Chapter 47 Chapter 47
Elijah
For a long time, I simply stood there, letting the woman who had just made me feel things I didn't even want to name out aloud drive away like she couldn't wait to be away from me.
And I let her.
Because, she was not some casual hookup. Everytime I kissed her, her eyes shone not with just lust. But something more.
Something I wasn't sure I deserved.
That word was too big for me.
Besides, we were warriors trained to bleed and fight in the battlefields. And my sole purpose was to take to heights greater than any pack had ever done it. Especially, the most prominent one.
That was the promise I had made to myself years back.
So, I repeatedly told myself that what I did was for the best. I let her assume the worst of me.
Because I was a monster like they said.
Then why did my steps feel heavy when I walked back towards my office? And why the hell did I keep seeing that innocent face staring back at me wherever I looked.
the first thing I did upon reaching my lifeless home was make myself a strong coffee. Pitch black.
And drank not one but three cups of it.
It was too early to start drinking anyway. Besides, I had piles and piles of work waiting for me.
I should have been able to focus.
That was the irritating part because nothing on my desk was trivial. Border tensions were escalating. Supply routes needed rerouting. Two packs were circling each other like idiots who mistook pride for strategy. Any one of those things normally would have commanded my full attention.
Instead, I was staring at the same paragraph for the third time, seeing nothing but her face layered over the words.
Violet.
Specifically, the moment she froze outside the meeting room.
I hadn’t needed to turn around to know she was there. The shift in the air had been enough. Wolves sensed disruption instinctively, and hers had been sharp and sudden like glass cracking under pressure.
I remembered how she stood there, shoulders squared, chin lifted in that way people did when they refused to give pain the satisfaction of visibility. How her eyes had searched the room, not for me, but for meaning. For context. For proof that she had misunderstood.
She hadn’t.
The disbelief had been the first thing to hit her. I’d seen it plainly when I finally looked, how her brows drew together slightly, lips parting as if she wanted to ask a question she already knew the answer to. Then came the tremor.
Small. Almost imperceptible. The kind most people missed.
I hadn’t.
I saw her fingers curl into her sleeves, knuckles whitening. Saw her swallow hard, like she was forcing something sharp back down her throat.
Tyler’s voice echoed again in my memory, careless and convinced, and the words landed on her like blows she hadn’t braced for.
I should have shut it down.
The fact that I hadn’t, that I’d let it continue long enough to wound her, sat heavy in my chest now, an unfamiliar pressure I didn’t appreciate.
Truth was that I’d been too stunned to see her look at me like that. With hope that went crumbling down when I didn’t open my mouth to silence these idiots immediately.
At first, I thought it was for the best, to let her assume that I was the villain. But I wasn’t prepared to be bothered by what she thought of me.
“Alpha.”
Tyler’s voice dragged me back, faintly irritated.
I looked up. “Yes?”
“The trade figures from the southern route,” he said. “You asked for a comparison.”
I nodded once. “Later.”
He exchanged a glance with Gavin, both of them clearly noting my distraction. I didn’t bother masking it beyond that. They were smart enough not to comment.
The truth was, Violet had been lodged in my thoughts ever since I’d seen her that day at the restaurant. And then every time she was in front of me, my eyes refused to look elsewhere as if I was a hormonal teenager.
I always had good control over myself. And I hated that I couldn’t get a grip over myself around her. Hated that I had kissed her the second she dropped that bastard’s name.
I’d rather die than see her with him again. Or anyone for that matter.
Because when she glared at me and asked me what was the first thing that came in my mind when I thought of her, I showed her instead.
Of how I wanted nothing more than to hear her moan for me and I had not even fucked her properly, not yet.
I never got possessive over someone. Certainly not a girl who offered a marriage in exchange for alliance like I was just a trade, nothing else.
Tyler cleared his throat. “El?”
I blinked and looked at him. He was mid-sentence. I hadn’t heard a word.
“Repeat it.”
He did. Patiently. Too patiently. Gavin watched me from across the table, sharp eyes taking inventory of what I wasn’t saying.
I nodded, gave a response that sounded convincing enough, and waved them on.
The meeting continued without me.
My mind had already slippedMy mind had already slipped back to the hospital, to the sunlit parking lot, to the way Violet had moved like she couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
I hadn’t gone there intending to stop her. That was the excuse I’d fed myself. I’d told myself I was checking on her if she found the hospital directions without getting lost, ensuring there wouldn’t be another incident.
That was just another lie.
She hadn’t looked surprised to see me. Just… closed. Like she’d folded something fragile away before I could reach it.
When I asked her to stop, she hadn’t even turned fully toward me at first. Her voice had been controlled, clipped, deliberately distant. Every word chosen to keep me exactly where I stood.
Five minutes, I’d asked.
She’d given me nothing.
What I hadn’t told her, what I hadn’t allowed myself to say was that every instinct in me had screamed to step closer. To reach out. To cup her face, steady her shaking, pull her into my chest where the world couldn’t touch her.
I had wanted to tell her that they were wrong.
That I was wrong to even think of pushing her away.
Instead, I’d watched her open the car door like it was a shield.
So I baited her, taunted her, savoring the time I got to spend with her even if she slapped me. Because I didn’t see an enraged, murderous woman.
No, my stupid brain saw a feisty little kitten that needed to be tamed, to be loved.
When she called me just Cassie’s brother, something in me had fractured quietly. Not loudly enough to draw attention. Just enough to hurt.
That dismissal had been deliberate. Surgical.
She’d meant it to create distance, and damn her, I reacted to it like a man afraid of losing his prized possession.