Craved by an Alpha by Felicity Heaton Page B

as he paced the ledge outside the shelter. She wanted to apologise and explain, but he radiated fury at a level she could sense and her instincts were screaming a warning at her. She heeded them, willing to give him a moment to cool off because she knew he wouldn’t go anywhere without her.
    He was angry with her, but he wouldn’t leave her.
    Her mind drifted over everything he had said. He hadn’t wanted to be the pride alpha. He hadn’t wanted to leave her.
    But he had left her.
    He had left her without a word. Without a goodbye. It had cemented her feeling that he hadn’t cared about her, not in the way she cared about him. What if she had been wrong all these years?
    She had thought about going after him when he had left, but it had been dark, a moonless night, and Stellan had been swift to warn everyone that he would kill anyone he caught attempting to leave. She had never been as afraid as she had been that night—both for her own life and for Cavanaugh’s. Her mother had convinced her to wait until daybreak, and somehow she had managed it, only to find it snowing heavily. Even if she had managed to slip unnoticed from the village, she wouldn’t have been able to track him with the fresh powder covering his trail.
    Her mother had comforted her by saying that Cavanaugh would return and Eloise had believed her. She had realised too late that her mother had said whatever it had taken to keep her in the village and safe. Her mother had confessed it to her on her deathbed and Eloise had reassured her that she wasn’t angry with her, even when part of her had been. The rest of her had been filled with a need to find Cavanaugh. She had needed him so much in those dark days following her mother’s death.
    She hadn’t been brave enough to go through with it and leave the village, so she had convinced herself that it would be too hard to track him down.
    Eloise chastised herself for making excuses. When she had finally left the pride in order to bring him back, it had taken her two years, but she had found him. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against her bare knees. The thought that she might have been with him for at least the last three years, living in London and maybe working at the same nightclub, ran on repeat in her head.
    She should have gone after him that snowy morning and not listened to her mother.
    She drew in a slow breath, lifted her head, and exhaled it. There was little point in wondering what might have been and playing the
should have
game. Cavanaugh should have done a lot of things differently if he truly had feelings for her too, but he hadn’t. Both of them were at fault for what had happened, back then and even now.
    He had sprung something huge on her, telling her that he had left because he couldn’t bear seeing her drift away from him.
    She hadn’t reacted in the smoothest way.
    Gods. Now he was standing on a ledge several hundred metres up the side of a mountain and no doubt cursing her name.
    She had to speak with him.
    Eloise shifted onto her hands and knees, and crawled towards the narrow exit of the cave. She slowed as his bare feet came into view, her heart beginning a slow, steady thump against her chest. She had to do this. She pushed onwards and came out onto the ledge behind him.
    He whirled to face her and frowned. “Go back inside. You’ll freeze out here.”
    She had forgotten that she was only dressed in her underwear, but she wasn’t going to let the cold deter her.
    Even if it was freezing.
    Wind whipped across the wall of rock, battering her and loosening strands of her dark hair. It played in Cavanaugh’s too, tousling the silver-white tufts, and plastered his dark grey trousers to his legs.
    Eloise kneeled and rubbed her arms. “I’m sorry.”
    He stared at her, the question in his gaze asking whether she had come out into the frigid cold just to apologise again or whether there was anything else she had to say.
    She looked out at the valley and