his eyes locked on hers.
“But I fell in love with you before that.”
Those words and the boyish look in his eyes stole her heart all over again. She could only smile
at him as she stared into his eyes, letting everything crash over her and sweep her away.
“You were in love with me too, weren’t you?” he husked and pressed another kiss to her fingers.
Eloise turned her hand, capturing his, and brought it down to her lips.
She pressed a kiss to his palm. “I’m still in love with you.”
She could feel his relief as it went through him, but that same emotion didn’t run through her.
He loved her, and she loved him, but it was a bittersweet moment because she knew it couldn’t be.
The rules he had spoken of still kept them apart, and now it would hurt her more than ever, because now she knew how much it was going to hurt him too.
She went to release his hand but he caught hold of her wrist, stopping her from pulling away.
“You can leave,” he said and her heart fell before he lifted it up again. “But you’re leaving with me.”
Eloise shook her head. Had he lost his mind?
“You can’t leave,” she snapped and looked around them at everyone. “The pride… you’re the alpha.”
Cavanaugh smoothed his palm across her cheek and slowly brought her eyes back to his. He smiled down into them.
“I’m not.”
“You what?” She stared deep into his eyes, convinced he really had lost his mind or someone had hit him very hard on the head.
His smile widened and he looked up at the sky. “I lost the right to being the alpha. All I did was kill an alpha and free up a spot for a new one.”
She shook her head, sure the world had suddenly taken a strange turn, and looked up at the sky, following his gaze. The moon peeked through a break in the clouds.
It had passed its apex.
It was already waning. No longer full.
Eloise dropped her gaze to him. “But I counted the days…”
His smile gained a mischievous edge. “You might have lost one… in the cave… when you were unconscious.”
Craved by an Alpha Page 14