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It didn’t matter that she was home safely. The Crimson Order had taken her.

My mate.

And if I didn’t take care of them now, then they’d be back for her. They’d take her again, and maybe next time wouldn’t be such a good outcome. Maybe next time, they’d kill her. Or worse, force her to be one of theirs.

Before he could react, I snatched him by the throat and snapped a silver collar with a leash around his neck. “You’re coming with me.”

Chapter Fifty

Ember

“So, what happened? Tell me everything,” Hazel said, sitting on the couch in the middle of Davix’s packhouse the next day. “What happened while you were gone? Who took you? He brought you back in one piece, which is a good thing, right? Was he hot?”

My cheeks warmed. So many questions I didn’t have the answers to, but I knew one.

“Oh, he was hot.”

She giggled and jumped up. “Was he—” She stopped midway through her sentence, then looked over her shoulder toward the door as if she had heard something. “Actually, hold that thought. I have to go to the little girls’ room first.”

Before I could say anything, she was out of the room, heading in the opposite direction of the bathroom. I arched a brow and kept my gaze focused on the door because if I knew anything about Hazel, it was that⁠—

Davix walked through the door, holding some silver chains, sweat covering his body. My eyes widened. Why was he so goddamn fit? All that muscle, and he had to be such an alphahole …

“What?” he snapped at me.

“Not going to say anything?” I asked.

“About what?”

“About me being kidnapped.”

He rolled his eyes. “You gonna make this your entire personality now?”

My tongue glided across my teeth, nostrils flaring. I didn’t know why I’d expected him to say anything about it. It was over, and I had been so desperate for Cade to drop it last night. Why would I want to rile Davix up? And now?

Definitely not because he was shirtless and covered in sweat …

“What? You wanted me to look for you or something?” he asked.

I crossed my arms over my chest and turned toward the window, impatiently waiting for Hazel to return from the bathroom, but she was taking way longer than she should.

Stupid Ember. Of course, he didn’t look for me.

After all, he was the alpha of alphaholes.

“You’re not my problem,” he said, gaze so hard and icy that I couldn’t see through it. He tightened his grip on the chains, and I noticed there was blood dripping off them. “I’m not interested in you. I’m not mating you. And I don’t care about you. Get that through your empty head, pup.”

Even though we were on the same page—because I wasn’t interested in him, I didn’t want to mate with him, and I definitely didn’t care about him—his words still stung like a fucker. I balled my hands into fists.

“Good,” I said, heart pounding.

He stared at me for a few moments, his brows scrunching just a bit, as if he was still trying to process that I had rejected him too. Oh, because of course, everyone had to be into him, but as soon as someone wasn’t, he wondered why.

“I don’t like dickheads like you anyway,” I murmured. “Besides, I have a new boyfriend.”

“Who? Cade?” he scoffed and shook his head. “You know, he was crying like a little pussy to me about his mate the other day. He doesn’t give a fuck about you, and you should get it out of your head that he ever will.”

My nostrils flared. His mate?