The Alpha's Heart (Wilde Creek Two) (20 page)

Eveny came into the kitchen with Luke.  She turned and gave him a little shove in the shoulder.  “Girl talk, scoot.”

“Baby,” Luke frowned, looking torn.

“Just leave the room and pretend not to listen.”

He gave a growl of sorts and stalked off but his footsteps didn’t carry him more than a half dozen feet onto the back porch.

Eveny shook her head.  “Being around the pack makes him anxious for me.  He worries about me getting upset if someone says anything about me taking a human mate.”

“I do not,” Luke yelled from the porch.

Brynn laughed as Eveny shouted back, “I said
pretend not to listen
, geez.”

Eveny’s voice lowered some as she leaned against the counter with a sigh.  “It’s true.  No one has said anything outright to either of us about our mating, but there are some that have an air of ‘you’re doing something wrong’ whenever Luke is with me.  I think it’s worse because I’m the wolf and he’s the human.  It’s hard for wolves to understand why I would pick a human for a mate when wolves are so much stronger.  It’s easier, in some ways, for wolves to understand a male picking a human as a mate, because females aren’t thought of in the role of warrior like males are.”

Brynn grimaced.  “I don’t think everyone understands Acksel picking me.”

Eveny shrugged.  “It doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks about you two being together because you already are.  You’re Acksel’s mate, and judging from what I’ve seen between you two, I’d say that his wolf knew you were his long before this point, but he was too buried under the old laws to even listen.”

She felt a little stab of
something
.  “You weren’t.”

“I wasn’t what?”

“Too buried under the old laws to ignore your desire to mate with Luke.”  She felt like she might cry at the thought that had been swirling inside her.  She knew Acksel loved her and had cared about her for a long time, but she’d wanted to be important enough for him to be willing to risk banishment from his people to be with her, the way that Eveny had for Luke.

Eveny hugged Brynn with a soft sound.  “I’m so sorry, Brynn, I didn’t mean to make you sad.  Male wolves are different than females.  They’re more
male
than human males, if that makes sense, more in touch with their primal instincts.  It’s hard for males to disregard the laws because they’re the ones that made them.  The laws are drilled into the young males’ mind from an early age because they are the ones that carry out the laws and protect the pack.”  She leaned away slightly and looked at Brynn, her eyes full of compassion.  “Even though he didn’t choose you immediately, he did more than just choose you later — he rewrote history for you.  I don’t know when that’s ever happened before, but I can tell you it’s never happened for a human.  Acksel put aside all that he knew in the past, all he’d been taught about humans and wolves, and made a stand.”

Acksel came stomping into the kitchen, glaring furiously at Eveny who squeaked in surprise and stepped away.  He pulled Brynn into his arms and nuzzled her neck.  “Why are you upset?  I can feel your emotions tugging at me and it’s making my wolf insane.”

He made a snarling sound at Eveny who was now tucked safely behind Luke’s back as he duck-walked them out of the kitchen.  “She didn’t do anything wrong, Acksel,” Brynn smiled reassuringly at Luke and Eveny, who peeked around his arm with a wry smile.  Brynn slipped her arms around Acksel’s lean waist.

She sighed and closed her eyes, resting her ear over his heart to hear the steady beat.  He kneaded her back and kissed her neck.  “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He curled two fingers under her chin and lifted her face.  “If I could go back in time, the moment I was strong enough to protect you, I would have made you mine no matter what.  I would have taken the banishment with pride so that I could have you with me.  Among the numerous recent mistakes that I’ve made concerning our mating, that’s the old mistake that haunts me.  That you know that I didn’t pick you, that it will worry you.”

She shook off her upset feelings.  Looking into his gray eyes, it was so easy to feel how much he loved her, how he would move heaven and earth to take care of her.  “I don’t want to live in the past.  We’re together now and that’s all that really matters.”

“Because
you
chose me.  I’m a lucky son of a bitch.”

He kissed her once, and she was certain he meant it to be only once, but one kiss turned to another and another, until he pressed her against the counter with a low growl and she could feel the ridge of his erection press into her stomach.

She did love that she could affect him so quickly.

