Eliza trembled in my arms, fragile, broken. Her tears soaked my shirt, marking it with dark stains, and each of her sobs pierced me like a hot iron. On the outside, my body remained firm, unbreakable, the Alpha everyone expects to see: solid, imperturbable, master of calm. But inside me... inside burned an untamable fire, a sea of rage consuming me.
The scent was the first blow.
She smelled of Stephan.
Her skin, her blood, every fiber of her impregnated with that unbearable stench. He had done it on purpose, I knew it. That damn bastard knew perfectly well what his blood on her meant, what it provoked in me. Every particle of that smell was a slap, a mockery. An invisible mark screaming at me that he had been too close to what is mine.
I embraced her tighter. Not because she asked for it—though she did need it—but because I needed it more than air. If I let her go, I knew myself well enough to know that I would destroy the desk, the entire library, or worse yet... Stephan.
