Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron)

Chapter 328

"Axel, no!" I cry out as he starts dragging me from the kitchen. "Please, I wasn't going to run, I promise."

Axel scoffs and tightens his hold on me.

"Like I haven't heard that before. How many times have you told me you wouldn't shift and run, only to do exactly that a few hours later?"

"Please, let me go," I beg, and I can't even find any shame that I'm pleading desperately with him.

Not with the nightmare lingering in my mind, making it hard for my thoughts and emotions to differentiate reality from dream.

I don't care if I'm reduced to begging.

I don't care if he thinks I'm pathetic.

The only thing I care about right now is getting away from him and not getting locked in my room when I'm feeling so raw and vulnerable.

But Axel barely pays any attention to me.

Instead, he drags me upstairs.

However, when we get there, I'm momentarily confused, because he doesn't take me into my room. He takes me across the hall into the bedroom Aaron gave him to use when he became my glorified babysitter.

Axel slams the door and then goes over to the dresser, tugging me along.

"What's going on? What are you doing?" I demand, my voice tight with anger.

He doesn't answer as he digs through a drawer of weapons and other things I can't even identify.

Eventually he pulls something out and turns to me.

"No!" I scream furiously, doubling my efforts to escape him as I see the pair of silver handcuffs he's holding.

My wolf starts pushing up, trying to force the shift to protect me.

The first few years I was captive of the old Roberts Alpha, he kept me in silver handcuffs, keeping my wrists continuously raw, blistered and painful.

"Don't you dare shift, Emily," Axel tells me in a hard voice. "Control your wolf. Or I get the silver chains."

I desperately suck in some shallow breaths, resisting the shift with every scrap of control I have, and only because being completely chained down in silver would be worse than any nightmare. "Good," he says after a long minute. "These aren't silver, they won't burn you. But they are steel reinforced tungsten cuffs, which makes them harder to break. They're designed to hold vampires." My heart plummets into my feet and for a wild second, I think he somehow knows after all.

"So don't even bother thinking your wolf strength alone can snap free of them," he continues while I push the panic aside and try not to pass out from hyperventilating while rage seethes through me like a living creature of its own.

Before I can protest, he slaps the cuff onto one wrist and then tugs me into motion again.

I don't manage to figure out his intentions before we reach the bed.

He practically picks me up and tosses me onto the mattress, before reaching over to click the other end of the cuffs to the bedframe.

"Are you serious?" I demand, not sure whether I'm simply infuriated or indignant.

Axel doesn't answer.

Instead, he steps back and strips his shirt off over his head.

Despite how angry I am right now, despite how I think I might hate him in this moment, my mouth goes dry at the sight of his bare chest and that endless expanse of muscles.

He then strips out of his pants until he's wearing nothing but his boxer briefs.

While I'm fighting with myself over the fact that I can lust after someone I loathe, Axel goes and turns off the light, plunging the room into darkness.

I listen as he pads back across the space and then climbs onto the mattress, the blankets rustling as he gets comfortable.

"What the hell?" I shout angrily.

"I need to sleep, Emily, and so do you," he replies, his low voice in the darkness making me shiver, despite myself.

"You think I'm going to sleep like this?"

"Truthfully, I don't care if you sleep or not. But if you keep me awake, then consider the handcuffs your new permanent accessory."

With that, I hear him roll over-presumably away from me-and it hurts more than it has any right to.

"I hate you," I whisper into the darkness.

I think he's gone still, like maybe he's not even breathing, and for a second, I regret the words, because I don't want to hurt him on purpose, I just hate what he's doing to me, and all the confusing things he's making me feel.

I wait to see if he's going to say anything, but he stays silent and the darkness stretches between us.

I've got no way of telling how much time is passing.

For a while I sit with my arms wrapped around my knees, but as the night marches toward the small hours of the morning, I'm getting more and more sleepy, despite the fact that I don't want to sleep.

I don't want to sleep like this-handcuffed-even if the cuffs aren't silver, it reminds me too much of the early days of my captivity.

I definitely don't want to sleep in Axel's bed, surrounded by his scent on the sheets and blankets.

That's sure to cause even more confusing dreams.

However, eventually I give in and lay down, drifting off soon after.

I feel like I've barely been asleep an hour when the morning sun cutting across my face wakes me up.

Except I don't want to wake up. I'm tired, and I want to fall straight back into the depths of the soothing slumber I was having.

I'm warm and comfortable, and there's a strong pair of arms wrapped securely around me.

I don't think I've ever felt so comfortable and safe, and I never want this feeling to end.