The Alpha's Promise

by Renee Rose

  He eased out of her and scooped her into his arms, carrying her into the shower where he turned the spray on both of them.

  Melissa wobbled on her feet, so he held her up with an arm around her waist, spooning her from behind as she stood facing the spray of water. After a moment, he gently rotated her to rinse her back, running his hands down her back, parting her cheeks to wash away his seed.

  Her arms looped around his neck and she clung there, as if he was the buoy that kept her from washing out to sea. He kissed her temple, her jaw, her hair. He found himself wanting to whisper promises to her, but nothing came to mind that he could keep.

  She didn’t belong to him—wasn’t his mate. He’d already determined it wouldn’t work between them. Why then, did his body seem so desperate to keep her?

  * * *

  An hour later, Cody was manning the grill. It seemed to be the only kind of cooking he did, which was fine with her. He looked damn good when he did it, his t-shirt fitting tight over the muscles of his chest, ass sexy in those faded blue jeans.

  He noticed her watching from the porch and smiled. The boyish grin lacked all of the cocky attitude he’d given her when they first met, the openness in his face a startling difference.

  How had she changed?

  She’d just called him sir, for one thing—something she would’ve sworn she’d never do. And she’d lost her anal virginity—that was huge, too. But more than that, it seemed like he’d knocked down the walls she had, refinished her like one of his CJ Steele homes. Structurally, she remained the same, but everything inside had changed.

  Cody piled a stack of bratwurst onto a plate and met her on the steps. His hand fell on her very sore ass and he squeezed.

  She sucked in her breath over her teeth.

  He didn’t let go, stroking and squeezing again. “Sore, baby?”

  She tried to muster some indignation at his rubbing it in, but instead only that gooey melting of her will happened. Surrender.

  Still holding the plate of food with one hand, he burrowed his fingers into her hair, tipped her face up to his and claimed her mouth with a hard, punishing kiss. “Come on,” he murmured. “I’ll feed you.”

  He’ll feed her.

  Since when did men feed her? When had anyone looked after her half as well as he had? Yeah, there had been the Walmart clothing fiasco, but in retrospect, she saw the humor in it. His protection and care had come grudgingly first, but now she was sure he enjoyed her company. Or maybe it was just the post-coital bliss talking.

  She followed him inside and watched him fork three sausages onto buns on a plate and hand it to her.

  “Whoa, that’s too many,” she protested.

  He smirked and took two back. “Are you a one sausage girl, princess? I could’ve sworn you just enjoyed double penetration.”

  She slapped his chest. “Would you stop with your cocky—”

  He cut off her tirade with another kiss.

  She melted after a moment, moving her lips against his, allowing his tongue entry. “I’ll stop,” he said softly when he pulled away. “Take these to the couch.” He handed her two plates of food and gave her ass a light slap. “Want a glass of wine?”

  She stopped on her way to the couch. “Do you have any?” All she’d seen was Budweiser in the fridge.

  He grinned. “I might have a bottle stashed around here for when I want to woo a woman.”

  She tossed her still-damp hair over her shoulder. “Is that what you’re doing now?”

  “Nope.” He spoke without hesitation. “I already own you, princess.”

  Then why don’t you mark me?

  Dang, did she really want him to mark her? To spend the rest of her life as his mate? That couldn’t be. She just didn’t like the sense of inadequacy produced by his determination not to mark her.

  Cody walked over and handed her a glass of pinot noir and a bag of ruffled potato chips with salt and vinegar, just the way she liked them.

  She snapped it open and dumped a handful on each of their plates while he returned to the kitchen for his beer.

  “So did you like the house? What you saw of it?” he smirked, probably remembering how her visit to the house had ended.

  “Yes. I’m going to put an offer on it.”

  “Are you? How much?”

  “Well, it’s a little out of my range, but I’m going to go full price and submit the offer tonight, otherwise I’ll lose it.”

