Becoming the Alpha by Ivy Sinclair Page A

untangled my hand from his and began to march down the path. “Let’s get this over with,” I said over my shoulder to him.
    A few long strides brought him to my side. “It would be a good idea for you to put that sweater on. Until I have a chance to talk to the council, we can’t let anyone see my mark.”
    “Fine,” I said. I didn’t stop moving even as I pulled on the sweater. I buttoned the top button so that the lapels wouldn’t fall open to expose the mark. Lukas biting me had been wholly unexpected, but I wasn’t going to admit that I had been more than a little turned on by it.
    “That’s it? Fine? You aren’t planning on asking me any more questions?”
    “I feel like I’m on information overload at the moment,” I said. I concentrated on not tripping over the many exposed tree roots that seemed to spring up everywhere on the path. Now I understood why Lukas had been concerned about my footwear. Natural booby-traps seemed to be hidden under the shallow cover of fallen leaves.
    “I should probably tell you a few things before we get there though.”
    “Keep quiet. Follow your lead. Do everything you tell me to do. I already got all of that,” I said. I winced at the snark in my voice. Lukas seemed to bring it out in me. I felt his hand graze my arm and gently tug on it. I finally stopped with a long sigh. “What?”
    Lukas moved closer to me. I was acutely aware of his half-nakedness. I had forgotten that his feet were bare in addition to being shirtless. He was so close that I had to crane my neck to look up at him. His fingertips skimmed my cheek. For the first time since arriving back in Greyelf, I thought that he looked uncertain.
    “This is dangerous territory we’re treading in, Maren. It wasn’t an easy decision for me to mix you up in any of it. It would kill me if anything happened to you.”
    I felt myself softening under the intensity of his gaze. “Lukas, don’t you think that you might be overreacting? I know this is serious stuff, and I’m not dumb. You don’t have to explain to me why I need to listen to you. Nothing is going to happen to me.”
    The pad of his thumb gently grazed my lower lip. “You are going to see something that your kind was never meant to see. I wouldn’t blame you if after this you never wanted anything to do with me or any member of the clan ever again.”
    I took his hand in mine. I needed to do something to stop the firestorm of confusing emotions I felt inside of me before they took hold and caused me to do something stupid. Like kiss him. Or rip off my dress and ask him to make love to me again. Lukas thought that I was there for the story of the century, but he was engaged in a full court press it seemed to get me to confess that there might be another reason. I wasn’t giving it to him though.
    “That’s the whole reason I’m here, remember? To see things that my kind was never allowed to see?”
    It was as if my words doused the moment in a bucket of ice water. Lukas pulled his hand away, and his eyes darkened. “Right. The story. You’re right. We’re going to be late. Let’s go.” He moved away from me then, and I had no choice but to follow.
    I didn’t understand why he seemed so intent on swirling up emotions that I had tried so hard to bury. If he had felt anything for me back then, he had ten years to tell me. He told me that his older brother Markus had ordered him to leave town. Markus paid for Lukas’s schooling as long as he stayed away from Greyelf and apparently from me. Markus didn’t want Lukas to ruin my reputation. It seemed everyone knew that Lukas was a player. Of course, I had known, and I’d still offered up my virginity willingly. I thought it was the ultimate sign to show him how I felt about him. I thought naively that it would be the lynchpin to get him to finally confess that he had feelings for me.
    Instead, he had disappeared from my life without a trace until a week ago. Just like that, I was angry all