Alpha Bear (Alpha Bites #2)

by Mandy Rosko

  “What?” Lois looked at both women. “Are you serious?”

  Miranda’s neck was clenched, as if hearing that had made her hiss.

  Lois looked at her. “Can you hear them, too?”

  “A little, but I can’t really make out any words through the music,” Miranda admitted, looking at her. Her hazel eyes were concerned. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  Lois stared at her friend. “You can’t be serious. Are you serious?”

  Miranda shrugged, and it was telling how she refused to meet Lois’s eyes. “I nearly killed you.”

  Lois pointed at her. “That was an accident. You wouldn’t do that. Not when you’re in your right mind.”

  Miranda had been lost to the animal inside her. Some cross between a wolf and a fox. Those two animals wouldn’t normally breed in the wild, but when it came to people, to shifters, well, things were different.

  “Yeah, well, there’s apparently some very angry shifter out there who doesn’t care that he nearly watched me tear you apart. Dennis is trying to hurt the people in this pack, and while you’re here, that includes you.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t forget.”

  Dennis was the reason why Miranda had lost control. Lois had thought she could talk her friend down, help her regain control, but she’d nearly gotten herself killed. She would be dead if Dane hadn’t rushed in out of nowhere and saved her life.

  And the fact that they wanted to send her away infuriated her. “You can’t seriously be thinking about sending me away. I’m your best friend, I got kidnapped looking for you, and it was worth it, just so you know.”

  “I know.”

  Anna tapped Lois’s knee.

  Lois sighed. “What? What’s the matter?”

  Anna still watched her brother and the other alphas with interest. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere. Garret doesn’t sound like he trusts you enough to just let you go yet.”

  Lois sighed, leaning back against the steps of the deck. She barely noticed the discomfort of the wood digging into her back.

  And Anna and Miranda were staring at her. “What?”

  Both women looked at each other, then back at her.

  “You want to stay here?” Miranda asked.

  Anna smiled. “I think it’s great!”

  “Thank you, Anna,” Lois said.

  “Lois, it’s dangerous here. I know you like Dane and everything—”

  “I knew it!” Anna said.

  “I don’t like him,” Lois said.

  Both women stared at her. Miranda with disbelief and Anna with that excited smile.

  Lois rolled her eyes. “I think he’s cute and interesting, but that has nothing to do with anything. He doesn’t even like me.”

  “Then why are you pursuing him?” Anna asked.

  She looked like a little girl with pigtails in that moment, her knees bouncing like she’d just found her first piece of juicy gossip and could hardly contain herself.

  And Lois was caught. She opened her mouth to say something back, but nothing came. She was stuck, and Anna’s smile got wider. “You like Dane!”

  “Jeez.” Lois looked back at the alphas. They were so busy talking they didn’t seem to be paying attention to what was going around her.

  But there were other people on the property. Omegas. Katie, the woman who used to be in charge of Dane’s recovery, had said she was an omega, and aside from some betas, most everyone else in the pack were omegas.

  In fact, if a total stranger were to be spying on this vast, green backyard, they might see what looked like a four or five family dogs playing and wrestling on the grass, except they weren’t dogs. They were wolves.

  Lois didn’t exactly want them knowing about this either.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t like me. He’s made that clear.”

  The look in Miranda’s eyes changed. “Oh my God, Lois, are you serious? You like him?”

  “And that’s all it is,” Lois said. “He saved my life, and he’s a strong and handsome man. It’s perfectly normal for me to be feeling things for him, and soon it will go away.”

  “Oh, Lois, that’s so sad.”

  “Thank you, Anna. That’s very helpful.”

  Anna put her arms around Lois’s shoulders, shocking her. “Sure thing, whatever you need.”

  Lois awkwardly pet the woman’s back. Miranda shook her head. Lois looked back at the alphas as they spoke about her, and now she knew why Dane seemed so animated and agitated. He was trying to get rid of her, and Garret didn’t trust that she wouldn’t open her mouth on a blog or something. Hell, she wasn’t even allowed to have a cell phone or access to a computer. Garret didn’t give Miranda any of those things when she came to spend time with Lois because he didn’t want his mate to give any of those things to Lois.

  And Dane was fighting to get rid of her. There should not have been a sharp pain in her chest from that, but it was there, and she was hurt. That actually physically hurt.

  Which was incredibly stupid because she didn’t know this man. This shouldn’t hurt her at all—that a man she didn’t know and had virtually no connection with didn’t want anything to do with her. Why was it bothering her so much?

  Dane looked her way, and Lois had to look away from his green eyes as they bored into hers. He seemed to see everything she was thinking, and Lois didn’t think she could handle that.

  He didn’t like her, but that was all right. Lois was only sticking close because she owed him. If the omegas wouldn’t take care of him, then it was up to her to do it. These feelings she had for him just because he was handsome, strong, had saved her life, and was a mysterious were-bear shifter would go away soon.

  Hopefully.

  * * *

  It didn’t feel good that she wouldn’t meet his eyes. It especially didn’t help things that one of Anna’s girly songs was playing in the background while he stared at the red-haired woman. It was like the soundtrack to some movie. The fact that he knew the name of the band and the title of the song meant he heard Anna blasting that shit in her room way too much.

