Defying the Rogue Alpha
Chapter 98: Mood

Chapter 98: Mood

Lucas was tugging a plain T-shirt over his head when he heard the door open behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

He suppressed a sigh. He wasn’t in the mood for this. He would never be in the mood for this.

But Sarah, apparently, was.

Dressed to kill in a skin-tight bodycon dress that left nothing to the imagination, she strutted toward him. The fabric clung to her curves.

"Alpha..." she purred.

Lucas remained still, hands tucked casually into his pockets. He watched as she approached, eyes half-lidded.

Sarah closed the distance between them, pressing her palms flat against his chest, fingers deliberately brushing over his nipples.

She smiled at the flicker of his muscles beneath her touch, mistaking the involuntary reaction for interest. He let her believe it.

"I have missed being with you like this," she murmured, her hands slipping beneath his shirt, nails dragging lightly over his bare skin.

Lucas felt nothing.

Sarah, however, let out a pleased hum, as if touching him was an experience that transcended the physical. As if her hands weren’t just on his skin but in his soul.

"I need you, Alpha," she whispered, lips dangerously close to his throat.

Lucas inhaled slowly.

She really thought this was happening.

And in all fairness, it would have, once upon a time. Sarah afterall was his concubine, someone to fill the void when he needed release. But that was before Ava. Before he understood what it meant to need someone, to ache for their presence. Before Sarah plotted his queen’s fall.

Now, Sarah’s touch felt hollow.

A poor imitation of something real.

With quiet precision, Lucas reached down and gently extracted her hands from beneath his shirt.

Sarah blinked up at him in surprise, confusion flickering in her eyes as he brought her fingers to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to them.

A calculated move. A silent apology for the rejection.

"I have to take care of some business," he said. "You can stay here and wait. I’ll be right back."

Sarah’s smile faltered.

"Alpha?"

She sounded uncertain now, thrown off by his refusal.

Lucas turned away from her, striding toward the door without a single glance back.

The moment he stepped outside, he exhaled, running a hand through his hair.

This was ridiculous.

He had never been the type to play games, to string people along for the sake of strategy. He was Lucas Raventhorn, Alpha of the Silver Pack, and he didn’t do pretense. He commanded, he conquered, and he claimed what was his.

And Ava would always be his.

The problem was, she didn’t know it yet. The warmth of love he felt in Dennis’s room earlier that day, the thumping of his heart, her exquisite scent. They all just reminded him to work fast.

Dennis’s possessiveness nagged at him though. A mark can be erased? What the fuck did he mean by that? If he even thought about laying a finger on his woman in a not so innocent way, he would have his head. Promises be damned.

He still had to keep Sarah close for now, keep up the illusion. But gods, how much longer could he tolerate this nonsense?

At the gate, Nolan was waiting with the other gammas on duty. Nolan had taken up Kade’s duties since his death was faked. The man didn’t ask questions, didn’t pry into things that weren’t his business. That was what Lucas liked about him.

Lucas didn’t slow his stride as he approached.

"Assign someone to get Sarah out of my room in exactly two hours," he ordered.

Nolan nodded, no hesitation, no expression. "Yes, Alpha."

Lucas kept walking. "And you, come with me. We have somewhere to be."

Another nod. "Of course, Alpha."

Minutes later, they were in the car, driving away from the fortress, away from the suffocating politics of pack life.

Lucas leaned back against the leather seat, his mind already a million miles away.

*****

Kade stood over Jake’s bound form, his expression carved from stone. The scent of blood still lingered in the damp forest air, the body of Jake’s Beta lying lifeless mere feet away.

Jake, on the other hand, was anything but composed. He was panicked, wild-eyed, and struggling against the silver cuffs biting into his wrists. His breathing was uneven, ragged.

"Kade, you don’t have to do this," Jake started. "I will give you anything. Anything. Kade, come on!"

His words were rushed, tumbling over themselves. His pulse was thundering in his throat, loud enough that even a human would’ve heard it. .

Kade didn’t so much as flinch.

He had heard every kind of plea before. He had ignored them all.

This time was no different.

Jake could promise him the moon and Kade wouldn’t so much as glance up. Because this wasn’t about what Jake had to offer. This was about what he had done.

And, more importantly, who was coming to deal with it.

Kade straightened at the distant sound of an approaching engine, the deep rumble of a car breaking the eerie silence of the forest. The tires crunched over fallen leaves and twigs as the vehicle slowed to a stop a few feet away.

The doors clicked open.

And out stepped Alpha Lucas Raventhorn.

The moment Nolan caught sight of Kade, his entire body tensed, his sharp gaze locking onto him. For a split second, emotion flickered through his normally impassive features.

Kade wasn’t dead.

If they weren’t in the middle of something significantly more pressing, Nolan probably would’ve punched Kade for vanishing off the face of the earth then pulled him into a brotherly hug right after.

But for now, they had more important things to deal with.

Lucas’s presence alone was a suffocating force that made the air in the clearing feel heavier. He stopped beside Kade, clapping him on the back in greeting before turning his full attention to Jake.

Lucas crouched, settling at eye level with the bound man he had made Alpha.

For a moment, he simply studied him.

Then, in the kind of casual, almost friendly voice that made the hair on the back of people’s necks stand up, Lucas said, "Hi, Jake."

Jake swallowed hard.

Lucas smiled.

"So, I heard some things," Lucas continued. "And I just wanted to run them by you. I mean, I don’t believe them yet."

Jake wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what Lucas was doing, dangling a false sense of hope in front of him, making him believe that he had some kind of say in what happened next.

It was cruel.

It was calculated.

It was the Raventhorn way.

Jake exhaled shakily, staring at the man crouched in front of him.

There was no way out of this.

Lucas knew it.

Jake knew it.

Hell, even the body of his Beta, lying cold and lifeless a few feet away, knew it.

Still, Lucas carried on with that infuriatingly casual tone, as if they were simply discussing pack politics over a bottle of whiskey instead of kneeling in the blood-soaked forest.

"So, first of all," Lucas began, "I’ll tell you what I did, and then you tell me what you did."

Jake said nothing.

Lucas’s grin widened.

"See, I killed your father," Lucas said matter-of-factly. "I know you know that already. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, would we?"