by JM Klaire
Mated To The Alpha
JM Klaire
JKlaireRomance.com
Contents
Mated To The Alpha
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Claimed By The Alpha
About the Author
Mated To The Alpha
He’s her biggest frustration, her deepest temptation, and her only certain ally in a dangerous new world.
Emma Hayle knows who she is: the human daughter of a widowed cop who lets her get away with far too much. Until she crosses one line too many, and her world turns upside down.
Sent to live with a hidden werewolf pack, Emma’s hit with one shocking revelation after another: she’s not fully human … because her mother was a wolf shifter … and the first female alpha the pack ever had. What’s more, the pack is embroiled in power struggles that are somehow connected to her mother’s mysterious death when Emma was a baby.
Then there’s Elam. He’s hot as sin, alpha to the core, and he insists that Emma is his mate. It’s hard to argue when every cell in her body craves him. He’s even harder to resist when he plays dirty.
Elam is determined to claim her, but others are bent on doing her harm. Can Emma untangle the secrets of her past in time to salvage a future with the wolf who’s stolen her heart?
Mated to the Alpha is a sweet but steamy standalone wolf shifter paranormal romance. No cliffhangers! Note- this title was previously published as Alphas Divided. Check your kindle to make sure you haven’t already met these fated mates.
Want a bite-sized sample of what’s inside?
"It would give me great pleasure to take the edge off your lust, my sweet. Of course, it's purely for selfish reasons. I plan on making you so addicted to me, that you can't imagine not mating with me."
He held her gaze, his eyes promising every pleasurable sin, if she'd only give in.
He kissed the very tip of her nose, and smiled.
"Why fight it, love? It's inevitable. You will be mine."
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2015 by JM Klaire
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including any information storage, transmission and/or retrieval systems, without written permission from the author or publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by JKlaire Romance
http://www.jklaireromance.com
This title was previously published as-
Alphas Divided by J. M. Klaire
1
Emma knew the clichéd stereotype about being a cop's daughter, and she fit it to a tee. The fact that her best friend Kate was a preacher's kid, and neither of their parents were around very much, didn't help matters at all. The pair had learned early that the world was their playground, and that no one had the nerve to turn them in.
Until today.
Emma and Kate had decided to spend Emma's birthday weekend the way they spent most weekends- shopping. Shopping, for them, meant shoplifting. They were quite proud of the fact that they hadn't actually spent any money in a store for a couple of months now, preferring to challenge each other to see who could steal the choicest stuff on each 'shopping' trip.
Kate usually won, being much more impulsive and daring, but this time Emma had been determined to win. It was her birthday, after all.
Their biggest mistake, as Emma saw it, was leaving the small county in which they lived, and in which her dad was the Sherriff, and trying their skills in the neighboring county's big city mall.
Because here, in the back room of the clothing store they’d just gotten busted in, their daddy's names meant nothing.
"Please, sir..." Kate said, pleading for mercy with the store's manager, to no avail.
"I know, I know,” he replied, cutting her off. “It's your first time to do something like this. It was a dare. You've never done anything like this before. Your parents will literally kill you if I call them. Can't I just let you go this one time? You've learned your lesson and you won't ever do this again."
His obvious and mocking sarcasm shut Kate up. Her big brown eyes grew even wider, showing her confusion and her complete lack of a poker face. She’d never needed to develop one. She was used to getting her way, based purely on her looks, with both Emma and Emma's daddy held conveniently in her back pocket as her back-up plan.
Emma wasn't sure if it was Kate's not understanding that her boobs weren't getting them out of trouble this time, or if it was the manager's been-there-heard-that eye-rolling that amused her the most, but she couldn't help the snort that escaped her lips.
Kate shot her a do something look, but Emma just shook her head at her friend, trying to tell her with body language that nothing she could say would help here. They were on the store manager’s turf and he was enjoying having the upper hand.
But Kate wasn't quite ready to give up just yet.
"Do you know who we are? Who she is?" Kate carried on, getting desperate.
"Not a clue. And honestly, I don't really care," the manager responded, as he waited for the police officer he had already called to show up to the store.
