Rebecca Royce - Alpha Wolf

Michael Kane took a swig from his Abita beer and tried not to choke on the smoke that wafted into the bar from the open door to his left. The hot New Orleans humidity did nothing to lessen the stench of cigarette smoke on his wolf senses. He rolled his eyes.

These humans, they killed themselves with their vices. Well—he inwardly shrugged—it wasn’t just humans who smoked. His brother Gabriel had picked up the dirty habit except it wasn’t going to kill him. It just made him stink.

What kind of wolf wanted to meet someone in a bar? He looked around the room for the fortieth time since his arrival half-an-hour earlier and sniffed deeply. Truthfully, he didn’t think it was possible that the smell of smoke and humans could mask a wolf shifter from him but it was never a bad idea to be careful. He had been on time in his arrival and now his contact was downright late.

Patience. We don’t have anywhere else to go tonight, his wolf interjected into his thoughts and Michael smiled.

To anyone watching it would seem as if he was lost in his thoughts, smiling at something he’d remembered. They’d have no idea that his inner wolf spoke to him; they’d have no clue that he was never alone.

He finally answered his wolf. Lateness is rude, no matter what my personal schedule is like.

Taking another swig of the cold, bitter taste of the local brew, he looked around the room, noticing the signed pictures of various jazz musicians who must have, at some time, either visited or played in the bar. From the outside, Floozies’ seemed a typical dive bar, located on the outskirts of the famed French Quarter in an area called the Marigny. It was unassuming. The kind of place you might see in any town, anywhere in the city. The sort of business that drew the locals and not the tourists.

Inside, however, was a different story.

It had felt like stepping back in time to the 1920s with its bench seats and low lit ambiance, not to mention the mirrors on the wall that led the eye straight to the stage where whatever live performer was expected would hold court for the evening. The effect had left him a little bit disoriented when he’d first walked in. For a second he’d thought he’d walked into his past—or that he’d somehow lost the last ninety years.

As he contemplated the oddity of the sensation, the truth hit him over the head.

Today was his birthday. Today he was two hundred and ten years old. He took another swig of his brown amber beer.

Happy-frickin-birthday to me .

His wolf laughed. To us .

You’re a little bit younger than me. You didn’t show until later.

I was always with you, Michael. You just couldn’t hear me until you were ready .

His senses hit high alert as the scent of wolf wafted through the door seconds before the woman herself appeared. She darted into the room looking left and right and then left and right again. In an obvious fashion that made him wince for her lack of subtlety, she sniffed the air and turned in his direction.

For a moment, he stopped breathing. Small, to the point of being downright teeny, she looked to be about thirty years old. Michael knew that was deceptive. He appeared to be the same age, but wolf-shifters stopped physically aging at the age of thirty until they mated. She could be centuries old for all he knew or she could actually be thirty.

Jet black hair fell in long curled ringlets down her back. She had graceful movements, like a dancer, and her arms held well-defined muscles that indicated she probably exercised regularly. From a distance, he admired her high cheekbones on a heart shaped face. Her lips were pink and … puffy?

She stepped up to his chair and he became aware of two things simultaneously. One, someone had beat the hell out of this woman. Her face was a mixture of bruises displaying all kinds of colors, meaning that each bruise was in a different stage of healing. That meant someone had done this repeatedly and over the course of time. Two, she was his mate. Her scent filled him up inside, awakening a side of him he thought, after two hundred ten long years, long dead.

He growled, jumping off the chair as he felt his eyes turn wolf. Who the hell would dare to lay hands on his mate?

His wolf laughed. Guess you’re no longer considering committing ritual suicide, are you?

His soon-to-be-fulfilled destiny widened her eyes as he ceased making his territorial noise. She sniffed the air again. Gods, she still hadn’t spoken. Did she sense it too? What was her name?

She placed a hand on his arm and squeezed gently. He gazed down at her tiny hand.

Her fingers were so small; they barely made it around his bicep muscles.

His gaze moved back to her face. Staring at him with eyes that could only be called amber, she clearly pleaded with him for something even without using words.

Can she talk?

“Sweetheart,” he still had no name to use, but already that name seemed to fit her.

“Can you speak?”

She wrinkled her eyebrows and squeezed his arm again. This time as if she needed support. Using her other hand, she touched the back of her jaw. Opening her mouth, he watched tears come to her eyes. Gods, she was really injured. Even opening her mouth to speak caused her excruciating pain. As soon as they mated, he would be able to communicate with her telepathically. Until then, as much as she was wolf, she was not pack. They couldn’t speak mind-to-mind yet.

“Are you Kane?” Her words sounded slurred as if she couldn’t quite get her mouth and tongue to function properly.

“I’m Michael Kane.”

She nodded. “I was told to come get you.”

Someone had sent her out this battered to come pick him up from a bar? Was this how this other pack of wolf shifters treated their women? How dare they? This was his mate. They had an obligation to keep her safe until her other half was found.

He placed his hand on top of hers and let his warm fingers stroke hers that were surprisingly cold, considering the heat both inside and outside of the bar. “Do you know who I am?”

That was a loaded question. It could be answered two ways. First, did she know he was the oldest royal brother of the Westervelt pack and second, did she realize she was his mate?

Her mouth crunched open again. Gods, she needed to shift to heal those injuries.

Why hadn’t she?

“You’re here to find your sister, Angel. That’s what Cole told me.”

Cole? “I spoke to someone named Nero. He said he was the Alpha of your pack.”

One lone tear escaped from her swollen eye and she gasped as if it burned her. She grabbed her face as she shook her head. “Dead.”

“And Cole is Alpha now?” So it was Cole who he would be taking to task for letting his woman out and about when she was this injured.

She shook her head. “No Alpha. Sorry I’m talking so funny. It hurts.”

“I gathered that.” He gave into the urge and ran his hand through her soft black strands. “What is your name, sweetheart?”

“Scarlett.”

His heart leapt at the sound of her name. It was so … exotic. “Like in the book?”

“My mother really liked it.”

“Alright.” He took her arm. They still hadn’t discussed the fact that they were mates.

He started to wonder if she was aware. “Let’s get you somewhere so you can shift.”

She shook her head. “We should go but not so I can shift.”

Under his fingers, he could feel her tremble as every word, every step she took, caused her physical pain. They walked out together into the hot night air and immediately a layer of sweat appeared on his body. The air conditioning in the bar had helped with the heat and even then it had still felt hot inside. He’d forgotten that the deep South was like this. It had been too many years since he’d left Maine.