Chapter 9 - Alex
I don’t need you. I needed you years ago to fix what you broke, but you never came back. I learned to do it alone .
Harper’s words trailed long after she had walked away. I couldn’t stop hearing them, and I grew more frustrated each time I replayed them in my head. I had walked away but was there now, trying to make up for my past mistakes. Why wouldn’t she even allow me to make it up to her?
I don’t need you.
I don’t need you.
I don’t need you.
But what if I needed her? What if I had always needed her, even from the second I had left her bed that night? I lay there for longer than I wanted. Back in the desert, I had done this for countless nights. The stifling air, the sweat from the day clinging to my skin, the sand in every damn crevice of my body. Zephyr’s eyes were on the horizon, wide with forced wakefulness, as he aimed at any threat. Sweeney and Johnson were out scouting, and I had waited for further orders or intel to give more direction. The desert had given me too much time to think, and lying on the beach only reminded me of that.
Picking myself up, I realized I had the chance to stop tormenting myself over where Harper was staying on the island. The ocean breeze easily carried her scent to me, and I followed it. It led me right down the shoreline, towards a cluster of trees, and a cottage tucked away among it, like a scene out of a children’s storybook.
Somehow, it was fitting for her, exactly the thing I had envisioned her living in. Vines and flowers crawled up the faded white walls, and the roof hung with fairy lights over a wrap- around porch, much like my villa. Two swinging egg chairs were out front.
I don’t need you.
I don’t need you.
I don’t need you.
My head was too loud, too crammed, and I couldn’t stand that still in my human skin anymore.
Undressing hurriedly in the thick of the forest trees, I shifted into my wolf form, and found a small clearing where I had a clear view of her cottage. In this form, scents assaulted my senses, and I could hear voices coming from inside the cottage.
I couldn’t hear the second voice, but the first definitely was Harper’s. It sounded sweeter, much like the girl I had known years ago. This wasn’t the sharp tongue that had thrown her barbs at me earlier. Jealousy stirred in me, but I tried to tamper it down. The murmuring continued, and a light was on upstairs in the cottage. I growled as I kept vigil, trying to focus on the demon threats and ignore the voices inside.
If Harper had moved on, she would have been well within her right to do so. I didn’t have to like it, but so much time had passed. I had left her. I was a fool to think she wouldn’t have moved on. She had moved to Azure Cove for a new life; perhaps she had truly found it.
But…
With her quips, she would have said it to make sure I was wounded. She had thrown many verbal stabs at me tonight, hurting me the way I had hurt her. I dared to let myself hope for a second before I let my thoughts fade out comfortably, and I let out a howl, letting her know that the wolves were looking out for her.
Somewhere in the distance, two other howls answered me. Sweeney and Johnson.
Just like in the desert , I thought. After all, my team had had my back, and they had gotten me through the worst nights after I had left Harper…
Sunlight slanted in through the window of my studio apartment that the military had arranged for me to live in while undercover. Everything had been planned out to the point—except for the redhead in my bed.
Harper Thollin had never been planned. Nobody else had meant to be involved, but I couldn’t bring myself to avoid her. I had given in to that weakness. It was the only time I had messed up in my entire career. I had accepted an unreliable element of an important mission, and she peered out at me from my sheets.
A pair of tiny sleep shorts hugged her thick thighs, her legs slightly parted beneath the sheets.
“Mornin’,” I said, offering her a cup of coffee. Her hands emerged from the bundle of blankets, pulling the cup to her face to inhale the steam.
“Mmm,” she murmured. “Now get over here.”
Her eyes looked over me appreciatively, taking in every hard line of muscle the way I took in her curves. My upper body was naked, bared for her view—as always—and I wore thin boxer shorts that left little to her imagination. There was something about watching her devour me with her eyes that left me aching first thing in the morning.
I shifted onto the bed beside her. She snuggled into my side, clutching her coffee cup, while I sipped at mine. I sighed at the taste, blinking away fatigue.
“I would spend every morning waking up to you if I could,” I told her. We had been together for two months but it had felt like so much longer, a blissful state of love that I’d never let myself experience before.
My hands wandered over her legs. She parted them so I could have more access. Not to initiate intimacy but just to touch her, to feel her, to know that she had stayed even after I had told her every secret I had. Just not the one where I had to leave soon, that my undercover mission was a matter of four months.
“Really?” she asked. “Is that even allowed?”
I nodded. “We have military bases where men and their families live.”
“Have you ever thought about leaving the team altogether?” Harper asked. She set down her coffee cup and reached for my hand, threading it through mine. “Settling down, startling another life somewhere else?”
I paused. “Once, I suppose. It was about six months into my time on the team. I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t sleeping; I was honestly scared. I barely got into my human form at all back then.”
“I still haven’t quite adjusted to that,” Harper laughed. “You being a wolf and all.”
“Shifter,” I amended.
“Alpha,” she countered. I growled playfully at her and set down my coffee cup, too. I rolled us over, so I lay on top of her, pressing her into the mattress below. She was beautiful, with her emerald eyes, heavy freckles, round face and full cheeks, and stunning rosebud lips that I leaned down to capture with my own.
When I pulled back, I finally answered her question. “Yes, sometimes I think about a life where I’m not some other guy, playing a part. Where I’m just Alex. But I love my job. I love what I do. I love my guys, too.”
She thought for a moment. “Zephyr, right? Your best friend?”
“Yeah. And the others. Hec, and Fray. Sweeney and Johnson. We’ve never let each other down. We always have each other’s backs.”
