The Alpha's Gamble - Chapter 88: Chapter 88

MADELINE
The door slammed behind me, a satisfying brain-spinning thud, and yet I turned the handle and opened it—just to slam it shut again. And again. One more time. When the noise of the door shaking the walls didn’t do, I filed the skin on my knuckles against the wood until my blood left traces in the shallow cracks.
The son of an Alpha. Daughter of the next in line.
If he had been born into a family of nobodies, low rank, Omegas who held no power or measurable strength, it would’ve made sense—that would have laid to rest the myriad of thoughts and shame I had of my father—but it wasn’t. He had Alpha blood in his veins and still couldn’t protect me in his own home. He was strong, born into the strongest pack, and still cowered in the face of a threat. A light wind could knock him off his feet. That wasn’t the spine of an Alpha—it was the spine of a kitten who needed their mommy to help them cross the road.
The door opened, and I felt his presence as he stepped into the room.
Not my father’s.
“Please don’t speak,” I said to Noah when I saw the soft frame around his eyes, and his lips quickly snapped shut. A gentle but firm nod proved he got the message, but it didn’t last long.
“Logan said those things because he’s mad at me. It had nothing to do with you.”
I scoffed and chewed on the inside of my cheek as my brow rose with the fond memories of the forest flashing before me.
“So it wasn’t because Nasha attempted to turn him into wolf chowder?”
The soft chuckle shook his chest and shoulders, and he smiled. God, that smile.
It made me melt despite the shit that he planned, executed, the pain and the lies. He rarely smiled, so when he did it was like a spell being cast over our heads, and I couldn’t look away.
A soft promise spoken in silence because I knew he didn’t smile with just anyone, and it was undeniable, this pull we had.
“Maybe a bit of that too,” a grin lifted his lips. “But no, no, he was pissed at me and it bled over onto you. I’m sorry.”
I lifted a shoulder and my chest sunk in a sigh, because honestly, whatever the fuck happened now was just a grain of sand in a desert.
The air shifted into ominous tension, and Noah’s face turned rough, and the playful, boyish joy in his eyes vanished.
“We have to discuss the Ring.”
“No, we don’t,” I said, and meant it. I turned around, but his fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I shot him a glare.
When I pulled my hand to free myself from his grip, he tightened it and pulled me in. Our bodies brushed against each other and my hand rested on his chest to keep me from bumping into him.
“I will not watch you die.”
The cold in his voice sent a shiver down my neck, but a burning promise in his rough touch pulled me back.
“Who says I’ll die?” I definitely will. “No matter the bitch she is, Nasha’s pretty strong. She took your brother well enough.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“Who’s laughing?” I asked.
I felt his blood rushing under his skin, his heart beating hard against the palm of my hand, and the worry that bled in his gaze.
It was hot, painful, glorious and somber. All of it. All of us.
I didn’t want to talk, because there wasn’t much to talk about. Noah wanted to save me, help somehow, but we had no options. Literally.
We couldn’t pull out because I signed the contract, and the consequences would be guaranteed death on my part and a full-on war on the packs.
We were stuck in a cage of limited possibilities, staring through the bars to see the last moments of life. But I think what pained him the most was what had been on my mind as well ever since Nasha woke up. This pull, gravity drawing us together for the past few weeks, the lust and desire to have him close, not just to my body but to my mind. “Maybe it meant something,” I thought.
Maybe, when Nasha woke up, Noah and I would recognize each other as mates.
But here we stood, stuck in the reality that it wasn’t so.
“I think something’s wrong with your wolf.”
My eyes hooded, and my jaw dropped.
Was this a revelation for him?
“Well, duh. She tried to kill you and throw me off a cliff.” My hand was crushed between our bodies when he glued me to his chest, and his hot breath sent shivers down the back of my neck.
“Maddie, I don’t think she’s your wolf.” For one glorious second, I allowed myself to hope that he was right. That maybe, in some weird error of fate, there was a mix-up and Nasha wasn’t in fact mine, that my wolf was out there somewhere, waiting for me.
Dreaming of me.
Praying for me.
As I did for her.
But that’s all it was: wishful thinking. A dream. A lie.
I tried to lean back to see him before I said anything, but Noah held me locked against him; his touch desperate like he was missing me even though I was right there.
“You need to stop,” I said softly. “Stop reaching for possibilities that aren’t in the realm of reality.”
I allowed myself to melt against him and reached my free hand up to his broad neck.
“I was hoping as much as you did, thinking that there had to be a reason for this, for us. But there isn’t.” Finally, Noah pulled back, and my hand dropped from his neck to his shoulder, where it rested. I wanted to touch him, feel him, be close to him...while I could.
For as much as I could, in the time I had left with him.
“You’re giving up.” His words echoed coldly.
“No, I’m being realistic.”
He grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands down.
The loss of his touch sent a cool wave of air over my skin and I instantly missed it.
“Onyx can’t feel her,” he said as a matter of fact.
“Explain to me, in your realistic way, how the wolf of an Alpha—” soon-to-be Alpha, but I didn’t say anything, “—can’t feel a pack member’s wolf. Nothing. No trace or scent, no connection whatsoever. You drank my blood, Maddie, you were connected to me already, before you had your wolf. I should feel her. Onyx should feel her.”