King of My Heart

TWELVE

I still haven't gathered the strength to stand up from where Daxton dropped me. I sit there, still in shock, wondering what might have happened if Liam hadn't arrived in time. The thought of that invokes feelings inside me that I never thought I would experience, feelings I never wanted to experience; fear, helplessness, weakness. It's a situation I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. The dark thoughts of what he might have done had he succeeded in abducting me bring more tears to my eyes and I continue to sit there, sobbing.

I see Liam walking over slowly in my peripheral vision.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asks gently as he stops to stand next to me. I look up towards him, tears blurring my vision.

"Oh my God," I yell as I raise my hand to cover my eyes. My voice comes out hoarse.

"Oh, sorry about that. I don't have anything to wear," he says. I could swear I almost heard a chuckle but he stifled it.

I get up without saying anything and walk towards my car, wiping the tears off my face and trying to calm myself down. Daxton is gone and I am safe now, I tell myself. I grab a piece of black cloth I keep in there for dusting off the windshield and return to him with it, hands still over my eyes. It's new so it's clean. He takes it and wraps it around his waist.

"You can look now," he says smirking. Great, he's the one with no clothes on and I'm the one who's embarrassed.

I remove my hands from my face. I look down towards his leg and it's almost healed, fresh pink skin covering the wound. Well that was quick.

"Thanks," I mumble in a low voice. He may not be that great as a mate but he did save my life.

He nods in response.

"I don't know what he wanted from me," I wonder after he doesn't say anything. I've seen Daxton around and his reputation precedes him, not in a good way obviously, but what could I have done to anger him?

"I've never had a single interaction with him so why would he decide to kidnap me out of nowhere?" I continue thinking out loud.

"Because of me," Liam says, answering my thoughts.

"What do you have to do with me?" I question.

He gives me a look and raises his right eyebrow as if saying 'seriously?'

"Oh," I say as realisation hits me, "But how does he know I'm your mate?"

"He probably heard us in the parking lot. I saw him at the cafeteria across." Curse the werewolf superhuman hearing abilities.

"So what does he want from you?"

"His pack is not on very good terms with ours, at the moment. Him and his father have been trying to start a war with us. They haven't attacked yet, probably because they know their pack isn't as big or as strong as ours but I have a feeling they will, soon. They would do anything to hurt us and kidnapping my mate sounds like a good plan."

Yeah, as if my kidnapping would actually make any difference to him. Or his pack.

"That, or he knows my father would do anything to avoid a war. And since I can't be Alpha without a mate, getting rid of that part of the equation solves their problem." He explains.

"Why can't you be Alpha?" I ask.

"Traditions," he shrugs.

"So that's why you so desperately wanted me to go with you. So you can be Alpha?" I ask, feeling a bit hurt. I mean wanting me to go with him because he liked me was one thing but this is just harsh.

"I guess.." He replies.

"Asshole," I mumble under my breath but I think he hears it.

"Look, I get that you don't want to come with me but you don't have a choice anymore," he says sounding annoyed. "Daxton will be back for you. Now that his pack knows you're my mate, they're not going to leave you alone."

"Well, I could just reject you," I say, trailing off. I see a look of hurt flash across his eyes when I say that but that's quickly replaced by anger.

"Doesn't matter. Daxton won't know that and even if you tell him, he definitely won't believe you." He says without any emotion in his voice.

"Okay," I say, "I'll fight him off then."

"Like you were doing just now?" He says taunting me.

"No, next time I'll use a knife."

He laughs at that. "You think you can fight Daxton Price with a knife?"

"Fine, I'll use a gun."

"He's a werewolf. You can't kill him with a gun. Unless you have some silver bullets lying around," he says rolling his eyes. I can see that he is getting impatient now.

Unfortunately, Liam is right. If Daxton comes back for me again, I have no way of making sure he doesn't get to me. I shudder at the thought.

"Look, you might think that you can fight him but you can't. Next time, he might not even come alone. And I know you probably think very low of me but I would still prefer that you stay safe. And the best way to do that is for you to come with me."

"But I don't even like you," I whine, the words spilling out of my mouth without thinking.

"You don't have to like me. You just have to stay with the pack until this situation is handled," he says with a straight face.

"What if that takes too long? What will I tell my mom?"

He rolls his eyes at me. "What are you, twelve?"

Great excuse April. Real mature.

I know I have no choice. If Daxton finds me, he definitely won't hesitate to hurt me, or worse, someone I care about, who might fall victim to his ruthlessness simply because they got caught in the crosshairs.

"Ugh, fine," I agree reluctantly.