Hiding from the Alpha

Fall

Riley's POV 💫

After rushing hurriedly out of the mall and back to the fancy black car, we eagerly jump in. As soon as the door closes Bella instantly revs the car to life and speeds out of the busy parking lot.

"God Ri, you stink." She says with emphasis before making a small gagging sound; and she's totally right. Now that we are away from the bustling crowd, the scent that the wolf left behind on me was very prominent.

"I know. Someone, or a group of someone's, were watching us. One of them in particular got a little touchy in the store so I thought we should probably bail." I inform her, looking in the side mirrors to insure that we aren't being followed.

She sits in silence as she considers the new information, letting it all sink in. I figured it would be a bad idea to go out in public without a disguise, but I didn't think one trip would do too much harm. Not to mention, if anyone really wanted to find me they know exactly where to look. With all of his stunts on the news and his very public approach to finding me, he has really painted a big target on his back. The whole reason I went into hiding was to stop any of this from happening again and he just decided to single-handedly reveal my identity and put his entire pack in danger.

We stay in silence for the rest of the ride back to the pack house. The whole time I contemplate all of the terrible things that come from this and what horrible tragedies could occur from my identity being revealed. But as we pulled into the garage of the massive house again, I shake off the thoughts and focus on helping Bella carry the new bags of clothing to my current room.

After taking three trips up and down the stairs to carry the bags, Bella leaves me alone to put all of my clothes away in the dresser and closet in the room. I get to work immediately, folding clothes and shoving them in drawers or hanging them up in the closet. I'm down to my last big bag of clothing when there is a soft knock at the door.

"Come in." I call out, assuming that the visitor is just Bella.

The door creaks open and his strong and sweet smelling scent immediately hits my nose, causing me to unconsciously sigh in content. After catching my mistake, I start hoping that he didn't catch it too.

I turn around to face him me our eyes lock immediately. He is leaning against the door frame effortlessly, with his arms crossed lazily over his chest, causing his muscles to flex in the most attractive of ways. His hair looks messy in a way that only he can pull off, and his eyes look tired after a long day of Alpha duties.

We stand in silence for what feels like an eternity, but is probably only a few seconds, before I decide to break it. "Hey." I say curtly with a small smile before breaking eye contact with him and returning to folding my clothing.

"Hi." His deep voice sounds so smooth and effortless. "How was your trip?"

There's a slight tension building in the air as we both dance around our actual problems and try to pretend like we can have a normal conversation, when in reality, we can't.

"It was uh.." I contemplate telling him about the people following us in the mall but I have a slight feeling that he already knows. "Good."

"That's nice." He says in a very curt tone, obvious that he's holding something back and it won't take long until he finally lets it out. "So what is that scent?" Knew it.

"What scent?" I play dumb for a moment in hopes that he will just drop it and leave me alone. Every second that he's near me I just want to jump on him and never let him go and it's extremely frustrating.

I can practically hear the eye roll. "There's another wolfs scent on you and it's been like that since you came back from shopping." I'm surprised he waited this long to ask me about it considering he's a control freak. "Please don't lie to me. Just tell me what happened and I'll drop it." He says sincerely. It's moments like this where I think he may actually be a nice guy, and if it weren't for the fact that I know of his brutal and vicious actions in the past, then maybe I would have fallen for him by now.

I decide to just cut to the chase and tell him. I don't want to spend anymore time with him being close to me than I need to or else I will drive myself mad.

"Some people were following us at the mall. In one of the stores one of them got really close to me and was touching me. We left immediately after that." I answer, putting it into the most simple way I possibly could.

"Touching you?" He says menacingly, his teeth gritting together. "Touching you how?"

I immediately realize how that could be misinterpreted and I turn around swiftly and walk over to him, seeing his eyes pitch black and his jaw clenched tightly. I rest both of my hands lightly on his forearms that are still crossed over his chest and unconsciously rub circles on his arms with my thumbs. I see his eyes go back to their natural color and his jaw relax a bit.

"Not like that. Nothing like that at all. He put his hands on my shoulders and his face by my neck and that's all. I promise." I say with a reassuring smile that naturally appeared in this situation.

I soon realize that being this close to him has me craving to get closer. His scent envelopes my senses, making him look even more attractive than he already does. The sparking contact between my hands and his arms is slowly draining my resolve of wanting to stay away from him. I need move away or else I'll end up giving in to him in a second.

I use what's left of my nearly nonexistent will power to drop my hands from his arms. I turn to walk away, exhaling slowly as motivation to keep walking away. I suddenly feel the sparks envelope my right hand, pulling me to a halt in his grip. I suck in a sharp breath to hold back from doing or saying anything I would regret.

We stay frozen like that for a while. His hand grasping mine hopefully, my head still turned away from him to hide the shame in my eyes for wanting to be without him. When suddenly he breaks the silence with a single word.

"When?" He whispers. His voice is neutral but I can sense the emotion behind it.

"When, what?" I reply, turning my head slowly to catch his gaze again.

"When are you going to stop running away from me?" He asks, his voice full of anticipation and dread. I can feel the emotion in his words and I can feel the sting of pain that goes along with them. I suddenly want to collapse into his arms and cry to release all of the sorrow and pure heartbreak that his sentence caused me.

I stay silent for a while, turning my eyes to the floor again as I try to process my answer. I give his hand a soft squeeze before letting it go and watching it fall down to hit his side limply. I take in a shaky breath, tears starting to gloss my eyes but I just hope he won't notice. I look up at him as I walk closer. The hope and joy that starts to build up in his eyes twists the dagger in my heart. I grab the door knob and lean on it for support for a second before giving him the most convincing smile I can muster at the moment.

"Goodnight, Alpha." I say as the only reply that wouldn't completely destroy me.

Everything dropped as he backed out of the door way while I slowly pushed it closed. I saw his eyes thick with untold emotion before it was suddenly gone and his expression turned emotionless and neutral.

After that, I had to close the door quickly because less than a second later I was on the floor, leaning against the door for support, and sobbing uncontrollably. I knew he could hear it, but I couldn't control myself as all my emotions came spewing out at once.

I didn't sleep all night. I laid awake on the floor sobbing until I had no more tears to fall.