Chapter 29 How to Convince an Alpha
How to Convince an Alpha
Lucien was off me the second after his soft, painful, heartbreaking confession. Slowly, I rolled around to my back, staring at him with wide eyes, full of disbelief.
But if I thought I heard him wrong, the moment I saw his agonized face as he sat back on his knees, looking at me as though I was the best and worst thing that ever happened to him, I knew I couldn’t deny it.
Lucien told me he loved me.
Lucien told me he loved me.
“I l-love you,” I blurted out in a stuttered whimper, tears welling in my eyes, and shook my head, sitting up when he looked at me with frustration. “I love you, too, Lucien—”
“You don’t!” he cut me off with a desperate expression that felt like a knife to the gut. “You don’t really love me, Drew! You’re my Eteria—you’re magically wired to fall for me, even if I were the worst person in the world!”
His words were true, but they hurt nonetheless.
“But you aren’t,” I begged, lifting myself to my knees before him and cupping his face in my hands so he wouldn’t be able to look away.
“You are a good person, Lucien. The best man I’ve ever known.
I love you. I really do.” My voice broke as the tears I tried to hold in burst out.
He grabbed my wrists, face twisted in unbearable pain. “How can I trust your words when you don’t trust them yourself?” he asked in a devastating whisper.
I traced his face with my shaky fingers, unable to answer. Because he was right. I couldn’t trust my own emotions. That was the logical way to think.
But in truth, the way I felt when he was looking at me like he did now, when he claimed me with his cock, when he touched me, and still did, as if I were precious and fragile . . .
He’d protected me from Chase when he was still heavily wounded.
He treated me with respect and affection like no one ever did before.
When he smiled at me, I felt like I was ten feet tall.
When he laughed at my jokes, I wanted to see him laugh all the time.
I hurt when he hurt. Both physically and emotionally.
I cried when he cried.
He comforted me when I didn’t even realize I needed comfort.
He looked at me as if I mattered. As if I was important. As if he needed me.
And I needed him too. I needed him so much that it took my breath away.
How could all these emotions be the result of some magical manipulation, when they felt so fucking real?
“I love you,” I said, feeling like a broken record, and pressed my lips against his. “I love you, Lucien. I love you.”
His hands were around my neck as he kissed me, and I could feel the pain in him when he murmured against my lips, “Who are you trying to convince?”
I pushed at his chest, angry at him but even more at myself for being unable to refute his words. “What about you, then?” I snapped, wiping my tears as I glared at him. “Do you actually love me? Do you think I believe it?”
He growled, glowering back, as he pushed me down to the mattress, his naked body pressed against me, his arousal still hard, hot, and thick near my wet entrance.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I first saw you,” he almost snarled, eyes holding mine.
“Your kindness, warmth, beauty . . . I couldn’t help but be drawn to you from the start. ”
I shook my head, even as my body betrayed me, my legs widening up on their own to accommodate his heavy, gorgeous body between them. “You’re lying.”
“You must be clueless, then,” he hissed, eyes clouding with lust as he rested his cock along my slit, making me gasp as arousal rose within me again.
“You have no idea how extraordinary you are, Drew. How beautiful of a person you are, both inside and out. You are everything I have ever wanted. Everything I’ve ever needed. ”
I cried out as his lips pressed a kiss to mine. “I love you so much, and knowing that your emotions aren’t your own . . .” He leaned back, his gaze filled with sadness. “It’s fucking killing me, Drew.”
My heart was racing at his words. My entire body ached for him even more now. “Lucien,” I pleaded with him, rubbing against him and making him groan in agony. “Turn me into a werewolf, then. Blaise said you could do it. That it would solve my being an Eteria—”
“Blaise knows shit,” he interjected with a bitter smile before he pressed his lips to my throat, his hands grabbing my thighs.
Even though we were almost fighting, we couldn’t stop touching each other.
Wanting each other. Longing for one another.
“You have no idea what it means to become a werewolf.”
“I don’t care,” I whispered, moaning as he licked at my throat before biting into it. “If . . . if that’s what it takes—”
He leaned back to look at me, his cock probing at my entrance and making me gasp.
His face was both grim and full of need.
“Do you want to suffer every full moon, Drew?” he asked, his brilliant blue eyes catching my own brown ones.
