Alpha Ruined, page 5
She balks at his audacity.
For a ridiculous moment, she imagines him meeting her mother, his arrogance and playfulness on full display.
Carol would be absolutely thrilled that this man is giving her daughter this much attention.
Not just a man…but an Alpha.
Not a Beta. Not someone barely interested in her, that would prefer to split a dinner check or not bother to step in if someone was harassing her.
She stops that train of that immediately.
“So, why are you in Green Woods, anyway?” she asks instead. “You stick out just as much as I do.”
Cole tilts his head curiously and remains silent for a moment too long.
She thinks he’s not going to answer her question.
“I’m visiting my family,” he finally says, his voice soft. “I’ve been waiting to see them for a long time.”
His eyes are gentle and warm, and it makes him look younger.
It’s breathtaking, and she hates it.
Why can’t he just answer a question like a normal person?
“Well, then what were you doing, wandering around in the prison?”
He shrugs. “I guess I just got lost.” His familiar half smile is back, and she knows he’s not going to tell her the truth.
“That’s a lie,” she counters.
He arches an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“Of course it is.”
He shrugs. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out in time, Miss Journalist.”
She shakes her head and scoffs. “I don’t understand you.”
He just grins again, and she drains the last of her tea, careful to not touch the same place his mouth was.
She needs to get out of here. She can’t believe she agreed to dinner with him, and the longer she inhales his scent, she’s not sure what else she may be amicable to.
She slams her notebook shut and places it in her bag. “Well, I’m going to—”
“I’ll walk you out,” he says as she stands from the booth.
“You really don’t need to—”
“I insist.”
As he stands, she’s swarmed by his scent again, delicious and welcoming.
It envelops her like a warm hug, and she almost loses her footing as he walks her toward the door. He holds it open for her, like a true gentleman, and she murmurs her thanks.
Her mother would be thrilled.
It’s hard to stay frustrated at him when he looks and smells like everything she could want in an Alpha, though.
You’re leaving soon. Get a grip.
“Hey. How did you know which car was mine?” she asks, as he leads her to her car.
Her question doesn’t face him. “What was that?” The amused expression is back on his face, his full lips pulled into a slight smirk.
“My car. I didn’t tell you which car was mine.”
“Deductive reasoning. It was between a pickup truck, an old sedan with an Elmwood license plate, or your little grey hybrid.” He motions to the other cars parked around her, as if the answer was obvious. “Which one doesn’t belong here, I wonder?”
Still…
“Can you please stop trying to make me feel stupid for one second?” she huffs.
His face falls. “My apologies. I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” he says, his eyes softening. “In fact, I think you’re quite the opposite.” He reaches out and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “I find you endearing, Breana,” he says lowly, and she lets out a sigh at his touch.
Snap out of it!
He pulls his hand back and gifts her with a genuine, soft smile that makes her heart beat wildly in her chest. “I’m looking forward to our dinner tomorrow. I promise I’ll be good company.”
He’s so close that he blocks out the sun and his handsome face is all she can see.
“Drive safe,” he murmurs.
She swallows and nods.
Then he turns and heads back into the café.
She stands next to her car in a daze, wondering what the hell just happened.
His scent is faded now that the wind has shifted downward, and she can finally think with a clear head.
What the hell did she agree to?
She met him this morning, and now she’s going to let him take her to dinner?
I find you endearing, he had said.
She’s not endearing.
She’s a mess with enough issues to make even the most patient man run screaming.
“What just happened?” she mutters as she opens her car door with a shaky hand.
Stumbling into the driver’s seat, she pulls out her phone, reading the text from earlier.
It’s from Darlene.
Who is that?!
She debates how to respond.
She certainly can’t tell Darlene how she met him.
His name is Cole. He’s taking me out to dinner tomorrow.
Her phone buzzes immediately.
What?? Give me all the details right NOW.
She sends another quick text, promising to tell Darlene where she’s going once she finds out the name of the restaurant, when a thought hits her.
No one calls her Breana. Ever.
She never even told Cole her name.
The unsettling feeling from before returns.
She’s going to have to cancel her plans with him.
CHAPTER 9
COLE
She fiddles with her sleeve when she’s nervous, and it’s adorable.
Bree’s sweet, subtle scent had hit him like a freight train, and his entire world shifted on its axis to only revolve around her.
Which makes tonight that much more frustrating.
He doesn’t want to wait a day to take her on a date—and despite what she says, it is a date.
It will be the first of many they’ll have together.
And it could have been tonight, if he didn’t have this fucking errand to run.
Tracking her phone was easy—it only took a few seconds, and her location was paired to his phone immediately.
It’s a little trick he learned how to do when he was running his errands.
He’s good at stalking, circling, and catching his prey—attributes that come in handy when he’s courting his mate.