  He gave her curious look and rubbed a smudge of mustard from his lower lip. “Nah. You should lowball it. Offer the price you can afford. You never know, he might take it.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to lose this house. They don’t come around that often, and I need a place to live right away. The timing is perfect. Besides, his agent is an ass, remember? He would laugh in my face if I submitted a lowball offer.”

  Cody stared at her with an odd expression for a moment, then applied himself to eating his brat. “Are you sure it’s the right house?” he asked after a moment. “It’s pretty small.”

  She snorted. “Like I could afford any bigger. No, it’s perfect. Just what I’ve always dreamed of.”

  Cody looked thoughtful as he inhaled his food but he didn’t mention it again. After they ate, she washed the plates and set them in the drying rack, poured a fresh glass of wine, and sat on the couch with her Chromebook to send Brad Johnson the offer on the house while she watched a movie.

  Cody plunked down beside her, tossed an arm around her shoulders and took the remote from her hands. “I drive, baby. What are you looking for?”

  She rolled her eyes, but frankly was relieved. She didn’t watch much television and sucked at figuring out what to watch. “Chick flick,” she said, just to test his reaction.

  Both his eyebrows raised. “Are you serious?”

  “Not really. I don’t care.” She cracked open the Chromebook to prepare the paperwork.

  “You don’t care? Come on, give me more to work with than that.”

  “I honestly don’t care.”

  He frowned at her. “Chick flick it is,” he groaned.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cody picked up Stone’s money from his bank. He’d felt like a bank robber, packing all that cash into a duffel bag that he stowed under the seat of his truck.

  Afterward, he drove to Starbucks. He could hardly believe he was doing it, but Melissa had asked about coffee the first morning and he’d blown off her request every day since. She deserved it after putting up with his overbearing crap.

  After the way she’d surrendered.

  He’d been up the night before, staring at the text from his realtor, Brad Johnson, about her offer on the house. On one hand, he wanted her to have it. He’d loved her perspective about there being a perfect buyer for a house. Someone who would love it as much as he did. Yes, he wanted Melissa living in one of his houses.

  The trouble was, he wasn’t sure he wanted her in that house.

  He’d been starting to picture her in a different house altogether. One he’d love remodeling just for her. And him.

  The thought of keeping Melissa, marking her and making her his made his shifter blood sing. The wolf wanted her. The wolf didn’t seem to care that she was only one quarter shifter. That their children would probably never be able to shift. That he’d lose his position as alpha because his mate was weak.

  But beyond his intense physical need for her, there was more. He’d begun to understand her better. His initial assessment of her as a diva may have been off. She worked weekends as a bartender to get by—she was no stranger to hard work. She’d put up with a loser boyfriend out of a fierce sense of loyalty. He may think it was totally misplaced, but he admired the hell out of the sentiment. She bonded like a shifter.

  She was sweet as honey when he wasn’t being an asshat and despite her frequent displays of defiance, had an innate response to dominance. Every time he’d won her surrender had been spectacular. Tender. Beautiful. He’d never felt so
connected to another being—shifter or human—in his life.

  So yeah, she deserved coffee this morning. And if he could wrap his mind around how to make it work mating her, a house.

  He got out of his car to stand in line, staring at the board with the huge array of choices. Damn. He should’ve asked what kind of coffee drink she liked instead of trying to surprise her with it when she woke.

  For the first time, ever, he really cared about making a female—his female—happy.

  His phone rang and he frowned, glancing at a number he didn’t recognize.

  “This is Steele.”

  “I need your help.” He recognized the tight, desperate voice immediately. The new female shifter in town.

  “What is it?” he asked sharply.

  “Jayden—my son—he was hit by a car. The humans took him to a hospital in an ambulance.”

  “And now you’ll be found by whomever you’re running from,” he finished. Unless the car had crushed his skull, the boy would recover from the car accident in no time. Far too quickly for doctors to understand. What’s more, his mother would have to show identification and give his name or risk alerting Child Protective Services.