“Do you want to have the unavoidable risk of being afflicted with Wildlight? Do you want to be forced to live under a different set of rules than the ones you grew up with?”
Tears fell down my face as I grabbed his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin. “Lucien,” I whimpered, knowing his words were important. That his worries were valid.
I’d seen the effect of Wildlight, after all.
But did it all matter when the man before me was everything I’d ever wanted too?
He lowered his face so he could lean his forehead against mine.
“It would be selfish of me to ask you to forsake your humanity and transform into a werewolf for me, just to prove your love. Not just selfish; it would be absolutely inhuman. I will never ask that of anyone. Least of all the woman I love.”
And that right there solidified my decision.
Because up until now, I’d thought Lucien didn’t have any sort of feelings for me.
I thought my feelings were unrequited. If I’d known I had the option to transform into a werewolf before he told me he loved me, I would’ve thought it an absurd, far-fetched idea.
But he loved me. The fact he refused to put me at risk, even if it meant never knowing how I truly felt, was enough for me to believe it. His touch, his words, his warmth . . . It all told me everything I needed to know.
And so I pushed at his chest, catching him off guard, and flipped us over so I could straddle him as he lay down, staring at me with eyes wide in shock. But I was determined now. I refused to cry and beg him to believe me.
Because I knew what I wanted to do.
“For the last eight years I’ve been both lonely and alone, Lucien,” I told him, putting my hands on his chest. “Alone in my convictions, and lonely in my life. I had no one to call my own. I’m estranged from my parents, and up until a few days ago, I hadn’t spoken to Thayer.
My precious sisters are long gone too. I have no remaining friends, not after Chase proved to be nothing more than a spy. I have no one. Or so I thought.
“It might not have been so long since we first met, Lucien, but you flipped my world upside down,” I confessed, my determination overriding my fear of showing him my vulnerability.
“You don’t make me feel lonely. You make me feel like I matter.
Before I even realized it, I couldn’t see how I would ever be able to go back to my life from before meeting you.
My life would be miserable without you in it.
“You are my everything, Lucien,” I said softly, “and I want to show you I’m your everything too.”
His expression broke. “Drew . . .”
“Transform me into a werewolf,” I said—commanded, really—as I lifted myself up to place my entrance over the tip of his hard cock. “That way, you’ll give me everything I’ve ever wanted: a home. You.”
Before he could respond, I plunged myself down, burying him deep inside me, and moaned at the feeling of him filling me up to the brim.
Lucien groaned, his hands on my hips, his scorching touch sending electric shocks to my heart and my pussy.
So I started moving, riding him hard, fast, and deep while he held on to me, disarmed and undone, shame, guilt, defeat, and relief, too, written all over his face.
And I knew I had finally gotten through to him.
Because my stubborn Alpha flipped us again so I was on my back and drove in and out of me with both power and tenderness, kissing me with affection and love, passion and desire, and pure, unadulterated need, until we both saw stars.
Lucien and I looked like we had just had sex. Which we had.
And Blaise, Teya, Callista, Ren, and Oz noticed.
After the last round of sex, Lucien and I had no time to discuss anything else because we heard people entering the cabin. At first, Lucien and I were tempted to ignore them, preparing to go another round, when there was a knock on the door, and Blaise’s voice called, “I’ve got the portals!”
Now, after hastily putting on clothes without even brushing our hair, Lucien and I sat at the round dining table with the Betas, looking like we’d just rolled out of bed and smelling like sex.
Blaise and Teya didn’t hide their knowing smiles, while Oz seemed disgusted. Ren and Callista seemed slightly uncomfortable.
While I shifted awkwardly in my seat, Lucien didn’t seem troubled as he spread out on his chair, his arm resting on the back of mine and his fingers twirling my messy, knotted hair. “Tell me about the portals,” he now instructed Blaise in a drawling voice that made me clench my thighs together.
Stop it, I admonished my stupid libido.
Clearing his throat, Blaise grew serious as he pulled out five flasks filled with liquid I recognized very well.
The muted, grayish-brownish color of the shadow mark.
“One of my contacts in the Underearth came through,” Blaise said, drawing my gaze back to him.
He was looking at Lucien. “We received a formal invitation from the Syndarch.”
