Read Online Bound to the Alpha: Part Two by Viola Rivard - Free Book Online

salacious look in his eyes, and Sarah turned away, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “I don’t know what I did to give you the wrong impression,” she said, her eyes focused on the fur she was washing. She grabbed a bar of soap. “I’m not interested.”
    He gave a good-natured laugh. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t touch my brother’s mate.”
    There were a lot of ways she could have answered that, but she decided to go with, “I’m not Cain’s mate.” Deciding that that didn’t really serve her purpose, she went on, “I’m just here to help Snow. You know, your daughter.”
    When she glanced back at him, Hale was smiling again, but his eyes were flat. In an equally dispassionate tone, he said, “You came to help my daughter, yet you spent a week holed up in a cave two hours from our den, rutting with my brother.”
    The soap slipped from her hands. She watched it begin to float downstream, frozen with mortification. Hale caught the soap, holding the dripping bar out to her.
    Swallowing her pride, she took the soap and asked, “Cain told you?”
    “He didn’t have to. I caught his scent not long after I left the den. I followed it back to the cave.” He leaned down to rinse his hands off in the water. “When I smelled you, I backed off. I’m not stupid enough to cross an alpha while he’s claiming his mate.”
    Snapping out of her embarrassment, she said, “I’m so tired of everyone assuming we’re mates. Yes, we had sex, and yes, we’re still having sex. But where I come from, people can have sex without making a life-long commitment to each other.”
    “I know what casual sex is,” he said dryly. “But that’s not what’s happening between you and my brother. If he says he’s letting you go, he’s either lying to you or he’s lying to himself.”
    Without thinking, she shot back, “Who says I want him to let me go?”
    The words had been bottled up inside of her for days, maybe longer, and it felt good to finally get them out. So good, that once she started, she couldn’t stop. “I like it here, and I think Cain likes having me here. I feel like I belong here, I feel like this is my home and”—her voice cracked—“I don’t want to go back. There’s nothing there for me. Just a bunch of cousins I don’t get along with, a job I hate, and a future I don’t want.”
    Tears rolled down her face, and she didn’t bother wiping them away. It had been a long time since she’d cried, and even longer since she’d been honest with herself.
    It would have been shortsighted of her to throw her life away and go all-in with Cain two weeks ago, but now that she had spent time with his pack and gotten a glimpse of the life she could have, there was no use pretending that she could just walk away. She couldn’t go back to Florida, back to her tiny apartment, her diner job, and her night classes and act like it was enough.
    Hale patted her head, and when she was able to blink away her tears, Sarah saw genuine affection in his eyes. “Calm down, little sister.”
    “I don’t want to go,” she said, shaking her head emphatically.
    “I believe you,” he said soothingly. “Though I think you’re crazy.”
    She sniffled. “What do I do?”
    He gently flicked her forehead. “You already know the answer. Just make sure that it’s what you want.” His expression grew serious. “If you decide you want to leave, I will take you to the nearest town, no questions asked. I don’t want you staying if you’re unhappy.”
    Sarah nodded, but didn’t need to give his words much consideration. The past month had been amazing, and while she wasn’t sure if it would last, she remembered what her life had been like before Cain: empty and shallow. Even if things weren’t always easy, at least when she was with him, Sarah felt whole.
    They finished washing the furs in a companionable silence. Hale wrung them out and Sarah helped him hang them over low tree branches. The sky had brightened considerably