Craved by an Alpha Page 5

  Seeing him like it again only made her feel worse about making him return to the pride with her and only made it hit home how much he had changed when he had become their alpha. She had never thought he would smile again as he was now, full of energy and happiness. She had never thought she would see the Cavanaugh who had been her best friend, her closest companion, and so much more than that.

  For her at least.

  She studied him, spotting all the changes that she had failed to notice, ones that were startlingly clear to her now and told her that things had been hard for Cavanaugh at the village after he had become their alpha. She could see now how much it had weighed on him and she cursed herself for being so wrapped up in her own hurt to notice his struggle. Her heart whispered that it wasn’t only his duties as alpha that had made life at the pride hard for him and she tried to ignore it, afraid to listen to it and believe that his struggle had in part been because they had been separated and couldn’t be together.

  She refused to get caught up in that fantasy.

  She refused to surrender to her pressing need to question him too, because she feared the answers he might give her.

  He bravely dipped lower in the water, kicked off and began to swim in the deepest part of the river, entrancing her as he ducked his head under the cold water and surfaced again. He slicked his silver-white hair back and rivulets ran down his sculpted cheeks and rolled along the strong line of his jaw. He still made her heart beat hard and still drew her to him even though her memories of him were tainted by everything that had come afterwards.

  The women.

  The warmth that had been building inside her stuttered and died, leaving her ice cold.

  Cavanaugh swam towards her, but his smile no longer affected her. The sight of him no longer made her want to rush into his arms and listen to his deep voice as he told her stories of the outside world. The pain of watching him from a distance for five long years crushed that need and the pain of being separated from him and everything she had endured destroyed her softer feelings.

  “Join me, Eloise,” he hollered, his smile widening. “It’s not bad once you get used to it.”

  “No.” That word came out far colder than she had intended and he frowned at her, his smile disappearing as he stopped swimming.

  She looked away from him, unable to bear seeing the hurt as it crossed his face, tearing at her. She hadn’t meant to reject him so cruelly. It had been wrong of her, and not because he was her alpha and she had been disrespectful. It had been wrong of her to hurt him when deep inside she had wanted to take him up on his offer.

  She wanted to swim with him, but she couldn’t shake the memories that were bombarding her, replays of the five years she had watched him from a distance as he had acted as their alpha.

  She couldn’t shake the flashes of the women who had been all over him, seeking his attention.

  Eloise pressed her hands to her chest as her heart hurt and tears threatened to fill her eyes. She sniffed them back, unwilling to let them fall. She had spilled enough tears in her life over everything that had happened. She was done with them now. She was stronger than the woman she had been, the one shaped by events she’d had no control over.

  The one who had been torn apart every night when Cavanaugh had gone to his house, a trail of women following him.

  It was the right of pride alphas to take their pick from among the females of status, satisfying as many partners as took their fancy. The females vied for the attention of their alpha because sharing his bed might elevate them into the role of his sole female.

  Cavanaugh had never chosen one from the many. His father had been like that too, bedding numerous females, never settling on one.

  His father had even slept with the females without status, the ones who could never be selected as his sole female.

  Her gaze sought Cavanaugh and tracked him as he swam away from her, the distance between them eating at her. How many females had he bedded in the five years he had served as their alpha?

  How many more would he sleep with after he returned to that role?

  He would return to it. He had no choice. He would become their true alpha again when he set foot in the village, and she would go back to her quiet life, away from the pride. As much as it hurt her, it was how things had to be. She wasn’t bringing him back for her sake. She was doing it for the pride.

  Eloise watched him, a deep need growing inside her again, one that she struggled to deny.

  Asking Cavanaugh for the truth about how many women he had slept with and whether he had ever cared about her would only end with her being hurt again. She wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t brave enough to lay her heart on the line like that. Her stomach rebelled at the vision of him looking her right in the eye and telling her that he had bedded the females and that she had meant nothing to him, that what had happened between them had been nothing more than satisfying a biological need for him.

  She wasn’t strong enough right now to hear that. Seeing him again, speaking to him for the first time in almost a decade, and being close to him had her muddled and off balance, liable to fall apart and make a fool of herself.

  Cavanaugh began swimming back towards her and the resolve she had mustered crumbled again. She trembled on the brink of casting aside all the rules and swimming with him. Part of her demanded she seized this moment with him, before he was taken from her again, but the rest warned that it would only make things worse. Giving herself to him again now would make seeing him with other females unbearable. The knowledge that he could again take something precious and special and treat it as if it was nothing would destroy her.

  His gaze swung her way and his expression suddenly went cold.

  “Eloise!” He shoved out of the water, spraying it everywhere and startling her.

  He rushed across the wet rocks, his footing sure as he sprinted towards her, leaping with agile grace from one boulder to the next, his muscles working hard as he closed the distance between them.