Lucien froze, his fingers leaving my hair, and he straightened in his chair. “Tell me everything.”
Blaise nodded and complied. “According to my contact, the Syndicate became aware of Mack Page’s death soon after you”—he glanced briefly at Oz, whose face was dark—“dealt with him.”
“It’s fine, Frenchy,” Oz hissed. Apparently, his vocal cords were healed. “You can say that he killed him.”
Lucien ignored him and nodded for Blaise to continue, and he did. “The Fae whom Mack contracted was indeed from the Syndicate’s Covert Umbral Neutralization Taskforce. The Syndicate, however, claims that the Fae operated on their own, without the Syndicate’s knowledge.”
“Of course they claim that,” Lucien murmured, grimacing. “What about the Fae that attacked me in Drew’s apartment?”
“My contact confirmed it was the same one who almost killed you,” Blaise said with a heavy sigh. “They said the Fae hasn’t returned to the Underearth since after they tried to kill you that first time, which, according to my contact, was because they were tracking down Mack to receive the payment.”
Lucien’s lips thinned. “Did they get the payment, then?”
Blaise shook his head. “My contact wasn’t clear on why, exactly, but the Fae was delayed, and by the time they found Mack, he was already dead. That’s when they realized you must be alive.”
Something about this didn’t add up. “Why didn’t the Fae make sure Lucien was dead to begin with?” I asked, frowning, and flushed a little when everyone turned to look at me. “Lucien was still alive, albeit barely, when I found him.”
“That’s a good point,” Blaise murmured, “but from my association with the Fae through my various contacts, I’ve come to know they are a very conceited, arrogant bunch. Most likely, the Fae believed they finished the job without finishing the job.”
“But that’s too sloppy,” Teya chimed in, folding her arms. “Umbral Fae aren’t sloppy.”
Blaise shrugged. “Either way, that’s all I know.”
“So the invitation?” Lucien prompted, voice contemplative. I knew he was still thinking about what we’d just discussed too.
“The Syndicate wants to negotiate a deal with you as a gesture of good faith, or, in other words, for the sake of sweeping this whole thing under the rug,” Blaise replied and motioned toward the flasks full of shadow marks he’d put on the table.
“My contact gave me these portals. We are to use them in an hour, Overearth time.”
“Overearth?” I repeated, surprised.
Lucien smiled a little when he replied, “That’s what the Fae call our time, since time runs differently in the Underearth.”
“One hour in the Underearth is about a day in our world,” Blaise supplied. “That’s because the Underearth is considered by the rules of space and time as a different dimension.”
Before I could ask questions about that intriguing piece of information, Lucien rose to his feet. “In that case, we need to get ready,” he said, and turned to look at his Betas. “Blaise, Oz, and Teya—you’re coming with me to the Underearth.”
Everyone nodded, even Oz, despite his permanent look of distaste.
“Since it can take a few days, Overearth time,” he continued, turning to look at Callista, “I appoint you as temporary Alpha until we return. If anyone has a problem with that, you have my permission to punish them accordingly.”
Callista let out a sigh and nodded, while Ren raised his hand. “I’m in charge of the trainees’ field trip tomorrow. Is that still going to happen?”
With a shake of his head, Lucien said, “While all other pack activities should continue as usual, anything that requires leaving the pack territory is postponed until we return.” He grimaced. “I don’t want to take any risks until I make sure the Syndicate is no longer a threat to anyone here.”
Ren nodded, and Oz scoffed. “The trainees are gonna love that.”
Lucien’s eyes snapped to the annoying Beta. “Do you want to have your vocal cords severed again?”
Oz folded his arms and looked away, jaw tight. “No, Alpha.”
I could tell Lucien was pissed at Oz’s tone, and it made me wonder why he’d decided to take him to the Underearth. With his attitude, Oz might be more of a threat to Lucien—and this mission as a whole.
Lucien turned to me then. “Since the Syndicate has also threatened your and Thayer’s lives, you’ll come with us, too, Drew,” he said softly. “Callista will let Thayer know so he won’t worry.”
“Is he still in the Ward?” I asked quietly, turning to look at Blaise.
He nodded grimly. “I don’t think he’s planning to leave there anytime soon.”
“All right,” I said and sighed. “Then to the Underearth it is.”