Craved by an Alpha Read Free Page A

females of status within the pride approached him, even when he had yearned for her to stay.
    He had ached for her to look at him and smile, and let him know that she was okay.
    He hadn’t wanted the attention from the females. He had wanted hers. He had wanted them, as they should have been, together.
    He had craved her.
    Still craved her.
    “Why are you here?” he whispered, still aching for her to look at him and smile, and let him know that she was okay.
    He ached to hear her voice again and hear her tell him that she had come for him. He needed her to put him out of his misery. He needed her to tell him that nothing had changed between them despite everything that had happened and that there was a chance for him. He needed it as he had never needed anything before, as if it was as vital as air in his lungs or a beat in his chest. She had power over him as no other did. Not even the male who had come close to defeating him could contend with her.
    She had the power to crush him, to kill him.
    And she did it with only a handful of words.
    “Please come back to the pride.”
    Those words struck his already aching heart like daggers, each one sending pain blazing outwards from the centre of his chest.
    She hadn’t come for him because she had wanted to be with him. He had been a fool to allow his heart to convince him that she’d had the courage he had lacked and had come to wait out the days with him until they could be together again.
    She was here on pride business.
    “You came all this way to ask me that?” He frowned at her, his tone flat and as empty as he felt inside as everything sank in. Nothing had changed. Five years of hell followed by five years of torture, and they still had a wall between them, a barrier that seemed impenetrable. He wanted to tear it down, but it was intangible, constructed of tradition and rules that went back millennia, laws that were so ingrained in them that they couldn’t break free and were slaves to them. “I left the pride, Eloise. I have no interest in returning to it. I have no reason to go back there. The pride doesn’t need me. It has an alpha.”
    “The pride needs you.” She lifted her head a fraction and he thought she might look him in the eye and put a little fire behind her words, but she remained meek and polite.
    The way a female of her status should speak to her alpha.
    He growled and stalked towards her, and she backed away, turning more submissive as she wrapped her arms around herself.
    “The pride doesn’t need me.” He stopped short of saying that she did though, and he needed her. He reached out to seize her arm but she flinched away, stopping him in his tracks. He softened and looked at her, seeing a broken and hurt female, not the strong and confident one she had been a decade ago. Fury filled him, burning fiercely in his veins, flooding him with a need to know what had happened to her. That need blazed in his heart, demanding that he ask her and make her answer him this time. “What the hell happened to you, Eloise? Who did this to you?”
    She swallowed hard and finally looked up at him, right into his eyes, but still refused to tell him. “The pride needs you. You’re the strongest male and our alpha. Please. Return with me.”
    “I told you. I’m not interested in returning.” He wanted to reach out and smooth his hand along the soft curve of her jaw to keep her golden-brown eyes on him, but he didn’t have the heart when she looked as if it was taking her great effort not to lower her gaze again.
    “I travelled two years to find you… to bring you back to the pride.”
    He wished she had stopped at the first part, where she had only travelled two years to find him.
    The pain in her eyes increased, her fear a palpable thing now that hung in the air between them, and it forced him to listen. What had happened at the pride? Concern for his village grew in his heart but concern for Eloise overshadowed it, pulling the focus of his thoughts