THE ALPHA's MATE: A Romantic Thriller

by Jennifer Winget

  What are you doing?! Follow her! Knox screams to me.

  Quickly snapping out of my daze, I catch up to her right before she enters the den. Turning around quickly, she places her hand on my chest to stop my movement, “I am trusting you, Axton,” she whispers, “Please don’t break her heart.”

  Leaving me with that, she walks into the room. I hesitantly stand in the doorway and take in what it is she is trusting me with.

  Sitting in the middle of the floor is Zea. She’s playing with some toys I had Reid go fetch while she was sleeping so she had something to play with. Giving her a light smile, she turns her focus back to Ellie.

  “Hey sweetheart, what are you playing with?” she asks as she sits down next to Zea.

  “Just toys that Uncle Reid brought me,” she giggles, “Do you want to play, mom?”

  “I would love to,” Ellie says, “But first, I have someone I would like you to meet.” Standing up to her feet, Ellie pulls Zea in front of her, “Honey, I would like you to meet you father.”

  Zea’s eyes connect with mine as she takes in what Ellie said. Smiling still, I walk into the room and bend down to her height.

  “You’re my dad?” her voice sounds shy and unsure.

  Nodding my head gently, I answer her, “Yeah baby girl. I’m your dad.”

  She looked down at the ground a moment before lifting her head back up to me, “Would you like to play too?”

  “I would love to,” I tell her, looking back up to Ellie as her smile reflects my own.

  * * *

  “No! No! You’re doing it all wrong!” Zea yells to me as I try to mix the chocolate into the brownie mix.

  “I’m following the directions on the box,” I tell her as she leans over the counter from the stool she is on to see inside the bowl.

  “I’m afraid she’s right, Axton,” Ellie comments as she walks up next to me to inspect the issue, but I can see her trying to hold in a laugh.

  “And what per say is so wrong?” I ask her, completely bewildered on how there is a wrong way to make brownies.

  “Do you want to tell him Zea or shall I?” she laughs, turning to our daughter.

  “I do!” she yells, “First you have to add the sugar and eggs, or it tastes all mussy.”

  “But aren’t they all mixed together anyway?” I ask, confused by why the order matters.

  “Because it tastes different,” Ellie whispers to me before removing the bowl from in front of me, giving me an award-winning smile as she did so.

  “I don’t see a difference,” I tell her as I move closer to her, grabbing her waist and turning her to face me.

  “Of course you don’t, but you’re just going to have to trust me,” she says as she places her hands on my chest. I lean closer to her, but the swinging of the kitchen door brought us out of our serene.

  “I heard she was back!” the intruder yelled, laughing.

  “Rolfe,” Ellie turned away, smiling toward him as she escaped my hands to greet my uncle.

  My Uncle Rolfe was my father’s brother and beta. He was there for me when my father died and when I lost Ellie. He helped raise my sister. He was the only family we had left after my mother and father passed.

  “Oh, I heard you were back,” he smiled giving Ellie a huge hug.

  “It’s good to see you Rolfe. I have missed you,” Ellie said as I moved to stand next to her.

  He smiled as he released her from his hold only to turn on me, “Axton, how could you not tell me Ellie was hear immediately?” he questioned playfully, “You know she is my favorite niece next to your sister. Oh, and where is your daughter?”

  I give him a questioning look. I hadn’t told him about Ellie being pregnant when she left. As far as I know, the pack still thinks Zea is Luna Layla’s, “How do you know about Zea?” I question him.

  He seems frozen for a millisecond, but his face morphs so quickly it’s as if I imagined him thinking about it, “Well I was speaking to your beta last night about upping the security around the house and getting personal guards for both your mate and daughter,” he explains, “Once the rogues who have been attacking learn that you have a daughter, they will come for her and for your mate.”

  I growled at the thought, pulling Ellie closer to me, “I won’t let that happen.”

  “I know, and since I already knew that you would want a detail, I sent a few files to your office of guards. You can look them over later,” he tells me, “Now, do I get to meet her?” he asks Ellie.

  “Of course,” she says, pushing herself out of my grasp and walking over to Zea, who is currently licking the chocolate out of the bowl of brownie mix. Her laugh sounded like the perfect song as she wiped the mess Zea made on her face.