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “St. Francis.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  He abandoned the coffee shop and climbed in his truck. For a brief moment, he considered picking up Melissa, because she might be better at soothing the distraught mother, but then realized how dangerous it would be for her to get in the middle of a shifter war.

  He texted her as he drove off, letting her know the situation and telling her to sit tight and contact him if she had an emergency.

  As he drove to the hospital, he remembered the boy. Jayden had had the look of a beaten street dog. Signs of past abuse were in his wary eyes and gaunt face, but the way he watched Cody, responded to his offer of money showed he was smart and eager to please. He needed to help these three. He’d be damned if he let whoever had them scared pick them up out of his territory.

  He dialed the number Colleen—or whatever her real name was—had called him from when he arrived at St. Francis and found the terrified family in a small exam room in the children’s ward. No doctors or nurses were around to see them, so he wasted no time and asked no questions. He simply scooped the boy up, craned his neck to make sure the corridor was clear, and carried the boy out. The boy’s mom and sister followed tight on his heels, on board with his silent departure.

  “What happened, kid?” he asked as he jogged down the stairs, having decided the elevator was too public for their escape.

  He scented fear on the boy, who must be around ten or eleven years old. “I got hit by a car,” he mumbled.

  “What hurts?”

  “My head. And my leg was broken.” He used the past tense because the leg would already be mostly healed, although the family seemed malnourished, which would affect his ability to regenerate. It explained why his mother’s missing teeth had only partially regrown.

  “You’ll feel better in few hours.” He opened the passenger side door to his pickup truck and tilted the seat forward to let the mother and girl climb in the back. “What’s your name?”

  “Jayden.”

  “How about you?” he asked the girl.

  “Angie.”

  He dropped the boy on the front seat and shut the door. It didn’t appear anyone had noticed their hasty departure.

  “How far would they be coming from?” he asked Colleen as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

  “Kentucky.” Her voice cracked.

  “How many?”

  “The pack is huge—a hundred fifty members. If only the men came, it would be eighty or ninety.”

  He gritted his teeth. His pack would be no match for them. Ben’s could handle them, however. The question was, did he want this to be his return favor from the guy? He didn’t relish releasing that debt quite so soon and for something that wasn’t really his deal. But he wasn’t going to leave this woman unprotected, either.

  “I’m going to take you back to my place until we figure out the best strategy. I might want to hide you up in Denver where there’s a bigger pack to protect you if there’s trouble.”

  She shook her head. “Bigger pack means more wolves who might know… him. Or talk.”

  “We’ll take that into consideration.” Irritation with the situation in general made his tone sharper than he meant.

  In the rearview mirror, he saw her flinch and duck her head. “Sorry, alpha.”

  He blew out his breath in exasperation. He was trying to win her trust, not bully her into submission. “Forgiven,” he muttered.

  He pulled up at his place and carried the boy inside, Colleen and Angie trailing behind.

  Melissa met them at the door, brow furrowed with concern. She bustled around, offering food and beverage, and when they were refused, preparing a plate of pancakes, sliced apples, and a pile of strawberries, anyway. She dropped them on the coffee table with syrup, plates, and forks.

  The kids immediately reached for the food, devouring everything in five minutes flat. Melissa picked it up and prepared a second plate, which she brought with glasses of orange juice.

  He said little, working on finding a show on the television to occupy the kids so the adults could talk, watching Melissa with gratitude. Her cheery small talk filled the space, easing the tension and distracting the children.

  * * *

  Melissa noticed Cody wore that vaguely concerned look he’d worn during the pack meeting, like too much rode on his shoulders and he wanted to get it all right.

  “Let’s talk out on the back porch—the kids are fine in here,” he said.

  She stood up, then hesitated, not sure if he meant her, too, or if he wanted privacy talking to Colleen.

  He caught her indecision and nodded. “You can come, too.” To Colleen, he said, “She’s a friend of the pack and under our protection. She can be trusted.”