Knowing where Breana is at all times makes things much easier.
The drive to the east of Green Woods is a long stretch of freeway, barren and dusty. There are no gas stations or rest stops for miles, only endless dry fields and dirt.
The abandoned barn is about an hour away.
He can smell it as soon as he parks on the side of the road—the putrid scent of tainted Alpha pheromones.
His black boots crunch against the dirt and gravel as he steps over the rotting wood of the barn entrance.
There are no sounds under the massive hay bales, but that doesn’t mean Charles is dead yet.
Cole digs up the plastic storage container with the shovel that he left against the rotting wall, creating a mess of dirt and straw around him.
Crouching down and unlatching the lid, he’s met by a pair of wild, frightened, bloodshot eyes. Charles struggles in the storage container when he sees Cole, but it’s useless against the ropes.
“You’re still alive,” Cole murmurs, disappointed. “That’s a shame.”
Charles screams and thrashes, but the sound doesn’t carry beyond the wooden walls of the barn.
Cole stands with his arms crossed and watches in amusement as the putrid-smelling Alpha knocks over the container and lands on his back with his legs and arms in the air, squirming.
He’s hogtied, just like the pig he is.
“I could have had a date tonight,” Cole sighs, as mucus runs down Charles’ nostrils. “I could have been with her, and instead, I have to deal with you.”
The scent of blood and feces fills the air, and Cole runs out of patience.
“And what if she doesn’t like me when she finds out, Charles?” he continues, landing a swift kick to his side. He’s certain a rib cracks based on the man’s howl underneath the tape. “What if she doesn’t understand why I do this?”
Another kick. Another crack. Another scream.
“Do you remember me yet?” he asks, bending to pick the shovel up. “Do you remember the last time we spoke?”
Charles’ howls turn to whimpers and recognition flashes in his eyes.
“Ah,” Cole murmurs. “You do, finally.”
He lets Charles tire himself out, watching the man struggle until he tires himself out, panting for breath.
“I’m going to be the last person you see,” Cole muses, looming over the Charles’ prone form. “Just like you were the last person Heather Micheals saw, right? We’re both delivering death. How poetic.”
He thinks he hears Charles begging underneath the tape, but it’s useless.
“You better hope she understands why I do this,” Cole warns, before positioning the rusty head of the shovel above Charles’ throat. “You better hope she falls in love with me. Or I’ll make sure there’s no peace for you, not even in death.”
Charles’ wide eyes turn lifeless as the tool pushes through the delicate skin of his neck.
He didn’t take his time tonight.
Charles died quicker than he deserved, but Cole’s priorities have shifted.
The darkest parts of his mind used to revolve around death.
Now, they belong to Breana.
To his Omega, his mate.
Ever since he sipped her side of the teacup, making sure his mouth was where hers was, he’s been insatiable.
He barely tasted the ghost of her lips, but his cock had twitched painfully in his jeans.
Nothing, and no one, has ever made him act like this.
He finds himself speeding back to his own rented cabin, stripping himself of his dirtied clothes and washing any remnants of the crime off his skin.
Not that there’s much to take care of. He’s not sloppy; but scrubbing underneath his fingernails and washing himself at least twice is his standard practice.
Just in case.
Not that there will ever be a just in case, though.
No one will miss Charles. And even if they did, pieces of him are dissolving in barrels in the middle of nowhere.
But fuck—his date with Breana could have been tonight.
Pushing it to tomorrow gives her ample time to change her mind and try to get out of it, which he assumes she will attempt to do.
Too bad it will be useless, though.
They’re having dinner together, even if he has to tie her up and force feed her.
Fuck.
He’s never hard after he kills, but thinking of her scent and the sweet taste of her mouth on that cup…
He wraps his hand around his cock as the hot water beats down around him and pumps himself hard, gritting his teeth as he imagines his Omega’s pretty face.
It’s embarrassing how fast he comes. He grits his teeth and hisses as his cum spurts across the shower walls, and he has to hold a hand against the tiled wall to steady himself as he catches his breath.
Fuck.
He can’t wait until tomorrow to see her.
It has to be tonight.
CHAPTER 10
COLE
It’s easier than he thought it would be to sneak into her cabin, and it pisses him off.
It takes him three minutes with a basic lockpick to slip through the front door. But as he shuts it, he notices there’s a chain latch that she didn’t set.
He’s going to have to talk with her about taking better safety precautions.
Especially with Eugene being her neighbor.
The Beta has already visited her once, and for that alone he deserves to die.
But Cole has much worse planned for him, but it will have to wait until after his date with his girl.
He waited until three in the morning to visit Breanna, an hour after she shut off her bedroom light.
What keeps her up that late at night?
He knows why he stays awake and what haunts him, but what could be going through her mind to make sleep so hard to come by?
