#Chapter 34 Accusations and Accolades

After watching after Mara for a few days, Eugene decides it’s best to return to the Royal pack to check on Reese’s condition. Alpha Connor comes with, needing a break from this obvious painful situation for him. I don’t know why, but Herold follows his brother’s lead, coming to the Royal pack lands while I escape to the office in the hospital.
I did manage to break away from everyone else but I know that won’t last. Someone will be by to ruin my isolated silence that I enjoy far too much. It’s frustrating, but inevitable, so I get to work researching any kind of files or news on Alpha Connor’s pack.
If this was Alicia’s doing, there has to be a reason. I need to know what that is.
I search deeper and deeper into the internet until the files with solid truths are eventually murky with tabloid gunk. I know from personal experience these articles cannot be trusted, but I indulge anyways. The headlines scream out too much familiarity.
Alpha Connor Seeing Two Women? Sources Say: Yes!
I look away, something so painful about those words. I know them, hell, I’ve lived them. I hate Herold for putting me in that situation but I hate seeing another innocent wolf in the same trap I was put into. Thankfully, Alicia never got around to poisoning me, but I suppose having me killed in jail after her reckless lies did plenty of damage in its’ own right.
I bury my face helplessly into my hands. It makes too much sense now.
I jump, startled by a sudden brush of touch on my shoulder. I glare up to see Gabriel’s heavy, dark eyes pointed directly at my laptop screen. I shut the monitor so fast, wondering if I cracked the screen, but it doesn’t matter. He read the title of the article and he doesn’t seem pleased with my interest in it.
“My dear,” he says, his teeth clenched and his body taut. “Why are you doing this?”
I rattle at his frustration. I want to tell him it’s none of his business, but I can’t do that and keep my identity under control. If I go into a rant over Alicia and what she did to Olivia, obviously doing the same thing to Mara, then he would be far to suspicious on the trail I took from one of those accusations to the other.
“This is starting to hurt, my dear.”
My brow furrows. “What? Why would this hurt you, Alpha?”
“Because if I see one more article about you having an affair with another wolf, I’m going to lose my mind.”
It takes me a moment to collect my thoughts on what he read, and what he thinks I was doing reading that article headline. Obviously, to me, it has to do with Alicia and Mara and their fatal interests in Alpha Connor.
I know Alicia is pulling her old stunts again to get the girlfriend out of the way from her prey, but seeing Gabriel shudder all over, ready to shift, something warns me that he didn’t interpret the same headline right.
“Oh no,” I breathe.
I look up, the door being flung open, Alpha Herold, Alpha Connor and Eugene all standing in the empty hall of this isolated, empty level of the hospital used for storage. It’s turned into a fighting ground seconds later, Gabriel shifting right in my office and charging the others in the doorway.
I lung forward to stop him, his wolf stark black and massive beyond compare. Even Herold’s wolf is large and light in color, but he looks like a pup compared to the King Alpha. Eugene is the only one that doesn’t shift, tackling me to the floor as a fight sparks between all three Alphas in massive forms.
I’m far too stunned to stop them, to speak, and I wince at the sounds of whimpering when the superior King Alpha bares his teeth into Alpha Connor’s shoulder. I gain enough courage to crawl forward, to break into a run, but Eugene pulls me backwards so hard that I hit the floor in a loud, unsettling yelp.
Gabriel spins around, his sight set on Eugene now.
I force myself upright in time to bring Gabriel to stop, my hands out as Eugene presses his back into the far wall. Alpha Herold’s wolf snarls, bleeding just over his eye, while he paces to protect his brother cowering behind me.
“Stop, Gabriel, you’ve got the wrong idea here,” I gasp. He snarls, his teeth showing, and even at that rather aggressive move, I know he wouldn’t hurt me. If anything, he is far more hurt by my actions than anything he could ever do to me. “That article wasn’t about me.”
He inhales, shifting in front of me, his eyes white and wide. “Then what?”
I shake my head, watching Herold and Connor do the same, both of them rather roughed up from this unforeseen scuffle.
“Tell me everything, now.”
I wince at the King Alpha’s demand, his aura lashing out at me. “It was about Alpha Connor, that girl Mara… and… and Alicia…”
Herold winces somewhere beside me. “What about that bitch?”
“Don’t speak of your lover like that,” I sneer. It’s a childish move, I know. It was too easy to strike at and I don’t regret it. Turning back to Gabriel, his impatience and irritation growing. “It wasn’t me, Gabriel. I don’t even see Alpha Connor around. I am not romantically involved with him.”
The Alpha King looks to Herold and Eugene next. His speculations are reasonable, but also impossible. “Everyone leave,” he says, using his heavy voice yet again. “Now!”
I watch the others all scurry down the nearest stairwell, leaving me planted before Gabriel and his jealous viciousness. He seems to relax when we are alone, breathing gently and collecting himself until his eyes return to their crisp, light colors.
“I’m done pretending, my dear.”
I swallow hard. “Pretending about what?”
“I may have entertained the idea before about divorcing you, but there slight thought of one of those wolves, or any other wolf for that matter, wanting to have you as their Luna or their wife is nothing short of infuriating.”
I open my mouth, ready to fight that claim, but I don’t get the chance.
He is kissing me at once, his hands dangerously ripping at my clothes, our bodies stumbling back onto the floor from his abruptness jumping forward. I gasp alive, the noise gentle and sexual and completely accidental—I think.
Everything is so complicated, so tangled, that I just want to feel normal. His warm lips on my neck, trailing down the torn hem of my shirt and circling my breast, I almost feel normalcy return. It’s normal to be intimate, but not with a man I consider my real husband. His hands grab at my hips, craving the pull of my ass as he presses his front to my pelvis, his hands circling my backside.
I arch my back at the pleasure shooting down my body with his lips on my erect, sharp nipple. Part of me wants this so bad, just for a minute or two, but I know if I allow this to escalate, it will only create more emotions between us that I can’t deal with now.
I have to stop this to protect us both.
“Stop,” I plead. “St—stop, Gabriel.”
He does so, falling hopelessly onto his side on the ground nearby. “I knew it,” he grunts.
I shake my head, turning over to press my back toward him. My face is blushing and so hot, my palms sweaty and my core throbbing. We can both sense each other’s sexual hormones on fire but we refrain.
I have to refrain.