Panting slightly, he braced himself on the counter and dropped his head to her shoulder.  “You make me forget everything.”

She slipped her hands up the back of his shirt and ran them up and down his spine.  “I’m glad you’re mine, Acksel.”

He echoed the sentiment, hugged her tight, and with a last kiss, left her in the kitchen to continue rummaging for dishes.  Finally it dawned on her that she could ask one of the omegas to run to her house and get her serving dishes.  Stepping out onto the porch, she scanned the yard which was already beginning to fill with pack members.  Mostly it was the protectors who had been called to set up the multitude of picnic tables that the pack kept in a storage barn at the back of Acksel’s property, but she spied a few omegas.  She thought omega was a cool sounding title, but knew that for the wolves, it wasn’t.

Adam seemed to know she was looking at him from where he fiddled with the thick pork chops and ribs that had been put into a large smoker, and jogged to her.  She could see the hitch in his step as he favored his non-scarred side.  She hadn’t ever given him much thought, but now that she was the alpha female, she cared about him on some instinctual level.  Her hand immediately covered her stomach and she thought of the baby.  Maybe having Acksel’s child was really messing around with her abilities in some ways.  She certainly felt like she was more wolfish than before.

“Yes, Alpha?”  He stopped at the bottom step of the porch and looked up at her.

“Could you run to my house and bring back my serving dishes?  I have a big cabinet full of bowls, platters, and trays.  They’d be really useful for all the food that needs to be put out.”

“Right away.  I’ll get your key from Sam.”

“Thank you, Adam.”

He nodded once and turned, walking straight to Sam, who looked at Brynn for a moment and then, after she nodded, took a key ring from his pocket and unclipped one.  Adam took the key and left and she smiled inwardly.  She liked that Adam and Sam had both looked to her for approval.  They didn’t seem to have a problem recognizing that she was the alpha female.  Maybe it was because, like Mia had said, males weren’t as interested in who the alpha mated as long as he was content.  Or maybe it was some kind of primal, wolfy thing with them.  That they recognized the mark on her neck and knew what it meant, no matter what they thought of her being human.

So why were the females being so stubborn?

Well, she wasn’t going to let them ruin the party.  She was going to stand proudly by Acksel’s side as the alpha female, even if it wasn’t entirely official with the pack yet, and they could just suck it.

Even if she didn’t get furry, she was still the ‘queen bitch’ as Mia had started referring to her, and that meant she really did need to assert herself with the females.

But maybe not today.  Don’t want to ruin the party.

She didn’t just shove those thoughts away, she buried them deeply.  She had Acksel’s permission to stand up for herself.  Dade and Malachi had assured her that she needed to get her point across to the females that she was Acksel’s mate.  If any of them stepped over the line today, she was going to have to put her foot down, there were no two ways about it.

Nerves skated through her but she pushed those away, too.  She wasn’t about to give up Acksel now that she had him, and if that meant she had to show her proverbial claws to some bitches then that’s just what she’d do.

* * * * *

“Oh, you made the cheese dip I love so much!”  Brynn eyed the blue plastic bowl that Mia set on one of the long folding tables in the yard.

“I called my mom for the recipe.  She and my dad send their best, by the way.”

“Aw, that’s cool.”  Brynn snagged a carrot stick and swiped it through the yummy dip, which was made with cheddar cheese spread and a block of cream cheese.  Brynn liked Mia and Malachi’s parents.  Their house had been a haven to her as a kid when things got too heated at home, and she considered them second parents.

She glanced around the yard which was now filled with the entire pack.  They were supposed to eat in about an hour, and her mouth watered and her stomach grumbled at the thought of all the good food that waited for them.

Brynn had been actively helping to set up the food on the folding tables.  The omegas were afraid at first, as if her helping meant they weren’t doing something right, but she assured them that she just liked helping, so they had relaxed.  Adam and Jeremiah were manning the grills and smokers, which were loaded with enough meat to last a human a year.  There were a handful of elderly omegas, males and females who bustled around the yard, and there was one female omega that reminded Brynn of a scared bunny.  She was petite, with ivory skin, dark hair, and brown eyes.  Her name was Kamryn and everyone called her Kammie.  She never seemed to talk and always kept her eyes averted.