  Colleen didn’t quite meet her eye, but mumbled, “She’s part wolf.”

  “How did you know?” she asked in surprise.

  The gaunt woman shrugged. “I can just tell.”

  Cody gave a vague smile. “Your wolf instincts are better than mine; I didn’t guess it right away.”

  “I’ve had to use them for survival on a daily basis.”

  They sat down on the back steps, since Cody didn’t own any patio furniture.

  He rested his forearms on his knees, hands caged loosely between them. “So talk.”

  The woman didn’t seem taken aback by his bluntness. Maybe it was a shifter thing. Her brother-in-law was pretty direct, too. She remembered Ashley calling her the day she met him and likening him to Batman with his brooding, monosyllabic authority.

  Colleen smoothed her blond hair, fidgeting with the ends. She had blue-green eyes and a pretty, heart-shaped face. Melissa had originally pegged her as older because of the strain on her gaunt face, but now that she observed, the woman seemed too young to have children half-grown. She couldn’t be much older than Melissa.

  “Our alpha wants us back. He’s my mate. Or at least, he thinks he is.” Something in the stony way she said the last sentence gave a glimpse of the steel that lay beneath that kicked dog vibe.

  Melissa almost smiled.

  “You left him.” Cody’s words sounded more like a statement than question.

  Colleen nodded. “My sister helped us get away after he beat Jayden so badly he didn’t heal for school.”

  She felt the blood drain from her face.

  Cody’s eyes flicked to hers, and she remembered their quarrel from the day before. She’d been wrong. Cody was nothing like this woman’s husband, or mate—whatever she called him. Only a monster would beat a child like that.

  “We’ve been on the run for a month. I haven’t been able to get much work, other than cleaning houses. I didn’t want to use my I.D. anywhere, in case he could trace it.”
She shrugged her too-thin shoulders. “I don’t know how these things work.”

  “I’m not sure, either. I think if he’s filed a missing person report on the three of you, then there is a chance you showing up at that hospital will alert the police in his area. We have a friend in law enforcement who might be able to fill us in.”

  “I appreciate your help. Both of you.” She looked at Colleen. “You were really nice to my kids, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a friendly face.” Her eyes swam with tears.

  Melissa moved to sit closer to her, hesitating, then putting a tentative hand on her back and rubbing. “We won’t let anyone take you or your kids,” she promised, meeting Cody’s eye to demand his agreement.

  “No, we won’t.” His sober gaze rested on her face and she saw such honor and kindness there it nearly undid her.

  * * *

  After everyone ate the pizza Cody had ordered in for dinner, he dragged Melissa into the garage for a word in private. Her comment the day before about violence and abuse had put him on the defensive, but now, being up close and personal with domestic abuse, he needed to try to explain things to her.

  She looked at him expectantly, her big eyes watchful.

  “Listen, Melissa.” He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “What you said yesterday—”

  “I’m sorry,” she cut in. “I know it’s not the same.”

  Surprised, a rush of warmth went through him. She’d been amazing with the family—working to put Colleen at ease and make the children comfortable. She may not be a shifter, but she had the sort of hostess/pack mother skills that made her the perfect mate for an alpha.

  “We are… physical. That’s true. We heal quickly, so showing dominance with a little pain never causes anyone lasting harm.”

  A shadow crossed her face.

  “A dominant male is the most aggressive, but he also has a built-in need to protect—especially those much weaker than him, like pups.” He gestured toward the house. It made him sick to think of an alpha wolf abusing those poor children. “And the mechanism to ensure a female’s safety is simple. Her tears trigger an instant response in her mate. They calm all aggression and produce a powerful need to solve whatever problem is making her cry. So punishing a mate to the point of tears isn’t easy for a male. In a situation like Colleen’s, something’s gone terribly wrong. A wolf would have to be sick in the head to hurt his own pups and mate like that.”