  “Zea, this is your Uncle Rolfe. Rolfe, this is Zea,” Ellie said introducing him.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Zea,” Rolfe smiles at her, but Zea just looks at him with a strange expression before scooting back into the counter.

  “Mom, can I go play with my toys?” she asks, moving further from Rolfe.

  “Of course, sweetheart,” Ellie tells her as Zea runs out of the room, “I wonder what-”

  “She’ll warm up to me,” Rolfe interrupts her, “It will take time for her to adjust to everything.”

  Ellie nodded her head almost hesitantly, before looking off to the door Zea just went through, “Yeah, maybe.”

  Rolfe went on to talk about something else, but I continued watching Ellie as she got a distant look in her eyes. Something was bothering her about Zea. She spoke so quietly, I almost didn’t pick up what she said even with wolf hearing, “Or it’s something worse.”

  Chapter 16

  Ellie POV

  I couldn’t get my mind off of Zea’s reaction toward Rolfe. It didn’t make sense for her to be so terrified of him.

  I first met Rolfe the night Axton introduced me to his family.

  I was a complete mess and I couldn’t stop shaking no matter how many times Axton told me that everything would be alright. My mind just kept going to what they would think and whether they would like me, but that all changed the second we walked in the door.

  They welcomed me in with open arms and huge smiles. They seemed as happy as I was that Axton had found his mate. I seemed to fit right in, and since the loss of my parents, I felt like I was finally at home.

  It was that night that I first met Rolfe. During dinner, there was a rogue attack. A few rogues decided to cross the border and try to make trouble with the pack, so Axton and his father, the Alpha at the time, left to take care of it.

  They weren’t gone for long before a rogue came crashing into the house. The rogues that crossed the border were a distraction and this one was waiting for the Alpha to leave so he could come after the Luna. He charged right at her while I put myself between them, but before he reached us, another wolf came barreling through the house.

  Rolfe, the beta at the time, killed the rogue. He protected the Luna and me. Since then, I have always known him as a kind person, always one who wanted to protect his family.

  But it has been seven years since I last spoke to him. He may not be the same person he used to be.

  We shouldn’t trust him, Raelynn said. He scares our pup.

  But I don’t understand why, I tell her, There has to be a reason. Something Zea can sense. She would be able to feel who he truly is, I just don’t know what she senses.

  Keep him away from Zea, she says before closing off the conversation.

  I was so focused on thinking about Rolfe, I didn’t even hear it when he left the room. Axton came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, “Hey, are you okay? You seemed to go somewhere else for a second.”

  “Hmm, oh yeah. I’m fine, don’t worry,” I tell him as he gives me a soft kiss on my neck.

  I don’t understand what’s going on with Axton. I know that I want to believe that he truly wants this, wants a family. But I still have that fear in the back of my mind that he will reject us again, if he
even rejected us the first time.

  Everything about that night still confused me. I know what I saw and I know what I felt was a true rejection, but I could still feel the amazing electricity my mate’s touch caused. I don’t know what to believe is real anymore.

  “You did it again,” he mumbles as he kisses my neck again.

  “Sorry,” I whisper to him as I turn in his arms, but when I look up at him, his eyes are still zeroed in on my neck, “Axton? What’s wrong?”

  “Your mark,” that was all he said but I knew what he meant. The scar, “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I lied as I tried to cover it with my hand. I didn’t really want to bring up those memories, especially with Zea in the next room.

  “It’s not nothing, Ellie. What happened?” he said, anger and confusion and hurt all laced into his tone.

  I looked past him to the little girl in the other room, “Not here,” I tell him as I motion to our daughter, “I’ll tell you tonight. I promise.”

  He nodded his head, but it didn’t seem like he really wanted to let go of the subject. I knew he was going to be angry when he saw the scar.

  Cortez’s reminder, as he called it. Like I could ever forget that torture.

  Axton went to say something, but Walker beat him to the punch as he slammed open the front door, “Morning!” he yelled out.

  “Walker,” I scolded him playfully, “That is not how you come into a house.”

  “Well Luna, without your loving guidance and expertise on the subject of etiquette, it seems all the pups will just have to learn from me,” he smiled as he came up to us.

  I was about to comment on his remark when what he said finally connected to me.

  “Wait a minute, you’re teaching a class?” I asked, bewildered on why Axton would ever allow him to spoil that minds of the young.

