The Alpha's Heart (Wilde Creek Two) (3 page)

“Mine,” he snarled as he thrust into her, pushing her hard towards the edge of pleasure.  She wanted to come with him, to draw his climax out with hers and feel him coming deep inside.

“Yes, fuck, yes,” she moaned loudly.

She felt her fingernails rip into his back as her climax thundered down on her.  She lost the ability to speak, screaming mindlessly as the most intense pleasure she’d ever known swept over her.

Acksel roared as his cock twitched and pulsed, spasming with his climax.  He slumped over her and she wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek.  She might be deaf in one ear and he might have fucked her into a boneless pile of goo without even saying hello to her, but she didn’t care.  She couldn’t muster the ability to care about anything, reveling in the warm weight of the man on top of her and the little aftershocks of pleasure that zinged through her.

With a contented growl, Acksel rolled onto his back and took her with him, pressing her securely into his side.  She peered up at him.  His eyes were closed but he looked happier than he had when he’d stumbled drunkenly into her home just hours earlier.

Giggling internally, she thought,
I sexed him happy.

With a yawn, she rubbed her cheek on his chest and inhaled the spicy, woodsy scent of him and closed her eyes.  Sleep stole over her quickly and she relaxed, confident that when they woke in the morning, things would be different.

Chapter 4

Acksel woke feeling more comfortable than he’d been in years.  Satisfaction curled through him, along with a happiness that surprised him.  He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so content, and he should have been concerned, but for the moment, he was satisfied to hang out in pre-wakeful limbo.

He inhaled slowly and the scent of cinnamon filled his nose.  His eyes popped open as the events of the previous night filtered through his mind.  He’d been ripping drunk and had attempted to walk home, but had instead stumbled through the night until he’d smelled something that had made him forget all his troubles.

The ceiling was unfamiliar, as were the wall hangings, but the scent of sex and the slight weight of the woman snuggled against his side were extremely familiar.  He knew her immediately; the woman who smelled like cinnamon and had haunted his dreams for years — Brynn.

Her dark hair was tousled, her lashes casting shadows on cheeks that were flushed from sleep and passion.  Her lush lips were parted slightly and her warm breath fanned his chest where her cheek rested.  He closed his eyes and replayed last night in his mind — what little he could recall.  Vaguely he remembered leaving the bar, and then things went fuzzy, but apparently he had followed the scent of cinnamon that had driven him crazy all his high school years.

Brynn had liked cinnamon candies and gum.  In school, she always had a light cinnamon scent around her that he would have been able to pick up even without his heightened wolf senses.  She was kind back then, one of the nicest girls in school, friendly to everyone even though she ran in the popular circle.  Homecoming queen.  Captain of the cheerleading squad.

Back then, he’d had a hard time of things.  He was scrawny and weak, unable to really even stand up for himself against humans, who were by nature pathetic and weak compared to wolves.  The older wolves in the pack had enjoyed tormenting him and watching the humans pick on him.  He couldn’t remember a time before he shifted at age sixteen when he wasn’t bullied.  He knew he’d been a bitter, unhappy kid, and he’d funneled all that anger into becoming a wolf that no one would mess with — which meant that he had to become the alpha.  He’d let go of every distraction in his life and focused on training.  He exercised, lifted weights, and learned how to fight so he could work his way up in the pack.  It was a slow process, because challenges for position could only happen on the full moon, and only if the alpha approved.  The former alpha, a male in his forties named Willis, had allowed Acksel to fight from his original omega position up the ranks.  Month after month, he fought and won, fought and won, until he was beta.  No one had challenged Willis in years.  He’d been alpha for fifteen years and had not seen Acksel as a threat.  Many wolves were content with the status quo and would fight for whatever position they were in and not try to be any higher.  Acksel hadn’t been insulted that Willis hadn’t seen him as a threat.  In the Wilde Creek pack, there had never been an alpha as young as Acksel, and maybe Willis had thought he had a few more years before Acksel challenged him, or perhaps he thought that Acksel would be content to be a beta forever.  Regardless, when Acksel challenged Willis, he accepted and was defeated.

