Claimed by the Alpha I Hate – Episode 25
Daisy reached her locker and spun around before Nolan could pretend his pursuit was accidental. “What do you want?” Her voice echoed down the mostly empty hallway.
Nolan stopped a few feet away. “At the moment, I want you to stop walking as if you’re trying to outrun security.” He had dismissed Gemma and the guards to give Daisy a degree of privacy, but she interpreted every concession as another strategy.
“First you make me stay in your house. Now you’re watching me at school.” Daisy shoved a book into her locker. “Do you plan to follow me everywhere until I forget what privacy means?”
“If I planned to watch you secretly, you wouldn’t know I was here.” Nolan leaned against the neighboring locker, far too comfortable in a building where everyone else feared him.
“That isn’t reassuring.” Daisy closed the metal door harder than necessary. Students at the far end of the hall glanced toward them and immediately looked away.
Nolan’s amusement faded. “Someone may be searching for you. Until we know who your father is and why your power awakened now, I won’t leave you unprotected.”
“You keep calling it protection.” Daisy stepped closer. “From where I’m standing, it looks like you want to control every part of my life.” Scott had hidden her because he was ashamed. Nolan displayed his claim so openly that it created a different kind of confinement.
“I want you alive.” The directness silenced her. Nolan’s parents had once believed strong walls and a powerful pack could keep danger away. He knew how quickly that belief could become a grave.
Daisy saw pain cross his face before he concealed it. “What happened to you?” she asked. The question was softer than either expected.
“This isn’t the place.” Nolan’s refusal restored some of her anger, but it also confirmed that his hatred of vampires had a history rather than a slogan.
“Then where is the place? Your office, where you ask about my feelings but hide yours? Your bedroom, where you promise answers later?” Daisy’s frustration gathered around every secret between them.
Nolan straightened. “You want to know what I want? I want you to stop lying about the bond. I want the truth about your blood before someone uses it against you. And I want to find who killed Vera so you can look at me without seeing her death.”
The final confession took the force from Daisy’s reply. He did not demand forgiveness. He wanted the chance to be judged for his own actions rather than the rumors attached to his name.
“I don’t know how to look at you,” she admitted. “One moment I remember my mother. The next I remember the forest, and I…” She stopped before desire became a spoken weakness.
Nolan moved within reach. “And you what?” The hallway seemed to narrow around them, every locker and classroom fading beneath the pressure of the mate bond.
Daisy refused to finish. Nolan lifted a hand but did not touch her, waiting for permission just as he had in the office. That restraint was becoming more dangerous than command.
“This is exactly why you should stop following me,” she said. Her pulse contradicted the warning. “I can’t think when you’re this close.”
“Neither can I.” Nolan’s admission was low and unguarded. The powerful Alpha who controlled an entire territory looked no more capable of resisting the bond than she was.
Footsteps sounded from a nearby classroom, and Daisy stepped back. The distance did not weaken what had passed between them. It only postponed the moment when one of them finally stopped retreating.
She closed her locker and walked away. Nolan followed at a more respectful distance, but his answer remained with her. He wanted her alive, wanted her trust, and wanted something neither of them had yet dared to name.