The Alpha's Unwanted Mate: (BWWM) Paranormal Romance Standalone by Ellie Valentina

know what was more painful – that no woman could contend with the tatters of his life, or that he had placed all his hopes into a woman he barely understood. Pushing the hurt to the back of his mind, he leaped into motion, streaking through the trees and into the early morning air.
     
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Jesus, what was she doing to herself, she asked herself angrily. Twenty-four hours after she’d felt the man’s mouth against her own, his scent still lingered. Locked in the small bathroom of Clyde’s cabin, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her tired eyes were the only outward indication of the battle raging within her.
    Ever since Clyde had mentioned that the males stayed with their females almost constantly, she’d been wary of trying to speak with the girls. By this juncture, she’d even spotted several faces she recognized, and had to resist the urge to run through the camp to get to them.
    She’d thought she wanted to hear these girls’ tales of suffering and woe, but even from a distance, she could not see the tiniest hint of misery. Three of the four girls she’d seen were heavy with child, and though they traversed the camp with their hulking mates by their sides, they seemed no worse for the wear. In fact, they seemed smiling and happy, glowing with the warmth of the children in their bellies.
    And so, though Alicia had told her that she could speak with anyone in the settlement after the nightly hunt, Angeline had stayed put inside. She’d come to fear that perhaps, the answers she was looking for weren’t what her old friends would tell her.
    She’d been in the pack settlement for almost a month, and though she’d seen teenagers scrapping and bloody carcasses dragged back into the center of the clearing after hunting excursions, she’d seen no misery. No pain. There had been neither hide nor hair of human women imprisoned, begging to be free. They weren’t treated like slaves or house servants; in fact, as far as she could tell, they were free to roam the camp as they pleased, when they pleased. Most of them stayed inside, perhaps, because they were in the last few months of pregnancies, or two busy enjoying pleasantries with her mates.
    She had been wrong. It was a tough pill to swallow, and Angeline was still having problems digesting it. She had come here to expose the cruelty of the wolves only to discover that there was nothing to expose. The camp was too small to hide anything of terrible import, and though the males swaggered around like cocky predators at times, when it came to protecting pups and women, there was no misunderstanding.
    Clyde himself had proved that to her when he’d ceaselessly taken out two males who’d attempted to intimidate her. Wolves, it seemed, were nothing like what she’d thought. However, they weren’t the mysterious, mystical beasts her mother had spoken of either. It seemed, to Angeline, that they existed in a realm both extremely real and hauntingly foreign. She knew that if she were to drive three hours, she would be back in Buckhead.
    Yet, here she was, in the middle of nowhere, watching men carry around immense tree trunks like they were nothing and scrap with one another with expressions more animal than human. They were something…otherworldly, yet tangible. If she had doubted that particular fact before, then everything had changed the moment Clyde had kissed her. She supposed she’d thought she must have still been dreaming because he’d held her so gently. The wolf hadn’t grabbed her, snatched her to him and proceeded to have his way with her. No, he’d coaxed her gently awake, looking down upon her as if she was the most radiant thing he’d ever seen before his mouth had melted against hers. She’d never lost herself in a kiss so soft, so thorough, that it had left parts of her she thought she’d forgotten, aching for a man’s touch.
    By the time he’d been through with her, she’d wanting nothing more than to surrender to him