Craved by an Alpha (7 page)

“Didn’t have problems like that back in London.” He smiled but she saw straight through it.

The tiger had shaken him.

She wouldn’t mention it. She would pretend she hadn’t seen it. He was being strong and so was she, because all she really wanted to do was hold him and reassure herself that he was fine.

He was safe.

His smile faltered, turned strained, and he muttered to himself as he crossed the short span of earth to his backpack and clothes.

He grabbed his t-shirt from inside his fleece and she stared at his chest, at the scars that slashed across them. The sight of them transported her back five years again, to that night when she had felt she had been on the verge of dying. Seeing him fight Stellan that night had almost killed her.

“What’s wrong?” Cavanaugh lowered the t-shirt to his side and approached her, every inch of him tensed and alert, and concern warming his grey eyes. “Is it the tiger?”

She shook her head and let the words tumble from her lips. “I was so frightened when you fought.”

Without thinking, she stroked her fingers across his chest, following the marks that marred his pale skin. They had been so deep at the time, a wound that had forced him to shift back into his human form. They had bled badly, crimson pumping from the three slashes, spilling down his bare stomach and painting the snow. Her hand shook against him, hot tears rising even though she tried to hold them back.

The air thickened and he breathed hard, his intense gaze heating her inside, making her burn at a thousand degrees and ache to lift her eyes to his. She wanted to see that hunger in his eyes again, the heat that she had seen in them before.

The desire.

“Eloise,” he husked, his voice scraping over gravel, stoking her need for him to a startling level, one that had her on the verge of surrendering to it.

Gods, she wanted to surrender to it.

She couldn’t put herself through that much pain again though.

She pulled herself together, snatched her hand back and lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck this shit.” He shoved away from her, swiped his clothes from on top of his backpack and bundled them up in his arms as he strode away from her.

Eloise could only stare at him as he threw his clothes down on the ground around twenty metres from her, on the other side of the camp. He shoved his wet trunks down his legs, leaving him completely bare, and then tugged his dark grey trousers on. Anger laced his scent, born of frustration rather than the adrenaline rush of facing the tiger. He was angry with her. He seemed to be taking it out on his clothes too. She was surprised his boots didn’t split apart at the seams as he pulled them open with force before shoving his feet into them.

She didn’t understand him.

Since the day he had become the pride alpha ten years ago, he hadn’t looked at her once, and he had been gone for five years. He had walked out of her life without as much as a backwards glance. He had made it clear that she had meant nothing to him and what had happened between them had been little more than hormones at play, a need he hadn’t been able to deny.

But since she had walked into the nightclub, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and the way he kept acting around her was taking her back beyond those ten years, to a point when they had been closer.

To a time when they had been together.

When the world hadn’t been a dark place, because he had filled it with light.

He paused and looked across the narrow stretch of land that divided them, his grey eyes dark with the hunger she had wanted to see in them again for what felt like forever, the heat that she feared because it awakened something within her too.

Hunger that consumed her.

It was still a three day trek to the village if the weather stayed as it was.

Gods help her but she wasn’t sure she would make it.

She was sure.

She wouldn’t make it.

She was a moth drawn to his flame and it was only a matter of time before he set her on fire and had her burning so hot that it reduced her control to ashes.

Cavanaugh followed Eloise through the thinning trees, his senses stretching around him, every scent and sight making him want to shift and explore in his snow leopard form. They had left camp at first light, after what had been one hell of an uncomfortable night for him.

Sharing the small tent with Eloise had been torture.

She had been right there beside him, shielded by a damned orange all-weather sleeping bag, but within his reach. He had breathed her in all night, and hadn’t been able to sleep, and not only because of her presence just inches from him and the constant replays of when she had touched his chest that had filled his mind, making him ache for her.

He had been on high alert all night, his ears twitching with every noise outside the tent, no matter how harmless it had been. The snow leopard within him, the primal part of him, had demanded he stay awake and watch over Eloise, ready to protect her from any predators who might stray too close to his sleeping mate.

He had watched her slumber fitfully, wondering what haunted her dreams and whether it had anything to do with the scars on her wrists.

After mulling over everything that she had told him about Stellan and the pride over their dinner of protein bars, and analysing her behaviour where her wrists were concerned and how she didn’t want him to see them, he had come to a dreadful conclusion.

She had been tied up more than once by the male he had left in charge of his kin.

She had gained the scars in her home village, not while she had been travelling and looking for him. He would kill Stellan for that cruel act alone. No one laid a hand on his Eloise without paying for it with their life.

Despite her bad dreams, she seemed brighter today. The colour was back on her cheeks and the dark circles beneath her eyes had finally disappeared, leaving her looking as beautiful as he had remembered.

As beautiful as the photograph of her that he cherished.

The cool mist of morning formed tiny crystal beads of water on her dark hair, causing the strands of her twisted knot at the back of her head to become spikes. It clung to the shoulders of her stone fleece too. The drops clinging to her transported him back to the countless times they had trekked out from the village through the snow in their leopard forms and how the white powder would cling to her beautiful silver coat. She had always stopped in the snow to shake it off, ending up with even more on her rather than less.

The last time that it had happened was as clear as day to him, a memory that would stay with him forever.

He had approached her and had licked the snow from her coat, and she had turned towards him and rubbed her cheek across his, the action tender and one that had touched him deeply. She had marked him with her scent, and had marked herself with his at the same time.