Acksel had been in power for three years.  He’d disbanded the rankings put in place by Willis and every eligible male was unranked until the first full moon, when ranking positions were fought.  Acksel presided over them, watching as the positions filled from the lowest, unranked omegas to the ones closest to him — beta and theto — and those underneath them that were named protectors, who watched over females and pups, and those who were too old or weak to fight.

But now, because of what happened with Eveny, Acksel had changed pack law so wolves and humans could mate.  Which meant that the woman in his arms, according to pack law, could become his mate.

He growled.  That was pure idiocy.  Acksel was alpha.  His mate needed to be a wolf.  Not because it was pack law, but because she would have to fight for her place at his side.  The females in the pack who were unmated would fight to be Acksel’s mate.  It was the way of females, to want to be with the strongest male.  If Acksel chose Brynn as his mate, she would be vulnerable to the females until they were officially mated through a ceremony on the full moon.  Although the females had no real ranking in the pack, they would be accountable to the female who was mated to the alpha; therefore she needed to be able to stand up for herself against them and prove that she could protect them and care for them.  Acksel knew that Brynn would be destroyed by the females.  Each full moon when he took a female for sex before the hunt, they would fight with each other for the right to come to his bed.

And more than being able to stand up to the females, the mate that Acksel chose would have a target on her back and would be a point of weakness against him.  A female wolf had extra strength and speed and could shift.  A human had none of those things.  Brynn would be vulnerable in ways that a wolf would not be.

Just being in bed with him now was dangerous for her, if anyone should find out about them.  He glanced down the length of her body as it pressed against his side and knew he would die before he let a hair on her head be harmed.

To keep her safe, he would walk away.  The only way to ensure that no one ever knew how much he cared for her was to never see or speak to her again.  It would kill him, but he would do whatever it took to see that she was safe from harm, even if it meant that they couldn’t be together.  He wished he hadn’t been drunk, that the time they spent together was clearer in his mind and not hazed with alcohol so it felt like a dream and not reality.  But he would cherish this moment for the rest of his life.

Although his wolf protested loudly in his mind as he slipped silently from her bed, he gathered his clothes from the foot of her bed and walked out of the bedroom.  Dressing quickly, he left her home, locking the door on the way out.

The scent of cinnamon caught him by surprise and he turned around to look at the front door.  A wreath made of cinnamon hung on the door, tied with a red ribbon.  As he stepped off the porch, the scent of cinnamon still hung in the air and he glanced at the bushes that lined the porch and caught the scent coming from them.  It followed him all the way down the walk to the street, where he jogged away, trying to clear the scent of cinnamon — and his mate — from his mind.

* * * * *

Friday evening, Brynn stood at her closet wrapped in a towel, staring at the contents.  She hadn’t canceled her date with Xavier.  Even though Acksel had rocked her universe, the way he slipped out while she was asleep without even leaving a note had not stopped bothering her all day.  He could have left a note.  He could have sent her a text.  She had gotten his number from Mia that morning; he could have done the same.  Even just a “hey it was nice to see you again” or “thanks for being so great in bed.”  But nothing.  And she’d hated how bummed out she felt about it.

The despair she’d seen when he banged on her front door in the middle of the night was clearly brought on by too much alcohol.  The sex?  Well, that was harder to explain.  Maybe he was just a horny wolf and she’d never seen that side of him.  But the lack of a note or a call...well, she clearly hadn’t meant anything to him.  And she wasn’t sure why she’d thought she would.

She bit the bullet and called him that afternoon, leaving a message when he didn’t answer.  She hoped that she sounded more lighthearted than she felt.  After several hours of hopeful waiting for Acksel to return her call, she decided to keep her date with Xavier.  Her phone buzzed, dancing on top of her dresser.  She reached for it and saw that Mia was calling.

“Hey, B,” Mia said when Brynn answered.  “Did you get what you needed from Acksel?”

