Trapped With the Alpha (Balfour Shifters Book 1) (19 page)

Her smirk slips, but she still goes on. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t last week, but it wasn’t that long ago when he was sinking into me at The Den. In fact, I’m pretty sure he screwed about twenty girls that night, and I didn’t see you anywhere around.”

Instantly, the scene from The Den plays through my mind. Brody with woman after woman, trying to prove he was everything Knox claimed him to be. Grabbing her by the hair, I push her. “Do not say another word about my man.”

“Let me go,” she shouts as she scratches at my hand.

A tremble rushes through my body as I release her hair. Never before in my life have I lashed out at someone physically, and I doubt I will ever do it again. Still, she deserved it. “Just leave.”

Grabbing my hand, Elise comes to stand beside me before saying, “Just ignore her, Izzy. She’s nothing but easy pussy to the guys.”

Macy lets out a squeak of distress while smoothing out her hair. “Brody seems to like my pussy.”

Turning back to her, I all but spit in her face, “You need to back down now. When Brody hears about this, you are gonna wish your cheap ass never entered this store.”

At the mention of Brody’s anger, the girl starts second-guessing her actions and begins to retreat. Turning to look over her shoulder, she seems unable to resist throwing one more hit at me before leaving. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Izzy. Make sure to tell Brody I said hi and that I look forward to meeting up with him again.”

“What the hell?” I snap, pulling against Elise’s grip on my hand to go after the bitch. “Let me go.”

“You’ve said what you needed to. Now, you need to let it go,” says Blair, blocking my path to Macy.

“Damn right, she isn’t. Come on, Izzy. We have shopping to do still. Just ignore her skank ass. She’s full of shit and she knows it.” Grabbing a hold of my hand again, Elise pulls me back to the racks we were at before we were interrupted.

“What the hell just happened?” I ask, replaying the confrontation in my head. “How could he sleep with someone that foul and nasty?”

“Just forget her,” Blair says as she pulls another pair of jeans from the rack. “She isn’t worth your time.”

Wiping away a traitorous tear that has slipped from my face, I look at them both before shaking my head. “I can’t do this. It was hard enough watching it all those years. I don’t need to be coming face to face with all his whores. I can’t be forced to defend my position in Brody’s life.”

Rushing toward me and wrapping me up in a hug, Blair holds me as I fight the urge to release the sob trying to escape. “Ignore them, Isabel. You know they meant nothing to him. You’re his entire life. His mate. You’re the only one he cares about, and you are definitely the only one he has in his bed every night. Don’t let her rile you up. That’s exactly what she was hoping for.”

“Blair’s right,” Elise adds as she comes to join in our hug. “We’ve known Brody a long time, and he has never, ever looked at even one of those girls the way he looks at you. You’re it for him. He doesn’t want anyone else but you. The two of you have enough against you right now, so don’t let bitches like her get in the mix, too.”

Pulling back, I wipe away the tears leaking from my eyes. “I just don’t know how to get over this, you guys. It’s like anger and jealousy are turning me into a raving bitch. I’m either screaming at Brody or crying. I can’t seem to control my emotions. My brain knows he didn’t cheat on me, at least not on purpose, but I swear my heart doesn’t.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Blair says, giving me a quick hug. 

“I’m finally free. For the first time in nearly a thousand years, I get to be with my mate. Why the hell can’t I be happy?”

“I think this is all part of the witch’s spell,” Elise whispers as she runs a comforting hand down my arm. “Your aura is a cloudy gray. It’s clouded with rage and jealousy, and it’s so thick I can nearly taste it. Instead of fading, I swear it’s getting darker every day.”

My eyes cut to her, and I ask, “Are you sure?”

She shakes her head. “No, because I didn’t know you before you were cursed, but I feel as if I’ve grown to know you very well. A person as nice as you shouldn’t have a gray aura.”

