Chapter 49
When she completed her hundredth lap, he finally decided to step in, noticing that she hadn’t realized she was no longer alone in the hall.
As her figure came around the stretch, lost in her own thoughts, he moved into her path. She was so distracted that she didn’t notice him until the last second, nearly crashing into him.
She noticed him too late and wanted to stop, her body reacting on instinct, but she lost her footing and pitched forward.
Before she could hit the ground, Sebastian effortlessly caught her against his chest and steadied her with firm arms. The moment he touched her, a violent burst of sparks surged through his entire body, racing through his veins and snapping tight like a live wire.
The sensation raised the hairs on the back of his neck and ignited his fierce, mate-possessive, protecting instinct, roaring awake as if it had been waiting for this exact moment of contact.
He felt her heart drumming wildly against his front, her muscles quivering beneath his grip from her run, and she was drenched in sweat from head to toe.
Being this close, too close, he could hear the music blasting from her headphones, the muffled rhythm vibrating faintly between them.
For a moment, her head dropped against his chest as if surrendering to the support, as if to rest there for a moment, but then, as if suddenly becoming aware of who he was and where she was, she jerked away sharply, taking three unsteady steps backward from him.
Sebastian’s arms suddenly felt empty without holding her, the sudden absence startling him, and he clenched his fingers slowly at his sides.
She was staring up at him with a small frown, her hairs sticking to her sweaty forehead and neck, damp strands clinging stubbornly to her skin. Her cheeks were flushed rosy from exertion, and her plump, pale pink lips were parted as she dragged in more air.
Looking at her up close, he realized how much even her face had changed. The sharpness of youth that had made him mistake her for a teen had softened; her cheeks had filled out just enough to give her features a gentle fullness. Her face had settled into a graceful oval, balanced and utterly striking, carrying a beautiful maturity that caught him off guard.
In short, she looked… alluring.
There was something undeniably different about her now, something that made his gaze linger longer than it should have, and he found himself staring without realizing it.
Viola raised her hands and took off her headphones, the sudden absence of sound making her finally notice the silence of the night around her, broken only by her own rapid, ragged breathing. When had he come here? she wondered, glancing up at his handsome face, which looked a little dull, the heavy bags under his eyes betraying someone who hadn’t slept properly for a while.
She tore her gaze away from him and took another step back.
“Supreme Alpha Kade,” she managed to greet, as expected of her, through her burning lungs, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She also hoped that her tears had mixed with her sweat so he wouldn’t notice she had been crying while running.
She didn’t appreciate that he had interrupted her training, or the moment she had allowed herself to release her emotions in private. Tears were a weakness she couldn’t afford in front of him, someone who looked down on her more than anyone else ever had.
Sebastian blinked back to his senses, the strange pull snapping abruptly, and he thrust his hands into his pants pockets to resist the urge to step closer, to brush away the strands of hair clinging to her silky, sweaty neck and forehead.
“What is the mouse doing out here when she should be in bed sleeping? It’s a surprise to see you haven’t given up, four eyes,” Sebastian remarked. A surprise indeed. When had he last seen a shewolf as determined as her? He couldn’t remember.
Viola tried not to glare at him because she wasn’t in the mood to take more of his jabs, not tonight. But she kept her voice calm as she replied,
“I am not a quitter, especially not when I know what I want and have a way of getting there. If you are here to insult and taunt me, could you please save it for when I am in a state where I can answer you? Right now, I would like to be alone, please,” she said indifferently to hide the raw emotions he had interrupted.
She had been glad that she hadn’t seen or heard his judgmental words for weeks and had almost forgotten what it felt like to be under his cold gaze. And now he just had to show up and ruin her routine with his cold, annoying face. What was he even doing here, watching her like this?
Sebastian’s lips fell into a grim thin line of displeasure. Was she asking him to go away? Ever since he had been, no woman had ever asked him to leave her presence like this before, not until now.
Mostly, women fawned over him and wanted his presence and attention. They would even kiss the floor he walked on for a single word or a glance. Yet this one was dismissing him without so much as acknowledging the weight of who he was, without even the smallest hint of pleasure at his presence here.
“You—” Sebastian began to speak, mild irritation edging his voice at the fact that the mate bond made him glad to see her in spite of himself, and that thought alone twisted something tight in his chest.
But Viola put her headphones back on, as if she were done talking to him, and began to sidestep him.
Before she could pass, Sebastian caught her arm firmly and removed the headphone with his other hand, drawing her back toward him.
“Do you have a death wish, walking away while I speak to you?” he asked with a dark expression that sent shivers down her spine, the cold authority in his voice unmistakable, but she didn’t let it faze her, or at least she didn’t show it.
Viola gave him a clueless look, trying with everything inside her to hide her wet eyes and flushed cheeks behind her glasses.
“My apologies. I was under the impression that we were done talking, sir? And might I remind you that I am a nobody who shouldn’t be seen talking to the Alpha in my current status? If I remember correctly, a nobody should change her path when she sees the Alpha coming,” she said with mock politeness. “I am doing just that,” she added, lifting her chin as she looked up into his deadly, cold silver eyes.
Her requirements to reach her goals did not involve entertaining him or enduring his taunts; her only requirement was to train and emerge a winner. Her goal was to stand beside him as his Luna and wife, and that did not require them to endure each other’s company like this. She was in a very raw state of mind, where the fear of losing gnawed relentlessly at her solace and peace, leaving her nerves exposed and frayed.
She knew losing was not an option in her goals or her mission. She couldn’t afford a single second of rest away from training. She couldn’t fail Ivy again. And she would rather break herself trying than fail terribly.
Her eyes pricked again when she realized that even this moment with him was a second stolen from her self-discipline, from fighting the trauma of being reduced to a Hollow once more, someone they could beat, break, and humiliate at will.
If she didn’t build her strength, she would never escape the possibility of falling back into that life again. And falling back into that life would mean failing her sister and becoming a helpless nobody, tortured every single day without mercy.
She was terrified, and with that terror lodged so deeply in her chest, she knew she could never know peace, not until she was strong enough to protect herself and the one she loved.
“Please let go of me,” Viola requested, looking down at his fingers curled firmly around her arm.
No matter how much she wished she could pry his hands away and push him from her breathing space, she wouldn’t forget that he was the Alpha of the pack that now housed her.
His dark, stormy face suddenly went blank at something in her expression, and his fingers loosened around her arm.
“Have you been crying?” Sebastian’s tone suddenly softened, the edge fading as something unfamiliar tugged at him when he sensed her tears.
Though he couldn’t see them clearly against her glimmering, sweat-drenched face, he knew she must have shed them earlier. Why would she cry? Did someone hurt her in his absence? He didn’t want her but that didn’t mean someone could hurt her.
A/N
Check comment section for Viola’s image.