Rebecca Royce: Alpha Wolf

“Why don’t you want to shift?”

She made a sound that was somewhere in between a laugh and a groan. “It’s not that I don’t want to shift, there is nothing I would like to do more in the world.” She paused as she looked left and right like she had when she entered the bar. “It’s that I can’t shift. I never could. I’m a half-shifter and I’m latent.”

He nodded as he took her arm more tightly in his grasp. If she wasn’t a full shifter then he needed to handle her, physically, with more gentleness. “We need you to get to a hospital then.”

“No hospital. They’ll call the police.”

“Fine, a doctor you can trust. Someone human who can heal you.”

“There’s no one.” She stopped moving and turned to regard him. Lights from the bar were the only illumination in the darkness except for the occasional glare off a headlight on the slowly driven street. “I know what you were asking before.” She stared down at her well-worn shoes. He could see the lining coming through the top of the leather on the front of the left one. First thing he was going to do was buy her some new ones. “I know that I’m your mate. I could smell it when I came in the bar. My sense of smell is about the only wolf trait that I actually got. I’m sorry.”

He clasped her cheek in his hand. So she did know. He wanted to grin from ear to ear. Gods, what a gift she was to him. She existed. She lived in the world. He wasn’t alone. He didn’t know what mating meant except that it had changed the male members of his pack irrevocably. Now he was actually going to get to know. “What are you sorry for, Scarlett?” He said her name because he wanted to hear it on his tongue. His wolf wanted to howl with delight.

“I’m sorry that I’m your mate. You can bring me to the pack wielder and for a price he’ll take the magic off. You can make it so I’m not your mate and then someday you’ll get another one.”

It was the most she’d said since he’d met her and now he wanted to take her out back and spank her perfect little ass for uttering those words. Get the magic off? Not her mate?

“What are you talking about?” He knew he asked the words through clenched teeth.

“I’ve known my whole life I was going to have to utter these words to my mate someday. Don’t make it harder.”

“Scarlett.” He forced himself not to yell her name and instead pulled into his embrace so he hugged her. His mouth pressed close to her ear as he had to all but bend over to speak to her. “Destiny chose for me. You are mine . There is no undoing this.

We’re meant for each other. When you die, I will follow or if I die, you will. We will live forever in each other’s minds, each other’s souls. You are my one true love, the one I’ve waited to meet for two hundred and ten years.”

He heard her intake of breath. “Michael.” It was the first time she’d said his name.

“Shifters get out of unwanted mates all the time.”

No, they didn’t. “Not where I’m from.”

“You guys just accept who you’re given?”

He nodded. “You don’t?”

“Men alter it to suit their needs all the time. No one wants to have to breed with an undesirable.”

It was as if she spoke a foreign language. “Scarlett, this is all very strange to me.” He ran a hand through her long hair. “I’m going to need you to explain it to me, later. Right now, I have to find you some medical help.”

She cleared her throat. “Do you have a hotel room?”

He nodded his head. “I do.”

“Then after we see Cole and he tells you about your sister we can go there. I can try to make more sense at that point.”

Scarlett looked down at the ground as she spoke. It was a gesture of submission and it made him furious.

Someone has hurt her, Michael. Someone has hurt her repeatedly .

He trusted his wolf on these issues. They’d been together so long. The dominance struggle that younger shifters faced with their wolves, he no longer did. They worked almost as one unit now.

She’s not an Alpha wolf, Michael. Or at least she’s not anymore .

Inwardly, Michael shook his head. She’s not a wolf at all. She’s latent. That makes her basically human .

“Look me in the eyes when you talk to me, pretty lady. I don’t bite.” Unless she asked him to.

She still didn’t meet his gaze. “You’re a wolf. A royal wolf, at that. I can’t look you in the eyes.”

Yes, she could and she would, but Michael wasn’t going to batter her into doing so by screaming. Instead, he pulled her against him.

“We’ll wait on seeing Cole. You’ll come with me to my hotel room now. I’ll get you off your feet and figure out what to do about the doctor situation.”

Maybe he could get one of the females from his pack to come down and help him…

She shook her head and the long strands of her hair whispered against his arms.

“Cole will be furious.”

Dealing with his newly discovered mate was a little bit like putting together an old jigsaw puzzle. He had to find all the pieces first before he could even attempt to recreate the picture.

Trying to keep his voice steady, he moved them down the dark street. “Is Cole the one who beats you?”

“No.”

He waited a second for her to continue and when she didn’t he patiently asked her the next question. “Who hurt you?”

“So many people. The pack is at war with each other. I don’t even know everyone who was involved. I shouldn’t have been there. I know better than to try to involve myself. It just makes the men mad to see me.”

“I’m trying to figure out who I need to kill for putting their hands on you, Scarlett.

Help me out here.”

She sucked in a gasp of air and finally met his eyes. “You would do that? For me?”

We need to take her home and wrap her up in our sheets and just hold her for months and months .

“I would take on the whole world for you.”

Just then, he caught scents in the air. It was like a light popping on in a room inside his brain. He could smell them. There were five shifters and they moved on them fast.

Scarlett’s eyes widened. “Oh gods.”

“I assume you know these guys who are coming this way?”

“They want to be Alpha.”

He digested this. “All five of them want to be Alpha?”

“Nero never designated a successor and no true Alpha was called upon his death. All the men have to fight for the spot now. A few have already backed down. They’re old or their mates don’t want them to be it. But almost everyone else is still in contention. All the women—well, not me because I don’t count—but all the others have taken up sides.”

Her long explanation tired her and she nearly collapsed against him. Picking her up in his arms, he moved quickly toward a more crowded street. He wasn’t afraid of the shifters. Not at all. You didn’t live your life fighting your own father, and not come out capable of giving a beat down to five testosterone laced wolves. No, he needed to get Scarlett to safety before he could adequately handle the threat.

Moving onto Canal Street, he moved her into a one-arm embrace and hailed a taxi.

“Michael, what are you doing? Are we running?”

Was that disappointment he heard in her voice? Interesting, so she wasn’t Alpha herself but she didn’t want him to be Beta. That was fine. He might not have been the Alpha wolf of Westervelt, but he was no fleeing pack member. He was a Kane and he remembered when that was an honored last name. It would be again, if he had anything to say about it.

He set her down on the seat in the back. Pulling out his wallet, he took out a wad of money and his hotel key. He handed her both even as she stared at them in confusion.