The Alpha Behind The Mask-Chapter 47: Please Stay

​Aurora’s POV

​The world stopped. The buzzing in my brain, the image of the dead man, the fear of the police—it all vanished in a heartbeat. The kiss was hard, desperate, and silenced every thought I had. It wasn’t the kiss of a stranger; it was the kiss of a man who was trying to pull me back from the edge of a cliff.

​My hands, which had been pushing against his chest, suddenly gripped his sweater. I gasped into his mouth, the heat of him flooding my senses and making my knees go weak. For a second, the mask between us was the only thing keeping me from losing my mind completely.

​He pulled me along as he sat down on the bed, and before I could think, I was sitting on his lap, my legs draped over his powerful thighs. My mind was screaming at me. Aurora, this is wrong. He is the man who destroyed your life. He is your parents’ killer.

​But my heart and my body were speaking a different language. The heat radiating from him was the only thing keeping the chill of that alleyway at bay.

​Raymond let out a low, rough groan against my lips, and my heart skipped a beat. I froze. That sound... it was identical to the way Oliver sounded when we kissed on the floor of the Pack House. It was that same primal, needy vibration that seemed to come from the very depths of his chest.

​The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water.

​I pulled away abruptly, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps. I stared into the dark leather of his mask, my eyes searching the small slits for the truth. The height, the scent of cedar and rain, the way his voice rumbled, even that groan—the resemblance was terrifying.

​But it can’t be. It’s impossible. King Oliver was the "Cold Alpha." Raymond was a masked assassin. And yet, the pull was the same.

​Raymond remained composed, his hands still resting firmly on my waist as if to keep me from falling. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just watched me with those intense green eyes that seemed to see right through my soul.

​"Why are you still masked?" I whispered, my voice trembling with a new kind of fear—the fear of the curiosity of who this man is. "You aren’t in the club anymore. There are no cameras here. No one is watching."

​I reached out, my fingers trembling as they brushed the cool, dark leather of the mask. My mind was full of suspicion and curiosity. The way he held me, the way he smelled—it was all so hauntingly familiar.

​"I can’t," he whispered, his voice returning to that low, artificial rasp. He gently but firmly caught my wrists, pulling my hands away from his face. "In my line of work, Aurora, showing my face to the wrong person is a death sentence. For me, and for them."

​A cold shiver ran down my spine. His line of work.

​Suddenly, the memory from six years ago flashed vividly in my mind, the morning my world ended. I remembered how he stood over my parents. He had been wearing a mask then, too. Different, perhaps, but the same cold, calculating energy radiated from him. I stared at him, my heart heavy with the weight of what I knew, even as I played the part of the ignorant girl he thought I was.

​"And what exactly is your line of work, Raymond?" I asked softly, searching his green eyes.

​He hesitated. I saw his pupils dilate, a flicker of something—guilt? Hesitation?—crossing his gaze. He didn’t answer immediately. He seemed to be weighing his words, or perhaps fighting the urge to tell me the truth.

​"It doesn’t matter," he finally said, his voice tightening. "All that matters is that you are safe now."

​He moved to pull away, his hands leaving my waist as he stood up from the bed. He was preparing to leave me alone in this silent apartment with my ghosts.

​"Wait!" I cried out, the word escaping my lips before I could think. I reached for his hand, my fingers latching onto his sleeve. "Please... stay. Don’t go."

​I wasn’t ready to be alone. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the glassy stare of the man in the alley. I was still terrified that the door would burst open, that the police would find a footprint I’d missed, or that the man’s family would change their minds.

​He froze, his back to me. His shoulders were tense, his large frame silhouetted against the dim light of my bedroom.

​"I won’t ask you to take off the mask," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I won’t ask any more questions. Just... stay a little while. Please."

​He stood still for a long heartbeat, the tension between us so thick that it suffocated me. Then, slowly, he turned back around. He didn’t sit back on the bed, but he didn’t move toward the door either. He just stood there.

​"I’ll stay," he murmured. "Until you fall asleep."

​I nodded, strangely feeling grateful.

​I watched him move toward the small wooden chair at my reading desk. He sat down, his large frame looking completely out of place in my cramped, modest room. His eyes—those sharp, green eyes—began to wander, scanning the peeling wallpaper and the few personal items I had on my shelves.

​"How long have you lived here?" he asked, his voice still low and gravelly.

​"Two years," I replied softly, pulling my knees up to my chest.

​He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t impressed. "You don’t want to move out? This place... it is very small."

​"It’s what I can afford," I said, a little defensively. "And besides, it’s just me. I don’t need much space."

​He frowned and looked away, his jaw tightening under the mask. I didn’t know if he was judging my poverty or if the sight of it actually bothered him. Before I could say anything else, my stomach let out a loud, traitorous growl. I felt my face heat up. I had forgotten that the whole reason I was in that alley was because I had been starving.

​"You’re hungry," he stated. It wasn’t a question.

​"Yes," I admitted, looking down at my lap. "But I can manage. I’ll just wait until morning."

​He ignored my protest and pulled out his phone, tapping the screen. He seemed to be checking the signal, but he huffed in frustration. Apparently, the reception in my building was as bad as the plumbing. He looked around and then asked, "What do you have in the fridge?"

​I opened my mouth to tell him it was almost empty, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He stood up and walked over to the small kitchen area. He found the grocery bag I had managed to bring home—the one I’d been carrying when the man attacked me. He opened it, looked inside at the few eggs and the loaf of bread I’d bought earlier in the day, and nodded to himself.

​"Sit," he commanded when I tried to stand up. "I’ll cook you something."

​"No, Raymond, you don’t have to do that," I said, feeling a strange mix of embarrassment and fear.

​But he didn’t listen. He stepped toward me, placed a heavy hand on my shoulder, and gently pushed me back down onto the bed. He leaned in close, his masked face just inches from mine. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

​"Stay there," he whispered, a faint, dark smirk playing on his lips behind the leather. "I won’t poison you, Aurora."

​Since my apartment was so small, the kitchen was barely five steps away from my bed. I sat there, wrapped in a blanket, watching the man who might have killed my parents crack eggs and butter a pan. It was the most surreal thing I had ever seen—an elite assassin in a leather mask making me a late-night snack in my tiny apartment.

​