Bride of the Alpha(36)

“I’m sorry that I didn’t try harder to help you back then,” Prudence said.

“You always took me in, you always gave me food and shelter,” I said. “And you know what, I never really tried to make a home anywhere either. I think I just didn’t want to ask anyone else to take me in and risk being abandoned again, so I let myself float around from house to house.”

“You know that you can come back here any time,” she said. “We’d love to see you.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “I will come to visit you.”

I needed to talk to Max, I realized. I needed to work this out. If he was really saying that he wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, I should at least give this some more time – if he still wanted me, that is.

As I walked, I heard rustling in the bushes, and then, to my shock, Corwin popped out.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. “How did you even get here without being detected?”

“I used an herb spray that disguises my scent,” he said.

“You need to leave before someone sees you here. Max has had it with you, Corwin, there’s a good chance he’d kill you for being here.”

“I’m not leaving before I show you these.” He held out a sheaf of pictures to me.

My heart nearly stopped. It was Maxwell and a slim, pretty blonde, who might or might not have been Camille. In the picture, it looked a lot like Camille, although I couldn’t see her face. He had his arms around her, and her face was buried in his shoulder.





Chapter Thirteen


I struggled for breath, holding the pictures in my trembling hands. I’d suspected this all along, but now that I was looking at the proof, I couldn’t believe it. How could he have done this to me? How could I have been so completely wrong about him? What kind of cruel game had he been playing, begging me to stay and making me think he really wanted me?

Corwin looked around furtively. “I can get you out of here,” he said.

“Where’s Bess?” I choked out.

“She’s waiting for us in my car. Outside the compound, a few miles down the road.” He pulled a spray bottle from his pocket. “This has the herb essence that will disguise your scent. We’ll spray it on you, and then you can shift and we can run for it.”

I sprayed myself from head to toe.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Corwin kept talking as I sprayed.

“He’s been doing this chick all along,” he said. “I saw them together in the woods outside of town. Having sex. That was the picture that I put on the windshield, by the way. I saw him pull the picture off the windshield and hide it. I am really, really sorry, Josephine, but he’s no good for you. You deserve a man who worships the ground you walk on.”

I flipped through the pictures, numb with shock. In the other pictures, I could see the woman’s face. The woman looked a lot like Camille. It wasn’t her, but it looked so much like her that they absolutely had to be related. The same little heart shaped mouth, the same arch to her eyebrows.

What did this mean? Maxwell had agreed to an arranged marriage with Camille. He did that while having an affair with one of her relatives? Did he do that so that he could keep seeing this girl, so he could invite all her family to come around and then sneak off and bang this chick?

But if that was the case, why not just marry this girl? Maybe she was already married, or…I flipped through the pictures. None of them showed Max having sex with her, they were just standing there talking. She looked agitated about something. The fact that he was now married to me, perhaps?

“Where’s the picture of them having sex?” I asked, feeling queasy. Did I really want to see that? Yes, I needed to know.

“I told you, I put it on the windshield of Max’s truck and then he ripped it up. We need to go,” Corwin insisted.

I glanced at the picture of her with her face buried in her shoulder, and I pictured them having sex in the woods. Max, with another woman, moaning her name as he climaxed. I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring down my face. I felt like Max had literally ripped my heart out of my chest, leaving an enormous, aching hole.

“Yes, we do,” I said, and I quickly stripped my clothes off and stuffed them in to my purse. Then I dropped the pictures on the ground and shifted.

We turned and ran into the woods. We ran for miles. Normally running through the woods is a joyous time for me; I love the feeling of the wind rushing through my fur, and the millions of glorious scents, and the song of every living creature. This time, everything went by me in a meaningless blur. We left the Timber Valley pack’s property, and began running by the side of the road.