  Her eyes widened and she turned slowly, her heart thundering against her breast and cold prickles crawling over the nape of her neck.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Her eyes met the huge tiger’s ones as it stalked towards her from the edge of the forest, already close enough to pounce.

  Her breath hitched and stuck in her throat.

  Cavanaugh appeared between her and the tiger. His left hand clamped down on her waist and he pushed her behind him, shielding her with his big body.

  He roared at the tiger and silver-grey fur rippled over his powerful shoulders.

  His hand flexed against her hip, a silent warning to her, telling her not to move. She kept still, pulse racing at a dizzying pace, her blood running cold in her veins.

  Beyond him, the tiger hunkered down, preparing to attack.

  Eloise’s heart leaped up to join her breath, lodging in her throat and refusing to come down. Fear blasted through her, the thought that Cavanaugh might have to fight the wild cat turning her blood to ice and filling her with a desperate need to do something in order to protect him. She was powerless though. No match for the beast. It wouldn’t back down if she faced it. It would sense her weakness and attack.

  Only Cavanaugh was strong enough to face the animal and make it leave.

  The tiger growled, flashing long yellowing canines.

  Cavanaugh snarled back at it. She could sense his desire to shift. It ran through her too, but it would be a grave mistake to give in to it. She was bigger in her human form and appeared far more like a threat to the tiger, and so was Cavanaugh. His hand trembled against her hip, cold from the water but filling her with comforting heat. Cavanaugh was strong. A king of beasts.

  He could convince the tiger to leave them. She had to believe it, because she couldn’t bear thinking about the other path things might take.

  She couldn’t think about Cavanaugh fighting.

  It took her back five years, to a night she would never forget and one she didn
’t want to remember.

  The sound of flesh striking flesh. The scent of blood on the cold air. The anguished bellow. The snow painted crimson. It all whirled in her mind, cranking up her fear, sending her heart into overdrive as she fought for air and to escape the nightmarish vision.

  Cavanaugh’s grip on her hip increased, driving away the gruesome vision but not her fear.

  She stared up at the back of his head, fighting her need to touch him to reassure herself that he was fine and her need to do something to drive the beast away so he would remain that way.

  He breathed hard, his eyes never leaving the tiger. The beast didn’t take its eyes off Cavanaugh either. They stared at each other across the expanse of muddy rocky ground for what felt like hours to her, a silent standoff between two powerful predators. She couldn’t take it. The air was too thick for her to breathe as she waited. She couldn’t get it down into her lungs.

  The tiger snarled.

  Cavanaugh roared, the sound echoing around the forest and the mountains that rose above it.

  Her heart stopped dead when the tiger went lower and she felt sure that it would pounce and Cavanaugh would have to fight it. She grabbed his arm, on the verge of pulling him out of danger.

  The big cat turned and slinked back into the forest.

  Her heart plunged into her stomach.

  “Are you alri—”

  Cavanaugh cut her off by turning on his heel and dragging her into his arms, against his damp chest. He wrapped his arms around her, steel bands that bordered on squeezing the air she had managed to get down into her lungs back out of them again.

  She wasn’t sure what to think when he pressed his cheek to the side of her head and cupped the back of it with one hand, tunnelling his fingers into the loose waves of her dark hair. She told herself not to do it, but ended up closing her eyes, pressing her hands to his stomach and resting her cheek against his chest, listening to his heart as it pounded against her ear and thundered against her palms.

  He was shaking.

  “You okay?” he whispered, his lips brushing her forehead.

  She nodded, her voice nowhere to be found, driven away by the feel of his arms around her and how tightly he was holding her, as if he had been on the verge of losing something precious to him.

  Gods, how she wanted to believe that.

  It was all make believe though, a fantasy created by her mind as it interpreted how he had reacted and how he held her.

  Wasn’t it?

  He pulled away before she could answer that question, casually rubbing the back of his neck. Water dripped from his silver-white hair and rolled down his cheeks, cascading past bright eyes of purest silver. They caught and held her, stirring her feelings back to the surface, the intensity of them making her deeply aware of him—his strength, his power, his dark allure.

  She was as lost in him as she had been a decade ago, snared by the spell he cast by focusing with such intensity on her, making her feel as if she was the only other person in his universe.

  “Didn’t have problems like that back in London.” He smiled but she saw straight through it.

  The tiger had shaken him.

  She wouldn’t mention it. She would pretend she hadn’t seen it. He was being strong and so was she, because all she really wanted to do was hold him and reassure herself that he was fine.

  He was safe.

  His smile faltered, turned strained, and he muttered to himself as he crossed the short span of earth to his backpack and clothes.

  He grabbed his t-shirt from inside his fleece and she stared at his chest, at the scars that slashed across them. The sight of them transported her back five years again, to that night when she had felt she had been on the verge of dying. Seeing him fight Stellan that night had almost killed her.

  “What’s wrong?” Cavanaugh lowered the t-shirt to his side and approached her, every inch of him tensed and alert, and concern warming his grey eyes. “Is it the tiger?”

