Chapter 17 Testing Cole
Chapter seventeen
Testing Cole
Iwalked towards Cole because there was no choice but to.
She didn’t say anything as I got closer to her, but when I tried to walk past her, she grabbed my arm to stop me.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to the bonfire tonight,” she said.
“Oh, you’re talking to me now?” I asked.
“Harriet,” she said in a warning tone.
“Colette,” I replied childishly.
Cole growled but released my arm, and I continued on and into the house, stumbling slightly.
“Are you drunk?” she asked behind me, and I heard the front door close and lock.
“No. I’m a little tipsy, but that’s all,” I answered. I wasn’t lying.
“How much have you had to drink?” she demanded.
“What’s it to you?” I challenged. Cole was sliding off her sandals.
I watched her frown as I shrugged off my jacket.
“I’m not in the mood for games, Harriet,” she warned, snatching my jacket from me and hanging it up. I kicked off my shoes. “How much have you had to drink?” she asked again.
“Two beers,” I told her.
She looked at me for a long moment as if deciding whether I was being truthful or not.
“Am I allowed to get ready for bed?” I asked sarcastically as I turned to leave.
“Stop,” Cole commanded, and I did, stalling in place until I realised what I was doing and that she didn’t give a damn about me but had fucked me like…
like that and then ignored me for days, and I wasn’t going to do what she told me to do.
She was a temporary alpha anyway; I would be gone soon and back with Ashford, so it didn’t matter what she wanted—
I would be gone soon.
I wouldn’t get to go to the party Nina had invited me to. I wouldn’t get to spend time with Darren again—
Cole pulled me back towards her.
“I told you to stop,” she said angrily.
“I don’t care what you want from me,” I told her back and tried as hard as I could to free myself from her grip.
I pulled my arm and pushed at her shoulder. She didn’t budge.
“Fucking let me go!” I shouted.
Cole pulled me so hard and fast towards her that I was balancing on my toes, pain spreading up my shoulder.
“Enough!” she growled, all alpha, and I stilled instantly.
She steadied me on my feet and loosened her grip but didn’t let me go.
“You have to tell me where you’re going,” she said after a silent pause.
“I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t have to do what you want. You’re nothing more than a temporary alpha,” I said cruelly.
Cole snarled.
And part of me wasn’t scared, wasn’t submissive. Part of me enjoyed how it was me who made her respond like that.
“You’re just borrowing me from Ashford,” I said. “I’m his,” I added.
I swear I watched Cole’s pupils explode in size.
The growl that rumbled in her chest could have shaken the foundations of the house.
The courage that I had vanished quickly as she pulled me back towards her by my aching shoulder and held my jaw with her other hand, her heat against my outside cold.
“Tell me again who you belong to, omega,” she commanded like a dare, and I shared her breath.
“Ashford, heir of Pack Blizzard,” I answered.
I don’t know why I did it or at what moment I decided it would be a good idea to play with my life. I think I was as surprised by my reply as Cole was.
Suddenly her lips crashed against mine, violently, bruisingly so. She pushed her tongue inside my mouth.
I couldn’t breathe.
I was kissing her back.
Her hands were around the back of my neck and in my hair, gripping my waist.
My back hit the wall next to the stairs, her hand protecting the back of my neck.
I held her face to mine, suffocating myself, drinking her in.
“Who do you belong to?” she growled when she broke the kiss and began to bite at my neck.
I groaned in pain or pleasure; I wasn’t sure which.
“Answer me,” she demanded.
“Ashford, heir of Pack Blizzard,” I cried out against a particularly painful bite.
Cole bit down harder in response, and somewhere within me the realisation that she might actually mark me was simultaneously terrifying and arousing.
I felt my panties dampen.
I couldn’t be marked by her only to be discarded in a few weeks. A mark was permanent. Ashford would punish me every day for the rest of my life.
“Stop,” I said and pushed against her shoulders.
“Stop,” I said, louder, more firmly. Cole was deaf to me.
“STOP!” I shouted and kicked her in desperation.
I felt the pressure against my skin stop increasing.
“Stop, please, Cole, don’t,” I begged her, hot tears stinging the back of my eyes and threatening to fall.
Slowly, she released my throat from her teeth.
When she pulled back to look at me, her golden-brown irises were swallowed by her pupils.
“Let me go, please,” I begged, my voice little more than a whisper.
She stepped back from me, creating space between us.
“Don’t… run…” she said, her voice sounding somewhere between human and wolf. I’d never experienced anything like it. It was primal. Powerful.
She released me.
I backed away from her slowly, even managing to climb the stairs backwards to keep my eyes on her, scared that if I turned my back on her she’d drag me back.
I only turned around once I had reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner. As light on my feet and as fast as I could, I sprinted to my room, locking the door hurriedly behind me.
I heard Cole pacing the corridor outside my room; it felt like all night.
It might have been my imagination. I wasn’t brave enough to check.
What was I thinking playing with her like that? What possessed me to challenge her like that?
But even as my heart raced every time I thought I heard Cole outside my door, it was even harder when I remembered how she crashed her lips to mine.
I was attracted to her when she was angry. I enjoyed having the power to make her like that. I scared myself.