Alpha Alexander

Chapter Thirty

"What in the hell were you thinking, Phoebe?" he growls. His hold on my upper arm releases as he all but throws me into his office. With this other hand, he slammed the door closed. "Her only purpose in life is to harm you, and you willingly put yourself within arm's length of her. Have you completely lost your senses?"

"She was in a cage, Alpha Alexander!" I shouted back. I moved to his desk and sat down in his big, comfy chair, mumbling, "It's not like she was gonna go anywhere anytime soon."

"She could have—"

"She couldn't have done anything in her condition. When was the last time you fed her, anyway?" I asked suspiciously.

"We are not discussing prisoner living conditions, Phoebe. That is not your concern."

"Right, 'cause I'm just an itty bitty female who needs to be coddled," I snarled with heavy sarcasm. "Even better, I'm a human female, so I should just butt out of werewolf politics, huh?"

He approached the desk silently and full of anger. His fingertips pressed into the tabletop. "Goddess, Phoebe, what has gotten in to you?"

The opportunity for a completely inappropriate joke was on the horizon, but it was quickly erased as the white hot anger boiling inside of a barely contained emotional box inside of my chest suddenly overflowed and exploded.

I stood and slammed my palms onto the desk. I heard a satisfying groan from the wood beneath my palms.

"My baby brother was kidnapped because some psychopath werewolf had a fatal crush on your sister. He could be doing God knows what to my brother, and you want to know why I'm a little pissed off? Really?"

I stepped around the desk and moved toward the door. As expected, he grabbed my wrist and refused to release me when I tried to yank myself free.

"Phoebe . . ."

My voice was flat as I said, "Let me go, Alpha. I need to hurt something, and I don't want it to be you."

He pulled me toward him. I shoved against him, trying to force his hold on me to loosen. He wrapped his other arm around my torso and locked me against his chest. He released my wrist and moved it to hold my head against his chest. I continued to fight his embrace, even though I knew it was pointless by now. The hoodie I wore had risen slightly over my hips, allowing him to slide his hand from the small of my back down to the waistband of my jeans and back up under my shirt. The skin-to-skin contact electrified my heart, sending it racing into an erratic beat. I tried to control my breathing like Sarah taught me, but his hand rubbing small circles just below my bra strap distracted me. His chin rested on top of my head and his fingers curled into my hair. I stood motionless, my arms hanging lamely at my sides.

"We will find him, Phoebe," he whispered into my hair.

"How?" I said with a broken voice.

"Trust me."

I took a shaky breath as I wrapped my small arms around his thick frame. I relaxed against him and his hold tightened. I sighed heavily, "I do."

He held me for a while, until the adrenaline drained from my body and my heartbeat calmed to the semi-normal pace that it fell into whenever Alpha Alexander and I touched. He held me until Seth softly knocked on the door and calmly asked to talk to Alpha Alexander on the training yard. With a soft kiss to my head, Alpha Alexander left the office, but not before asking me to wait for him to come back.

The door barely closed before I lunged for the desktop computer. I had used the computer once before for online shopping—which I unashamedly charged to one of the seven different credit cards Alpha Alexander had in his name. To be fair, he was sitting on the couch ten feet from me, flipping through and signing dozens of papers, and he had practically slapped my own debit card out of my hand when I whipped it out once my Sephora basket was ready to go. So, naturally, I visited a few other shopping websites that I had a wishlist basket for. He didn't like the little black dress I ordered off Forever21 or the bathing suit I ordered off Victoria Secret . . . or the lacy bralettes I ordered off American Eagle, but I assured him they would be worn under tops, not as tops.