  She shook her head and let the words tumble from her lips. “I was so frightened when you fought.”

  Without thinking, she stroked her fingers across his chest, following the marks that marred his pale skin. They had been so deep at the time, a wound that had forced him to shift back into his human form. They had bled badly, crimson pumping from the three slashes, spilling down his bare stomach and painting the snow. Her hand shook against him, hot tears rising even though she tried to hold them back.

  The air thickened and he breathed hard, his intense gaze heating her inside, making her burn at a thousand degrees and ache to lift her eyes to his. She wanted to see that hunger in his eyes again, the heat that she had seen in them before.

  The desire.

  “Eloise,” he husked, his voice scraping over gravel, stoking her need for him to a startling level, one that had her on the verge of surrendering to it.

  Gods, she wanted to surrender to it.

  She couldn’t put herself through that much pain again though.

  She pulled herself together, snatched her hand back and lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck this shit.” He shoved away from her, swiped his clothes from on top of his backpack and bundled them up in his arms as he strode away from her.

  Eloise could only stare at him as he threw his clothes down on the ground around twenty metres from her, on the other side of the camp. He shoved his wet trunks down his legs, leaving him completely bare, and then tugged his dark grey trousers on. Anger laced his scent, born of frustration rather than the adrenaline rush of facing the tiger. He was angry with her. He seemed to be taking it out on his clothes too. She was surprised his boots didn’t split apart at the seams as he pulled them open with force before shoving his feet into them.

  She didn’t understand him.

  Since the day he had become the pride alpha ten years ago, he hadn’t looked at her once, and he had been gone for five years. He had walked out of her life without as much as a backwards glance. He had made it clear that she had meant nothing to him and what had happened between them had been little more than hormones at play, a need he hadn’t been able to deny.

  But since she had walked into the nightclub, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and the way he kept acting around her was taking her back beyond those ten years, to a point when they had been closer.

  To a time when they had been together.

  When the world hadn’t been a dark place, because he had filled it with light.

  He paused and looked across the narrow stretch of land that divided them, his grey eyes dark with the hunger she had wanted to see in them again for what felt like forever, the heat that she feared because it awakened something within her too.

  Hunger that consumed her.

  It was still a three day trek to the village if the weather stayed as it was.

  Gods help her but she wasn’t sure she would make it.

  She was sure.

  She wouldn’t make it.

  She was a moth drawn to his flame and it was only a matter of time before he set her on fire and had her burning so hot that it reduced her control to ashes.

  Chapter 6

  Cavanaugh followed Eloise through the thinning trees, his senses stretching around him, every scent and sight making him want to shift and explore in his snow leopard form. They had left camp at first light, after what had been one hell of an uncomfortable night for him.

  Sharing the small tent with Eloise had been torture.

  She had been right there beside him, shielded by a damned orange all-weather sleeping bag, but within his reach. He had breathed her in all night, and hadn’t been able to sleep, and not only because of her presence just inches from him and the constant replays of when she had touched his chest that had filled his mind, making him ache for her.

  He had been on high alert all night, his ears twitching with every noise outside the tent, no matter how harmless it had been. The snow leopard within him, the primal part of him, had demanded he stay awake
and watch over Eloise, ready to protect her from any predators who might stray too close to his sleeping mate.

  He had watched her slumber fitfully, wondering what haunted her dreams and whether it had anything to do with the scars on her wrists.

  After mulling over everything that she had told him about Stellan and the pride over their dinner of protein bars, and analysing her behaviour where her wrists were concerned and how she didn’t want him to see them, he had come to a dreadful conclusion.

  She had been tied up more than once by the male he had left in charge of his kin.

  She had gained the scars in her home village, not while she had been travelling and looking for him. He would kill Stellan for that cruel act alone. No one laid a hand on his Eloise without paying for it with their life.

  Despite her bad dreams, she seemed brighter today. The colour was back on her cheeks and the dark circles beneath her eyes had finally disappeared, leaving her looking as beautiful as he had remembered.

  As beautiful as the photograph of her that he cherished.

  The cool mist of morning formed tiny crystal beads of water on her dark hair, causing the strands of her twisted knot at the back of her head to become spikes. It clung to the shoulders of her stone fleece too. The drops clinging to her transported him back to the countless times they had trekked out from the village through the snow in their leopard forms and how the white powder would cling to her beautiful silver coat. She had always stopped in the snow to shake it off, ending up with even more on her rather than less.

  The last time that it had happened was as clear as day to him, a memory that would stay with him forever.

  He had approached her and had licked the snow from her coat, and she had turned towards him and rubbed her cheek across his, the action tender and one that had touched him deeply. She had marked him with her scent, and had marked herself with his at the same time.

  “Cavanaugh?” Her voice yanked him back to the forest and he stared through the trees at her for a second before realising that he had stopped walking and she was much further ahead of him, standing at the top of a steep dirt incline.