I Am Just Alpha’s Shield to Protect Her Chapter 05

I Am Just Alpha’s Shield to Protect Her Chapter 05

I took a cab to the airport.

When the plane landed, I had seventeen missed calls. All Lucas.

I opened Snapchat. A string of voice messages.

“Where did you go? It’s pouring out there. Don’t make yourself sick.”

“I tried to log into your email but the password’s changed. Did you already confirm Moonrise Academy?”

His voice got tighter with every message.

I listened long enough to be sure.

Then I blocked him on everything, all at once.

A day later, he cut the trip short and showed up at my Wolf House.

The moment he saw me, he grabbed both my shoulders.

“Did you confirm Moonrise Academy?”

His eyes were bloodshot. His grip was too firm. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, like he desperately needed something from me.

The whole thing was kind of funny. The worst kind of funny.

“You want me to spend four more years being your cover story?” I stepped back. “Sorry. I’ve got better things to do.”

He figured it out instantly.

“You picked Boston College.” His face went gray. “The out-of-country school.”

I rolled my shoulder free and rubbed at the ache he’d left.

“Yeah.”

“You’re throwing away your future to spite me? Do you understand how far Boston is from my territory? We won’t even be able to see each other—”

“That’s exactly what I want.”

I cut off his self-pity before he could finish.

Lucas froze, as if he hadn’t expected such cruel words from me.

“Raven.” He said my name for the first time. His voice went soft. “Stop. Come home with me. Accept Moonrise right now and we still have a chance.”

My name in his mouth should’ve meant something.

It just made my skin crawl.

I took a step back, avoiding his hand.

“I’m not going to Moonrise.”

His hand froze mid-reach. Something cracked across his face, the Alpha composure giving way. The pressure in the room shifted. He looked like a fierce beast.

“All because I didn’t chase after you the day before yesterday? All because I let Seraphina win once? You’re going to throw away everything we could’ve had?”

“Everything we could’ve had.” I actually laughed, short and sharp and completely hollow. “Lucas. Your future has Seraphina in it. It doesn’t have me.”

“You really think that after everything you’ve done, there’s still a future between us?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody treats their mate the way you treated me.”

I shut the door in his face.

I packed that night and left for Boston.

Fall came fast and short that year, gold leaves covering every sidewalk, crunching under my boots.

That’s when Lucas and Seraphina found me.

I was coming back from the park when I spotted them outside my building. Lucas in an expensive coat he hadn’t bothered to button, travel-worn, dark circles so bad they looked bruised into his skin.

He’d lost weight.

I didn’t slow down or look sideways.

“Raven!”

He lurched forward and cut me off.

I stepped around him.

“I sat on a plane for sixteen hours to find you. That’s the welcome I get?”

Still feeling sorry for himself.

I swiped into the building. The door eased shut between us.

“Raven!”

His hand caught it. His voice finally lost its edge.

“About the ring. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let Seraphina—”

“Really.”

I stopped. Turned around.

“Which part are you sorry about? The ring? Or the fact that I almost died in that cabin?”

The blood left his face.

“Remember sophomore year, I came over to your Wolf House and had an anaphylactic reaction from barely touching your dog’s fur? I ended up in the ER?”

His lips moved. Nothing came out.

“You stayed with me all night. Your eyes were red when you made me a promise. You said wherever you were, there would never be a single animal hair.”

“But Lucas.” I held his gaze. “That night at the cabin, you watched that dog jump on me. You didn’t move.”

I asked the only question that still mattered.

“The allergy medication I kept on my desk, the one I always had as a backup. Did you throw it out, or did she?”