  “I thought Sawyer was doing that?” Axton asked.

  “She was, but she’s sick. So it’s up to me to shape the minds of today’s youth,” a grin on his face.

  “No, not happening,” I tell him, “I’ll do it.”

  “What?” he looked shocked, but relief quickly shows through, “Thank god. I thought I would actually have to teach a bunch of pups. Will you really do it, El?”

  “Yes, if it means you never try to shape the minds of our youth,” I tell him, before turning to Axton, “Is the training center still in the same place?”

  “Yes, everything is in the same place,” he stated, but I could see sadness at him remembering that I had left.

  “Good. Will you watch Zea while I’m gone?” I ask him hesitantly, still unable to fully trust him.

  He lights up at my small request, “Of course. Good luck and be back by five. Pack barbeque is tonight,” he tells me before kissing my head and walking quickly into the other room to sit down next to his daughter.

  I watch for a second as they interact with each other. There is no hesitation in Zea’s love for her father and the same love for her seems to be in his eyes. It was exactly how it should have been all along. Maybe there was more to that night seven years ago that I didn’t know about yet.

  “Are you sure?” Walker whispered beside me as we both watched them, “I mean, I know Axton would never hurt either of you, but after what you said happened and what you believed for so long to be true, do you truly trust Axton?”

  “I want to. More than anything,” I tell him honestly, “I just hope he doesn’t prove me wrong.”

  I laughed as I made my way back to the pack house.

  “Thank you again for your help today, Luna. I don’t know what we would have done if we had been stuck with Walker’s help,” Jade said, her red hair blowing past her shoulders as a gust of wind picked up.

  Jade was the pack doctor and she volunteered to teach the kids with Sawyer. She was a little under my age, but we had been close friends when I first came here seven years ago. It seemed to me the years had been different for her than I had known. Her stressors were medical situations and kids running around. Mine were running from my mate and from darkness.

  “It was no problem, Jade, and please just call me Ellie like everyone used to,” I tell her.

  “Alright Ellie,” she says before pausing a second before asking me the question I could see was forming in her eyes since I first walked into that class, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about why you left,” she starts before quickly interrupting herself, blabbering, “and I mean I total get that. You don’t have to talk about that and that wasn’t what I was going to ask you, and-”

  I cut her off, “It’s okay. What was it that you wanted to ask me?”

  “Well, it’s not about why you left, I promise.”

  “Then what is it about?” I was actually curious about what kind of point she was trying to make.

  “Why you came back,” she said so quietly that I almost missed it.

  “What?” I said confused.

  “I know you must have had your reasons for leaving and for staying gone, but what after all these years made you finally come back?”

  Her question gave me pause. Not once has anyone asked that since I’ve been back. Axton had been so focused on why I left and trying to make me stay, that not even he asked me what made me come running back. No one knew what I was trying to hide my daughter from.

  “That’s a complicated question, Jade,” I tell her, “With an even more complicated answer.”

  “I think I’ll understand it,” she says before witting down on the bench outside the pack house. We were talking so much on the way back, I hadn’t even realized we she had stopped us outside the front door, “So, why did you come back?”

  “I was forced to. Things happened when I left, and the past finally caught up,” I told her a bit vaguely, in order to stop her from prying, but no such luck.

  “That wasn’t an answer, Ellie,” she says as she reaches out her hand to rest on mine. She may be younger than me and smaller than me, but she had this sense around her that was comforting and nonthreatening. It’s probably what makes her an even better pack doctor.

  “The pack I was staying with was attacked.”

  “Blue Moon. That’s why Luna Layla came here,” she says.

  “Yes. I sent Layla here in order to protect Zea. I knew that even if Axton didn’t know she was his, that he would protect her because she was with Layla. It was the only thing I could think of in that moment.”

  “What happened after Layla took Zea?” she asked.

  “I made it back to the attack, and then I was captured along with some of the pack. The rogues were looking for someone.”

  “By who?” she asked, gripping my hand even tighter, “Who attacked? What was his name? Did he have anyone else with him?”

  “How do you know it was a he?” I asked, a little worried about all these questions. Why was she so interested?

  “Rogues are usually male,” she says, but the hesitation in her voice suggests that’s not the reason, “Please just tell me, was there anyone else during the attack? Anyone who wasn’t a rogue?”