Looking between the both of them, I sadly shake my head back and forth in frustration and hurt. “It may just be me. Think about it. How would you guys like it if it was one of your mates that you were forced to watch fuck hundreds of other women? What the hell would you do to get over it? Please, tell me if you have a solution, because right now, I would be willing to try just about anything to get this pain to stop.”

Elise looks at me with eyes full of sympathy, unable to answer my questions, and settles for trying to sooth me by rubbing my back gently. Blair, however, isn’t as subtle, as I hear her mumble something about cutting someone’s dick off and getting revenge.

With a sniffle, I turn to Blair and ask, “What did you just say?”

“Umm, nothing,” she mutters, refusing to make eye contact with me. “Just that if it were me, I would get revenge. I don’t think I would be able to get over it, either.”

“But how would you do that?” I ask, making it clear that I don’t quite understand what she is trying to say.

“Blair, stop it,” Elise snaps. “Don’t listen to her, Izzy. Blair has a nasty little habit of playing dirty, and you don’t need to hear any more about the tricks she has up her sleeve.”

Looking between the two of them, I bite my tongue as I think of how to get them both to understand where I am coming from. “Listen, you guys, I just need to do something. This sinking feeling is going to kill me if I can’t get control of it. When I tell you I’m desperate, I mean it. I can’t continue with this whole act that everything’s perfect, because it is far from it. When I disappeared, I left my heart with Brody. Sure, it was splintered and had some cracks in it, but it was still whole. After eight-hundred years of watching him betray me, whether it was unknowingly or not, my heart is shattered. It doesn’t feel fixable anymore. This isn’t something I can just put a Band-Aid on and get over. Believe me, I have tried.”

With a sigh, Elise looks between Blair and me before saying, “Give her some tips, but let me make it perfectly clear that I do not agree with this. These things take time. We don’t expect you to get over it all overnight. I get where you’re coming from, though. I would be frantic, too, if I were you.”

With a devilish gleam in her eye, Blair links her arm through mine as she leads me to the side of the store that carries all the eveningwear and dresses. “Brody’s taking you to The Den tonight, to officially introduce you to the pack, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” I reply, wondering what that has to do with anything.

“Good,” she mumbles as she looks through the dresses. 

After only a couple minutes of browsing, she pulls a couple of dresses off the racks that I can tell will leave little to the imagination. Handing the scraps of fabric to me, she gives me a sly wink before saying, “I’ll tell you what to do, honey. You don’t just get mad, you get even.”

“Get even? What does that mean exactly?” I ask as my eyes zero in on the fabric in my hand.

She smiles, leading me to the dressing room. “Oh, don’t you worry about anything. I’ve got your back. Let’s go try these on, and then the plotting can begin.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Elise shaking her head at the two of us before I hear her mutter, “Shit, this is going to be bad, so bad.”

Brody

“COME ON
, Pixie,” I shout in frustration from the bottom of the stairs. “We were supposed to meet Knox twenty minutes ago, so let’s go.”

Silence is my only answer as I stand there waiting. She never took this long to get ready before. I could stop at her cottage, and she was outside ready to go to the meadow in minutes. Now, she spends an hour up there, covering all her beauty with that make-up, even when I tell her repeatedly that she doesn’t need it. My girl is naturally stunning, and that just masks her natural beauty in my opinion. But hell, what do I know? “Izzy, hurry up.”

“I’m coming,” she answers, as the sound of her footsteps reaching my ears. 

Suddenly, she is at the top of the stairs, and my wolf is howling to escape. Her golden hair is hanging loose, falling in waves nearly to her ass. She has on a bright blue dress that hugs her body and ends at mid-thigh, giving me a perfect view of her legs. There’s a deep V in the front that a string of rhinestones is just barely holding together, which draws your eyes straight to her cleavage and tells me she’s not wearing anything under it. On her feet, she’s wearing silver heels that have to make her five inches taller. Even from here, I can see an ankle bracelet sporting a cub hanging from its chain.

