25. Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rourke

T he Beta with the red hair frowns at me, but he stops where he's standing in front of the door.

My threat has made an impact. He knows I'm an Alpha, and he knows my mate is off limits.

My mate. Beth Moore, the girl who stole my heart and ran away with it.

God, it feels so good to have her this close to me.

It's been too long since I touched her.

I can't make myself take my hands off her arms.

Now that I'm holding her, I never want to let her go.

It was stupid to think I could just watch her get on with her life without me in it.

I should have known I wouldn't be able to protect her from a distance forever.

She absolutely deserves better than me, but this idiot standing in front of us is not it.

"Rourke?" she asks, her voice a scratchy whisper.

"You know this guy?" the idiot asks, moving his gaze back to Beth.

She pulls away from me. "No. I don't know him at all."

Moving away from us both, she looks back at me and shakes her head.

The pain in her eyes is worse than I imagined it would be if I ever spoke to her again.

She's welling up with tears and all I want to do is hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay.

"Beth …"

"No," she says, shaking her head harder and putting her hands up. "Don't even … No ."

I swallow hard. There's nothing I can say to make this better.

I can't tell her everything's going to be okay.

That's a lie.

She knows it.

Nothing's going to be okay ever again.

We can never go back to the way things were.

"What's going on?" the stranger asks, his tone wary.

"That's none of your goddamn business," I growl at him.

"It's my business if she says it is," he argues, looking back at her. "Is this guy bothering you? I can call the cops, or …"

"I am a cop," I snap at him.

"It's fine," Beth tells him, her voice strained. "I just need to … get away from here."

She looks at me, as tears start to spill down her cheeks.

The ferocious stare she gives me shows how much anger she's still holding onto.

"Don't even think about following me. I'm not kidding around."

She turns and walks away, in the direction of the city's centre.

The guy with the shitty haircut doesn't seem sure about what to do.

"She was talking to both of us, asshole," I snap.

He looks back at me. "I seriously doubt that."

"Go near her again, and you'll regret ever thinking about it."

"Same back to you," he spits out, sneering at me. "Creep."

Oh, the Beta's got balls, has he?

Well, we'll see how easy they are to break.

I'm not much of a fighter, usually, but if there's one thing that can convince me to throw a punch, it's having my true mate threatened. Anger flips to rage in an instant under these circumstances, and the need to unleash spills over inside me.

My hands curl into fists. "Get back inside, or I'll make you regret it."

"Fuck you," he curses, something feral flashing in his own eyes.

"She's mine," I growl at him.

"No," he blurts. "She's ours ."