I Am Just Alpha’s Shield to Protect Her Chapter 02

I Am Just Alpha’s Shield to Protect Her Chapter 02

I stared at that text.

It was my birthday. The day we’d promised to make official, our anniversary.

I thought about the abandoned cabin. The night he’d shown up with a paper-cup cupcake, a single candle stuck in the top. The way the flame caught in his eyes.

This is our secret spot now , he’d grinned. Just us. Nobody else gets to know.

A new message came through.

Baby, come on. I’ll get down on my knees and explain everything.

That stupid little voice in my head started up again.

Maybe it was just a joke. Maybe none of it meant what it looked like.

And he’d never called me baby before. Always my full name. Miss Taylor if he wanted to be formal about it.

I sat with that word longer than I should have.

Then I made the choice I knew I was always going to make.

I went.

I stopped outside the cabin door, took a slow breath, and pushed it open.

The door was barely halfway open when something large and heavy launched itself straight at me.

“Ah—”

The force knocked me clean off my feet. My back hit the rough wooden floor hard.

It was Lucas’s golden retriever.

I have a severe allergy to animal fur. Lucas knew that better than anyone. It was actually one of the things people made fun of me for. A werewolf allergic to fur. The joke practically wrote itself.

Normally, if I was going to be somewhere, he’d have the dog put away first. He’d even lint-roll his own jacket so not a single strand could set me off.

But now the dog was on top of me, going wild, and the fur was everywhere. In my nose, my throat, coating my skin.

The tightness hit instantly. I couldn’t breathe. I sneezed so hard I couldn’t stop. My arms broke out in red welts.

The cabin exploded with laughter.

“Called it! I said the second Lucas crooked his finger, she’d show up even if he sent the dog after her!”

“Pete, you’re literally psychic right now. Seraphina, you owe me money!”

Seraphina held up her phone, her pout a flawless performance. “That’s just sad. Our Miss Taylor is way too easy.”

Lucas sat at the head of the table, flicking his lighter open and closed.

He watched me sneezing uncontrollably, pinned under his dog.

He frowned slightly.

But he didn’t call the dog off.

So this was what I’d hiked thirty minutes through the dark for. This was the explanation I’d let myself hope for.

A party trick. A prank to keep things lively.

And this had never been just our spot.

I clenched my fists and turned to leave.

Then my eyes snagged on the old wooden table.

One of the legs was slightly uneven. Something had been wedged underneath it. A notebook I recognized immediately.

The cover was swollen and soft, soaked through with spilled beer. Cigarette ash and mud smeared across every inch of it.

Three years of my nights. Every mistake he’d ever made on a test, written in my handwriting. Every play charted out by hand. Pages of color-coded diagrams and tiny, careful notes packed into every margin.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

I lunged for it.

Seraphina let out a theatrical scream.

“Ugh, Miss Taylor, it’s literally disgusting. Why would you even want it?”

Lucas’s hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist.

“Taylor.” His voice was flat. “The SAT’s over. What do you need a notebook for?”

I twisted hard to pull free. My foot slipped.

I went down.

My palm dragged across a shard of broken beer bottle.

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. Blood welled up fast, mixing with the spilled beer.

Lucas’s eyes flickered.

He stepped forward, one instinctive half-step, hand already reaching.

“Lucas, my foot hurts…”

Seraphina’s voice drifted in from the side. Soft. Quivering.

Lucas stopped.

He pulled his hand back. Looked down at me on the floor next to the broken glass. His face went cold again.

“Seraphina just needed something to level the table. Did you have to shove her?”

He bent down and helped Seraphina to her feet, carefully dusting off her skirt.

Then he put his arm around her and walked toward the door without looking back.

“Let’s go. I’m not babysitting someone who only knows how to study.”