“That must be nice,” she murmured. “To have that sort of support.”
I nodded. “It is. You need to get along with the men you work with in my job. Otherwise, everything kind of goes to shit. We built trust and friendship. Bonds. We might as well be a pack of our own. We’re not, but we’re close enough. But I command them as their leader, not their alpha.”
She trailed her fingertip down my left pectoral muscle, where I had a tattoo of an arrow fired through flames. I’d gotten it after six months when I thought I would need to leave my job. I wanted to prove to myself that I’d always make it out alive.
“What about you?” I asked. “What’s in Harper Thollin’s future?”
I knew it was a risky subject to bring up. Talk of the future was strictly forbidden in my work, and each day was unpredictable. The rest of my special ops team had always advised me never to settle down or leave a girl waiting behind because it only brought hell upon us both.
And yet here I was, falling in love with Harper Thollin. Her hand flattened over my chest, my heart beating against her palm. Her eyes met mine. I leaned down to softly kiss her shoulder.
“I want to leave Haystock for good,” she whispered. “That in itself feels a little like a sin. I just about convinced them to let me attend college out of town and study history, but that was only because I had to stay living at home. The commute was hell.”
I laughed. “You’re not afraid of sinning.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s true. But I am afraid of my parents’ judgment. What would happen if I left this village behind? Everything is old and traditional. Everything has rules and judgment. Everything is planned for us from the second we’re born. I hate it.”
Harper’s hand slid through mine, and I couldn’t help but kiss it.
“What do you want to do when you’re older?” I asked.
“Older?” Harper laughed. “I’m older now. I’ve graduated. I needed to have my life figured out a month ago. But… I’ve always loved the history of caves. That combination of archaeology and history. The two elements come together to tell a story of depth and adventure.”
“Yeah?” I was impressed.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “But all the good caves are out there. All the organizations and excursions… They’re not here, I can tell you that much. I need to get out of here, Alex.”
She paused for a moment, and I didn’t answer yet, letting her have her thinking space. “Can I confess something to you?” she asked me. “Just… Here, in this apartment, I feel like I can. I feel like this might be the only place I can confess this.”
“You can say anything here, with me,” I told her.
“I want to elope,” she said. “You and I. We could leave Haystock, elope, marry. You could return to duty. I’d wait for you. I’d wait forever for you, Alex. I could even go on excursions while you’re on duty, but if I couldn’t, I would wait in a home we chose. We wouldn’t have to hide.”
“You don’t know you’d be prepared to wait, Harper. You can’t say that.”
“I can,” she insisted. “I want out of this village. My parents want me to be the good, Puritan girl they raised, and follow in their footsteps. They still think I’m a virgin.”
I kissed my way down her collarbone, towards her chest. I couldn’t help laughing. “Definitely not.”
She sighed softly as I licked a long stripe up the line of her cleavage. “Absolutely not.”
“Harper, I can’t ask you to wait for me.”
She pushed me away, and sat up. I let myself be nudged back, as she climbed onto my lap, straddling me. Her shorts were thin, friction against my underwear, and I couldn’t help but pull her flush against me.
“You’re not asking,” she said. “I’m saying it. It’s my choice too, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but… I can’t subject you to a life of waiting. I go away for months on end.”
“So? Why are you pushing back against this? We could leave this place.”
“I’m leaving anyway, one day,” I told her. I just hadn’t specified how soon that day was.
“I know but… I could go with you.”
I wanted to argue against it more, but then her mouth was on mine. Her hand was already between our bodies, cupping me through my boxer shorts, and I was helpless to her touch. I let myself fall into the indulgence that was Harper.
I guided her hips over my thigh as we kissed. I imagined that life: eloping with her, building a future with her, as nonsensical as it was.
But I thought about it every day.
Every day, when she came over, tears shone in her eyes after yet another fight with her parents, and she didn’t say anything, just got to her knees and opened her mouth, silently asking for me to lead her into submission.
Every day, when I buried my face between her thighs, indulging us both for hours on end, filling the empty apartment with the sound of her pleasure that sounded more heavenly than the hymns she had to sing on Sundays.
Every day, when we celebrated her birthday on a cliff edge with a picnic and a three-tier cake I had bought for her.
Every day, when I rode her to the village outskirts on my bike and kissed her against the sign that read WELCOME TO HAYSTOCK .
And then that last night. I still thought about our future as I left her in her bed, one of the only few times I had snuck into her bedroom.
I crept out of the window, leaving Harper sprawled in the sheets, wearing one of my t-shirts, sated from sex the night before, and a smile on her face. I had barely been able to make myself walk away from her. But I had. One foot in front of the other. I had always known I would leave, hadn’t I? I had always known that getting close to anyone while undercover was a bad idea.
Forcing myself not to think about how she would react when she woke up, I started heading back to my apartment so I could pack up.
It was still dark in the early morning hours when the first blow came from behind me. My vision spotted, and I stumbled, falling to my knees. I was back up in an instant, tensing to shift, until five people emerged from the shadows, bats raised…
Harper passed her bedroom window, clad in a silk dressing gown. She paused at the window. I stood up, still in my wolf form, and looked at the cottage.
Don’t you remember the future we talked about ?
I had no right to wonder that, to want to ask. I had been the one to throw it away.
Harper looked out. Her eyes landed right on me. She must have heard the howls.
Her face fell, her hands grasping the curtains. She yanked them shut. In moments, her light turned off. I stayed out there, and vowed I would every single night, to ensure no demon ever attacked her again.