  “Hey Angel,” by One-fucking-Direction. The wind gusted up around her hair in slow motion, and she pushed the loose strands that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. She wore rose earrings. He’d never noticed those on her before, but lately they were all he saw on her. He couldn’t remember if she’d been wearing them that first day he’d met her or if Anna had lent them to her, but they fit her. They looked good on her.

  Dane bit his lips together. “She can’t stay here.”

  “Well, she’s seen too much, so she can’t leave either,” Jax said.

  “You are an unhelpful asshole,” Dane replied.

  Garret had been picking at the bandage on Dane’s shoulder earlier. Now he was pulling at the ones on his back, getting a look at Dane’s wounds.

  “They do look like they’re finally starting to heal.”

  “Good,” Dane grumbled. He rolled his shoulders as much as he was able to without pulling too much on the deep scabs. “Guess this means I won’t need stitches.”

  Garret made a growling noise in his chest. “Should’ve stitched you myself when you didn’t heal.”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that,” Dane said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Jax scratched his chin. He was growing out a blond goatee for whatever reason. Probably because he was sick of looking so much like a baby face. “Maybe the woman helped you heal?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Dane immediately said.

  “How do you know?” Garret asked, still looking under his bandages, poking at some of the scabs with his finger.

  The fact that it hurt when his friend and leader did that meant he wasn’t close to being finished with his healing.

  “Because all she’s been doing has been nagging at me to stop yelling at the omegas.”

  And when the omegas stopped showing up to his room, she was also the one there to make sure he got his food and vi
tamins. She never left his room, even when he’d been so angry that he’d thrown his plate across the room and hit the wall with it.

  She’d helped him out of bed and into a chair so she could change his sheets, and she’d even changed his bandages a couple of times. The only thing he’d absolutely, positively refused to accept her help with was bathing. It was bad enough when he couldn’t scare her way when she wanted to change his bandages, but if he allowed himself to get naked around her, then he might show her how bad of an idea it was to be licking her lips around him all the time. Or chewing her lips, making them all swollen. He was watching her. She was chewing her lips right now! What the hell was up with her chewing on her mouth all the time?

  He couldn’t stand it, or the way watching her do that made him want to do a little light chewing of his own.

  Jax snapped his fingers in front of Dane’s face. He jumped. Then swiped his claws out at the annoying dragon shifter, who jumped back, smiling at him like an idiot.

  “You looking at something?”

  “At the man I’m going to kill,” Dane snapped.

  “Both of you shut up,” Garret snapped. “Maybe he’s right.”

  Dane glanced over his shoulder. “That better be a joke.”

  Garret didn’t sound phased. “Well, you stopped healing after you jumped in front of my mate to protect her, and now that she’s started taking over for the omegas, you’re starting back up again.”

  “It’s a coincidence.”

  “I think it sounds like something else,” Jax said.

  Dane pointed at him, which was only impressive because his finger ended in a sharp claw. “I know what you’re thinking, and don’t you dare say it.”

  Jax lifted his hands. “Okay, I’m not going to say anything except for this. You need to stop it with hating humans so much. There are literally billions of them. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you happened to like one of them.”

  Dane looked over at the girls, who were still listening to their music, pretending as if they weren’t spying on Dane, Garret, and Jax.

  Dane couldn’t stare at that bright red hair for too long. He had to look away before she noticed him.

  “This doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Is she attracted to you, too?” Jax asked.

  Dane glared at the man. “What do you mean, too?”

  Jax stared at him.

  Dane flipped him off. “Okay, first of all, screw you, secondly…yeah, she is. I can smell it.”

  Garret made a hissing noise behind him.

  “What? Is one of the gashes open?”

  “No, you’re just a moron.”

  “Well, what do you both want me to do about this?” Dane snapped. “She’s a human; she’s never known about any of this until she came here. She’s not supposed to be here, and Dennis would have killed her. She’s not meant for this.”

  “That’s a risk we all live with,” Jax said. His arms were crossed loosely over his chest. “Anna has to deal with this stuff, too. So does Katie, and the other females and omegas. This is nothing new.”

  “That woman is a thousand times more fragile than Anna or any of the other omegas, and even you won’t ever send Anna out of the pack without an escort.” That was a sore subject between the siblings—Garret’s fear that his baby sister could be taken if she was ever without protection.

  “Omegas don’t heal that much faster than humans,” Garret said, coming back around to stand in front of him. He ignored the comment about his sister.

  Dane glared up at him. “You know what I meant.”

  Garret nodded. “I do, but hear me out. If you don’t want the woman, that’s fine. I don’t think this is something like what Miranda and I have. You wouldn’t be able to fight that. If you want to choose not to have her, I think you can, but at the very least, don’t torture yourself over it either.”

  “Meaning what?”

  Dane had never seen Garret so uncomfortable in his entire life. The other alpha scratched the back of his neck, looking very much like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Meaning, that if being close to her is helping you heal, then I’m going to go over there and make sure she stays in this house, and glued to your hip for as long as it takes until these close all the way. When they do heal, if you still don’t want anything to do with a human, I’ll send her back home with enough money to lay low for a while. Dennis doesn’t know who she is or where she came from, so there shouldn’t be a target on her.”