He quietly explores the front room, grabbing the knitted throw blanket off the couch to bring it to his nose. It explodes with her sweet scent and his head swims with the heady essence of mate.
Take. Fuck. Claim.
His Alpha instincts make his head spin.
Why does she make him lose control so easily? He’s usually cautious and meticulous.
He likes to think he has somewhat of a moral compass, even if it’s skewed.
There’s no reason to break into Breana’s cabin other than he wants to be closer to her.
That’s kind of fucked up, he thinks to himself, but it doesn’t stop him from heading into the kitchen and opening the fridge.
There’s nothing in it besides a water bottle and a few condiments. Nothing of sustenance.
He vows to rectify that, sooner rather than later. The barista had let it slip that his girl is a vegetarian, and he already knows what to stock her fridge with.
How ironic, he’s out slaughtering humans while his soulmate won’t even eat animals.
He pokes around the kitchen but furrows his brow as he only finds granola bars in the cupboards.
Take care of her, feed her, protect her, his Alpha instincts whisper to him as he heads up the stairs.
Her office is the first room down the hallway, her laptop still open on the desk. He stifles a laugh at the search in the web browser.
How to decline a date after you agreed to it?
He had a feeling she would try to back out of their dinner, but that’s not happening.
All the advice is ridiculous, anyway.
The bookshelves are mostly bare, except for a couple of novels. His grin grows as he reads the titles and flips through the pages.
His girl is a lover of dark romances. Noted.
Maybe winning her over won’t be as difficult as he thought it would be.
When he enters her bedroom, he’s almost bowled over by her beauty and the sweet, floral essence of her scent. The large windows grant just enough moonlight to make out her features.
She’s asleep with the covers up to her chin, with her chestnut hair fanned out around her onto the pillow. Her lips are slightly parted, and her breathing is even and deep.
She’s beautiful.
Fucking beautiful, and all his.
Even in sleep she knows she’s safe with him—she hasn’t stirred once since he’s been in the doorway drinking in her scent and image.
He could watch her for ages. Just being in the same room with her is enough to drown out the noise in the head.
There’s peace in her presence.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there, breathing her in while memorizing the cadence of her breath. He’s certain his heartbeat matches it in rhythm, though. She’s in his blood now.
Even her pulse rate belongs to him.
He eventually makes his way into the bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet. He makes note of her brand of suppressants, and debates dumping them all down the drain.
He wants her mad with desire and desperate for his knot, and it would be much easier without those pills in the way.
But he puts them back, carefully setting the bottle exactly where he found it.
He’s not that much of a monster.
He does make a note to change her brand, though. His girl doesn’t get generic anything, especially not medication.
Only the best for Breana, from now on.
He goes to the towel rack and finds her used and slightly damp towel.
She must have taken a shower before bed.
He only means to touch it, jealous of a piece of fabric that’s been on her most intimate parts, including her sweet cunt and beautiful, pert ass. His fingers run along the soft fabric until he pulls it from the rack and gathers it in his hands.
Her scent is on it, peach, lilies, and the slightest hint of bodywash, and it makes his mouth water.
He holds it to his nose and lets out a quiet groan as his cock twitches in his pants.
Moments later, the towel is in his mouth. He leans back against the bathroom wall and sucks, desperate to get any taste of her that was left behind in the fabric.
His eyes roll into the back of his head as he devours her scent, swallowing whatever moisture the towel is generous enough to give him. His knuckles turn white as he sinks his teeth into it, mimicking the mating bite he’s so desperate to give her.
Once he sucks the towel dry, he needs more. He hangs it back up the way he found it, but not before grabbing the washcloth on the counter.
His heart beats wildly in his chest as he heads back to her bedroom, studying her sleeping form as she turns onto her side, facing the desk.
He freezes, careful to remain silent until she settles again.
When her breathing evens out and she exhales in delicate huffs, he can’t help but move closer to her.
It’s a risk sitting at the desk chair just to have a better view of her face, but it’s worth it.
Her hair has fallen into her eyes, and her delicate mouth is still slightly opened.
The comforter and blankets have fallen past her navel, and she’s exposed from the waist up.
The white tank top she wears under her silk robe exposes the jut of her collarbone and the delicious, tempting sight of her mating gland.
Fuck.
His mouth waters, and he feels like a vampire—a creature of the night, desperate to sink his teeth into the beautiful woman he’s fixated on.
His darling girl, his mate, is before him, but he’s unable to do exactly what he wants to her.
He tears his eyes away from her form to pick up the notebook that’s on her desk. The moonlight gives him enough clarity to read her writings and his lip quirks.
She has an interview with the doctor that treated Erik at the prison at the end of the week.
How did she manage to make that happen? She’s a clever girl, his Omega.