As she gets closer, I notice she’s accented her beautiful blue eyes with smoky gray. Even though I don’t usually like her to wear that, I have to admit it looks good. On her ears, she has a pair of silver cub earrings that match her ankle bracelet perfectly. The entire package has my cock aching. My claws come out, reminding me that every other man who sees her will feel the same way, too.

Attempting a smile to hide my jealousy, I say, “You look good, baby, but I wouldn’t mind if you covered up a bit more. I always loved the way you dressed, leaving my imagination to picture the gorgeous body underneath.”

“I spent nearly four-hundred dollars on this dress. I’m not changing it,” she states, walking past me to grab her purse from coffee table.

Turning to stare at her in shock as she walks right past me, I notice that the back of her dress has the same exact deep v that the front does. It dips so damn low, I’m surprised I can’t see her ass hanging out the top of it. 

Suppressing a growl, I storm over to where she stands trying her damnedest to brush me off. “Every man and wolf at The Den is going to want to fuck you as soon as you walk in,” I growl out, no longer attempting to restrain myself. I cannot believe she’s trying to push me on this. As my mate, she knows how protective I am. Hell, she is just as damn protective of me, so she knows exactly where I stand.

“Well, you’ve already screwed every woman there, so it almost makes us even.” She looks at me, anger flaring in her eyes. “It’s not the same thing, but it’s probably as close as I’ll get.”

“What did you say?” I snarl as my eyes flutter to light blue. “Are you trying to piss me off or just prove some kind of point that I don’t understand?”

“I guess it’s your turn. I’ve been pissed for more years than I can count,” she says while shrugging her shoulders and trying to walk by me.

Without a thought, I grab the purse from her arm, ripping it off and throwing it across the room. “When are you going to understand that I didn’t remember you? It wasn’t my choice, so how can it be my fault? My God, Isabel, how long is this going to go on for?”

“When are you going to understand that I can’t just blink my eyes and forget all the shit I’ve seen? It isn’t my fault that you slept with all those women, either.” She’s shouting now, throwing a hand in the air. “Believe me. I’d do anything to forget everything I saw and was forced to watch.”

Releasing a sigh, I try to take a second to calm down. As much as it kills me, I get where she’s coming from. If it were me, I would probably be looking for some payback as well. “I really am sorry, sorrier than you could ever know. I wish I knew how to fix this, Iz, but I just don’t know what else to do,” I insist, pulling her into my arms.

“Maybe one of these days I can say I forgive you and mean it, but today isn’t that day.” She stares past me with blank eyes.

I can hear her pain, and it guts me. What the hell can I do? How do I fix this? Leaning down, I place a soft kiss on her lips. “I love you, Izzy. You can doubt me all you want, but never doubt that.”

“I don’t doubt your love for me.” She says, looking down at her feet.  “You live with a beast inside you every day, but so do I.  Instead of a wolf, mine is anger and there’s nothing I can do to stop it from growing.”

“Oh, baby.” I mumble, reaching out to run my hand down her arm.  

She pulls back as if my touch burns her, and turns, making me feel like she is purposely avoiding making eye contact. “We’ve got to go. Knox is waiting for us.”

The fact that she didn’t say it back to me does not go unnoticed. “I said I love you.”

“I heard you. Now, we need to get to The Den,” she replies, looking anywhere but at me.

“We’re not going anywhere until I prove to you who you belong to,” I bellowed, feeling my beast’s need for dominance. 

“We don’t have time for this game, Brody,” she complains, still angry as hell. 

Ignoring her, I turn her body toward mine and cup her face in my hands. “Oh, I assure you, sweets, this is anything but a damn game. We will always have the time for me to make your place by my side known to both you and everyone else around us.”

She starts to say something, but I stop her by placing my lips on hers. Brushing my lips against hers, I snake out my tongue and taste her while threading my fingers through her blonde hair to stop her from attempting to pull away. As always, her flavor brings forth a moan from deep inside me. “I’ll never get tired of your taste. You are everything to me, Isabel, and I won’t stop proving it to you. One way or another, I will get that through your thick skull.”