Choking back a laugh, Brynn said, “No.”  She could hear how bummed she sounded and so she straightened her back and shook off the sour feeling.  “But it’s not a big deal.  I thought he was the right one to talk to, but turns out that I was totally wrong so I’m going in a different direction.”

Mia was quiet for a moment.  “Did something happen, B?”

Brynn had never lied to her best friend, but this was not something she could really share with her.  It was humiliating to be an unwitting partner in a one-night stand.  Especially since Mia knew that Brynn had liked him for years.

“Nope.  But I’m glad you called.  What the heck should I wear on my date?”

“Ah, the good doctor,” Mia said a little too cheerfully, which told Brynn that her friend didn’t believe that
nothing
had happened but was being nice enough to let it go.  For now.

Ten minutes later, Mia had coached her through choosing an outfit of black slacks, a turquoise blouse, and her favorite pair of strappy black heels.  When she ended the call with Mia, she fixed her hair, put on make-up, and grabbed a small clutch from a shelf in her closet.

She’d been disappointed her whole life by her mom’s actions.  She’d gotten used to people that she cared about letting her down.  But her dad had never let her down, and neither had Mia.  The situation with Acksel reminded her a little too much of how she’d waited for her mom to call on special occasions and how often she’d been disappointed.  She was no longer the young teen who would cry into her pillow and be upset for days when her mom had missed a birthday or holiday.  She was a strong, independent woman about to go out on a date.  Pushing the last thought of Acksel into the far reaches of her mind, she headed for the front door when the bell rang, ready to move on with the next chapter of her life.

* * * * *

The sky was beginning to darken on the night of the September full moon as Acksel stood on his back porch and looked out over his pack.  They were somber and mostly silent, although some members spoke quietly as they waited.  The time between his declaration that the pack laws were changing and the full moon had passed swiftly as he’d thrown himself into restructuring the pack.

He could admit that he’d purposely kept himself busy so he didn’t have time to think about Brynn.  The afternoon after their night together, she’d left a message for him.  The call had nearly broken him, the way she’d attempted humor at him taking off in the middle of the night without a note.  But then her voice had cracked with emotion at the end as she asked him to call her.  He didn’t delete the message or any of the other ones that she left.  She’d called two more times in the last two weeks.  He’d watched her number flash on the screen as he let it ring, tempted to answer but knowing he couldn’t.  Telling himself over and over that it was better this way.  Better that she hate him and stay safe than for him to gamble with her life.

He was an asshole of the highest order.

Shoving thoughts of Brynn into the dark corners of his mind, he turned his attention back to the pack.  His sister and dad were standing in the front, smiling in support.  Although Eveny still didn’t trust him completely because of what he’d done, she had forgiven him, and that was a start.  Looking over the pack, he was heartened by the people he saw there.  He’d lost many in the last few weeks — aside from the four that had tried to attack Eveny, three families had packed up and left Wilde Creek and two protectors who had spoken up against Eveny during the last pack meeting had taken off as well.  But there were some younger wolves who could step up into protector roles, and Acksel was determined to see the pack survive this upset.

Acksel nodded to Auro, and his beta called the pack to order.  Everyone fell quiet.  He didn’t really want to say anything, but he knew he needed to address his people as he did each full moon.  Acksel said, “The full moon is a time of celebration for our people, not a time of regrets.  As we move forward, remember that we will always be the Wilde Creek Pack.”

He lifted his head and howled, the sound tearing from his throat.  The pack joined him, their voices rising with his.  When the last howl died, they milled around.  Some, like his father, stripped and shifted immediately, going off into the woods to hunt.  Some wolves coupled up and wandered into the woods to have sex before they hunted.  Unmated wolves didn’t fear pregnancy because a female could only get pregnant during her heat, and that happened in September.  There were a few females in heat now, but they were mated and with their mates in the privacy of their own homes.  Most of the females in the pack had gone through their heats earlier in the month, including his sister.