“Cavanaugh?” Her voice yanked him back to the forest and he stared through the trees at her for a second before realising that he had stopped walking and she was much further ahead of him, standing at the top of a steep dirt incline.

He shook his head and strode through the trees, stepping over the thick roots that littered the forest floor, and avoiding crushing the huge insects and small mammals under his boots. He wrapped his hands around the straps of his heavy backpack and adjusted it before scaling the incline, using the trees to navigate a path up to her, bracing his boots against their bases.

When he reached her, she was still frowning at him, her honey-coloured eyes warmed by concern.

“I didn’t sleep much.” It was the only explanation he was going to offer her. If she pushed, he might lie and say it was solely because he had wanted to protect her.

In reality, it was partly because he had been as hard as a steel pole in his trunks all night, aroused by the thought that she slept in only a flimsy top and shorts beneath her thick sleeping bag and the memories of her hands on his chest and the fire that had burned in her eyes.

Need he had felt in her and had commanded him to satisfy his mate.

She walked on ahead of him again, her hips swaying in her beige trousers, drawing his gaze down to her backside.

Cavanaugh scrubbed a hand over his mouth and groaned under his breath. He wasn’t sure he could last another night sleeping close to her. He had never slept with her before, not even in such an innocent fashion, with them tucked into separate sleeping bags. If he couldn’t find a spot to sleep in where he could have more distance between them, he was liable to leap on her and act on his desire. He wasn’t sure that was a good idea, even though his body and his mind were screaming that it was.

It had been ten years since he had touched a woman, and since one had touched him. Ten years since he had been with Eloise. She had him fired up and constantly on edge around her, driven mad by his need of her. He had to rein it in though and somehow retain control, for both of their sakes.

He dragged his gaze away from her, forcing himself to take in the forest as he walked. They were moving away from the river, taking a shortcut to a point where they could cross it. From there, it was a steep and tricky trek up the side of the mountain. He checked his watch. It wasn’t even noon. They were making good time. If they kept on like this, they might reach the top of the vertical ascent that lay ahead of them by nightfall.

Cavanaugh slowed down, not wanting that to happen. He had planned to stop at the base of the sheer climb up the side of one of the mountains—the only path to the village. Eloise wouldn’t settle for that now. They would reach it by early afternoon. At best, he could convince her to stop halfway up the climb, where there was a cave his kin used as a shelter. It was large enough to provide them protection from any weather the mountain might throw at them, and for him to sleep a good distance from her.

Eloise looked back at him again, a frown marring her pretty face. Gods, she was beautiful, even when she was scowling at him and looked ready to box his ears for being slow. A touch of colour rose onto her cheeks and she hastily looked away, but not before he noticed the way her eyes had darkened.

Not with anger.

But with desire.

He groaned and picked up his pace, a slave to his need to be closer to her. She flicked another glance back at him as he neared her, a touch of nerves in her eyes now. She was breathtaking, flushed with life and vibrant, more like the woman he remembered her to be than the one she had become.

What had happened to her?

She had changed the day after the celebration of his ascension to the role of pride alpha, always avoiding him.

Had what they shared meant so little to her?

He hadn’t been sure back then, part of him convinced that it had meant something but the rest of him arguing against it, but he had wanted to know. He still wanted to know. He had watched her whenever she had thought he wasn’t looking, studying her for as long as he could without rousing suspicion, and he had sworn there had been hurt in her eyes at times.

He had convinced himself that he had only seen what he had wanted to see, because he had been hurting.

But things were different now.

She was different.

And it led him to believe that what they had shared had been real and they had both been hurt by his ascension.

They both felt something for the other.

Was it too late to make her see that?

A few days ago, he might have answered that question with a yes and resolved to make her change her mind. Since the events of yesterday, his mind and his heart said no. It wasn’t too late for them.

He had been petrified when he had been swimming, on the verge of trying again to convince her to come into the water, and he had spotted the tiger stalking her. She had been completely unaware of it, her eyes locked on him and a hint of desire rolling off her.

His heart had stopped beating and had then exploded in his chest, the rush of it driving him into action. Everything primal within him, every instinct and sense, every feeling he owned, had demanded he protect her and take down the tiger if he had to go that far.

When the beast had finally backed off, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from holding her. Then, she had touched him, telling him how scared she had been the night he had fought Stellan, making him believe that she had felt something for him and might still feel it. He had thought maybe he would get his wish.

She would be his again.

But she had pulled away.

Why?

Because of his status?

He hated it. He hated the wall it had built between them and he was determined to tear it down. He wouldn’t allow anything to stand between them. He had been patient. He had waited for five long years, filled with a need to see her, to hear her voice and smell her scent again and feel her soft curves beneath his fingers. She had walked back into his life. She had come for him. He couldn’t stop himself from reading into that and seeing it as a sign. His patience would pay off. He could heal the breach between them and win her back.

His wish would come true.

She would become his mate.

She led the way over the river and he followed her without really looking where he was going, wading through the water rather than traversing the rocks as she did, lost in his thoughts. When he reached the other bank and pulled himself up, she was looking at him again. Not with desire. This time she looked as if she was wondering whether he had lost his mind.

He hadn’t lost that part of him.

He had lost his heart though.

It had been torn from his chest ten years ago and now he was slowly piecing it back together, gluing it with the hope that he could break down her defences and win her. He wanted her to surrender to him and their attraction to each other as she had a decade ago, showing him that she felt about him as he did about her, but part of him feared that if it happened before the full moon had risen, that it would only happen because he was her alpha.

It was the same fear that had always held him back.