“What’s up with Kammie?”  Brynn asked Mia in a low voice.

“Her mom died when she was twelve and her dad foisted her off on her beatings-loving uncle while he went off whoring in another pack.  Her uncle nearly killed her twice when she was in high school until the old alpha stepped in and took her out of his care.  She went to live with Maggie, one of the elderly omegas, but she never really recovered from the abuse.  She shifts on the full moon but she won’t run with the pack, and she’s really quiet.”

Brynn made a face.  “The old alpha should have killed him.”

“Spoken like a true queen bitch,” Mia chuckled.

“Man, I’m getting blood-thirsty.”  Brynn remarked.  She couldn’t even count the times that she’d thought of violent things regarding what was going on with her wolves since Acksel had come back into her life.  “I think Acksel is rubbing off on me.”

“I’ll bet he’s
rubbing
something.”

Brynn smacked Mia’s arm.  “Funny.”

“Seriously, though, I was talking to my parents about what you said you were feeling with the baby and all; they have a mixed couple in their pack and she felt the same way when she had her first pup.  He wasn’t a very highly ranked male, but she had been pretty meek when they first got together and the pregnancy apparently triggered something in her.  I think it’s probably a mixture of being mated to Acksel and the baby.”

She crunched on the carrot stick for a moment and said, “I don’t mind.  It’s making me feel a little closer to you guys.”

Mia grinned at her.

Brynn was well aware when the three females that had been vying hardest for Acksel’s affection came through the house and onto the back porch.  She watched them as they looked around the yard and then settled their eyes on her.  Part of her wanted to avert her eyes and run away.  But a bigger, snarling part of her wouldn’t let her look away.  She narrowed her eyes at them but never dropped her gaze.  Almost simultaneously, they snorted in derision and turned away from her.  She was sure now that they were the ones who had been causing her grief all week.

It grated on her how they’d walked through the house as if they owned the place.  The other wolves had come around the outside of the house but no, those bitches had walked right in.  For a blazing hot moment, jealousy roared inside her.  How well did they know the house?  She knew that he’d had sex with them.  He’d been honest with her about his sexual history.  She’d always assumed that he’d had sex with them outside.  It hadn’t occurred to her that he might have brought them into his bed.  Might have touched them and made them scream in pleasure in the very place where she’d been touched so well.

The glass bowl she held in her hand dropped to the table with a thud, hitting the edge of another bowl and shattering.  A small piece of glass cut her palm and she winced.

“Shit!”  Mia said, snatching a stack of napkins off the edge of the table and sopping up the spilled salsa.  “Are you okay, B?”

Two omegas rushed to the table.  “Alpha Brynn, are you well?  You’re bleeding,” one of them said.

She looked at her hand and saw a tiny bit of blood.  Acksel was at her side in a heartbeat, snarling.

She took a napkin from Mia and pressed it to the wound.  She didn’t particularly want to see Acksel right then.  Her thoughts were too raw.  “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“Just a little accident.  Really,” she said, elbowing him away from her and walking towards the house.  He didn’t follow her, but she could feel his eyes on her back.

The three females — Carissa, Hailey, and Ava — sat on a wrought iron patio set on the porch.  Brynn didn’t like that they were sitting there, so close to the house, when the rest of the pack had kept a respectful distance from Acksel’s home.

Well, he’d asked her to move in, hadn’t he?  He’d asked her to share his home; that everything that was his was hers since their mating.  She hadn’t moved in yet, but it was still her damn house.

She stopped at the top step and glared at the females.  They glanced at her with disdain and not a shred of respect and then ignored her entirely.  Head held high, she strode into the house through the open sliding door and walked to the sink where she rinsed her hand under cold water.  The wound had stopped bleeding almost immediately and was just a shallow scratch, not even worth a bandage.  But the hurt that had rolled through her at the thought of the females sharing his bed still lingered.

She knew she had his heart now, but he had history with the females and she could admit she was jealous.  She didn’t like the feeling; it was like a knot twisting inside her stomach.