  Not that something like that mattered. Dennis had seen her once, and that was enough. It wasn’t like her home was all the way across the country either. Meadow Springs was pretty much in the middle of a few big locations. Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Toronto if people wanted to cross the border for cheap shopping. It would be easy for someone to get lost in all of that, but Dennis would know how to find her. Even Dane had enough training that it wouldn’t be hard if Lois wasn’t careful. Hell, he’d helped Garret track down Miranda.

  Then he caught the meat of what Garret had said. “You’ll send her away?”

  Garret shrugged. “Eventually. The plan was to never keep her here permanently. You’re right, it is dangerous. For her.”

  “I know it’s dangerous for her.”

  “Then stop acting like you have something to fear in her. Jax is right. Humans are everywhere. The vast majority of them had nothing to do with what happened to Emily.”

  “Okay, enough,” Dane said. They were getting a lot closer than Dane was comfortable with to a topic he wanted to forget.

  Garret clapped him on the shoulder. The one Lois hadn’t punched. “Just take care of yourself.”

  “I do take care of myself. Very well,” Dane said.

  Garret smiled. “I know, I know. But just because you’re an ex Seal doesn’t mean I can’t hound you for being an idiot sometimes.”

  Dane wasn’t sure if Garret was making a joke with that or not, considering he could change into a wolf.

  But then he found himself looking back at Red’s hair, and he sighed.

  “We should talk about security for the territory,” Dane said, bringing up the next tried and true subject before he had to full on talk himself out of having a fling with a woman who was, so far, throwing herself at him.

  Whether she was fully aware of that or not was anyone’s guess.

  Garret nodded. “What do you have in mind?”

  3

  Jax pressed his fingers to the ruined bark of one of the trees. Some had been demolished, as if a fully grown mountain bear had come charging through here.

  Since Dane was out of commission, and had been for well over a week now, it was safe to say this wasn't his work.

  This was fresh. The trees that were still standing were lucky.

  Jax put his eyes to the ground. He might be an overgrown lizard, but he could still smell.

  Through his nose. His tongue didn't pick up scent.

  Jax sighed, made a note of everything on his phone, and took a few pictures.

  He wasn't good at tracking. That was Dane's specialty, but it looked like Dennis and his rogue pack were backing off.

  He'd rather show these pictures to Dane and get his opinion first, however. Hopefully, more time with that woman would have helped him to heal enough that he wouldn't be stuck in the house for much longer.

  Jax lifted the side of his jacket and stuck the phone in the inside pocket. He stopped, held perfectly still, then shut his eyes.

  "Garret is going to rip my head off if he finds out you're out here."

  He didn't turn around right away. He waited for the noise of a twig snapping, then looked as Anna appeared.

  Jax shook his head and rubbed his forehead. "You are supposed to be grounded."

  Anna's face bunched up, like she'd just tasted something incredibly sour. "Don't you do that, too."

  "Do what? You're grounded."

  "I'm twenty-three years old. Garret can't ground me anymore."

  Jax shook his head. "You sure ab
out that? Because I'm pretty sure that he did."

  Anna crossed her arms, lifting her breasts a little higher. She wore a green jacket over a sun dress with ripped jeans, and she looked incredibly young.

  Jax knew she was old enough, but that wasn’t the point. She was still too young for him.

  He'd practically watched her grow up, and she was his best friend's little sister. Garret had raised her by himself. He wouldn't like it if he ever found out that Anna was interested in him like this.

  "Stop treating me like I'm a baby."

  Jax sighed. "I'm almost eighty years old. Anyone under the age of thirty is a baby to me."Anna stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket. It was chilly out for the season, and she walked forward, putting her hand on one of the broken trees.

  "Something charged through here?" she asked, but it wasn't much of a question.

  "Yeah. I'm taking pictures to bring back to Dane."

  "Want some help?"

  He had, before she’d come here. What he wanted more was to make sure she didn’t hurt herself by being out here with him. If anyone attacked them, Jax had to make sure Anna had a clear escape.

  And that Garret wouldn’t murder him if he ever found out about this. The problem was Anna was so sincere in her feelings. Jax had thought, had hoped, that it was a phase she could grow out of.

  Phases didn’t last this long.

  "Jax?"

  Jax sucked back a deep breath. "To be honest, I was just finishing up here. We should go back." He looked at her, and tried to smile, but it probably came off looking forced. "I won't tell Garret about this."

  The fact that he rarely told Garret any of the things his little sister got up to was probably why she'd developed this bad habit of disobeying.

  Where she'd gotten the idea that Jax would be good for her, however, was anyone's best guess.

  Anna nodded. "Right, thanks. Should've known you'd know what you were doing."

  "Uh huh. You know it's dangerous to be out here by yourself when Dennis could still be around."

  "I wasn't alone. I was with you."

  The fact that he hadn't realized she was so close until just now was something he wasn't going to throw in her face. In fact, it was kind of an insult to Jax’s tracking abilities.