"Emma Hayle," she said, like it would mean something here.
He just looked at her, eyebrows raised, his face clearly saying, "Who?"
Kate kept on, trying to dig them out of the hole they found themselves in. A hole they were not used to being in. Damn, why had they left Catt county?
"Sheriff Hayle's daughter?" Kate insisted and questioned at the same time.
"No idea who that is, sorry. But she does look kind of like, umm, what's her name? The one always getting into trouble out in Hollywood? That redhead, the one who used to be cute? Only… taller."
Emma knew which actress he was most likely referring to, there were only so many redheads, and she got compared to all of them over the years, but she didn't help him out with any names. She was determined not to open her mouth in here and give anyone any ammunition to use against her. Although, taller was not the word she was used to hearing when someone compared her to someone else.
"Sheriff Hayle's kid?"
It was a new voice that spoke up, pulling the girls' attention to the office door they hadn’t heard open.
An older, grizzled-looking police officer filled the doorway. His tired eyes looked the girls over before settling on Emma. He tilted his head like a confused dog, thinking a bit before speaking again.
"No, she doesn't look like who you mean. She looks like that other one, the one who plays that author's daughter on that TV show. Only...bigger."
And there it is, Emma thought. That's the word she was used to- bigger.
Emma did stand inches above most girls her age, but it was that word, bigger, th
at most people settled on when they talked about her. At least the ones trying to be nice. She knew that petite would never be a word she'd hear aimed in her direction, but she herself preferred words like statuesque, or shapely, to the harsher words she always heard muttered around her growing up.
Determination to avoid a discussion about her looks made her finally open her mouth.
"You know my dad?" She asked the question while trying to place the uniformed man in her memory. He didn't fit.
"No, not umm, personally. I have heard about him, though. Lots of, shall we say, weird goings on happen on your side of the county line, don't they?"
Great, Emma thought, pouting. We've gone from discussing my Amazon-woman looks to discussing those rumors. Awesome. Next he'll be asking me if...
"So, your dad ever find any of those Sasquatches he's always going on about?"
"What? That's not...oh, never mind. Are you arresting us or not?"
The officer's face went from bemused, comparing her to famous redheads and teasing her about her dad, which she was used to, to serious. He was obviously contemplating his next move.
The store manager jumped in.
"We are willing to press charges, officer,” he said. “I'm beyond tired of all these damn kids coming in here and thinking they can..."
“We aren’t kids,” Kate mumbled under her breath.
“Then you should definitely know better, shouldn’t you?” the manager said back to her.
"I think an arrest may be a bit premature,” the officer said, interrupting their back and forth.
He then turned back to Emma and continued with, "How 'bout we call your daddy the Sheriff up real quick? Let him decide what to do with you, huh?"
"That's how this is going to go?" the manager asked, getting red in the face. "He has no jurisdiction in this county. Damn it, I should have called the state police instead of..."
"State troopers? For shoplifting?" The officer laughed. "Good luck with that. Now, if I'm not mistaken, this is their first offense, correct? Just do what you normally do with first-timers. Take their pictures, pin them up on your wall of shame, and I'll call their parents. I'm quite sure that one's dad," he said, pointing at Kate this time, "will make it worth your while to stay quiet about this. And, if he holds true to what I've heard about him, he will probably buy those pictures off of you, as well. Come on ladies, let's get you two home."
Against the manager's protests, the officer herded the girls out of the office, through the store and into the waiting patrol car. As they pulled away, Kate blew the manager a kiss from the back seat, and Emma just grinned at him, convinced that this would be swept under the rug, along with most everything they had ever done. She wondered how big the pile under that rug had to become before her daddy would notice the lump, but she was happy to hide it if everyone else was.
She smiled at Kate in relief, as her friend turned her attention to the front seat and started to pour on the charm. She was obviously feeling back in her element, too.
"So, Officer Hot Stuff, what do two poor, down on their luck girls gotta do to get you to let us out of this car and send us on our way?"
Emma grinned wider. That line always worked, even on old guys, like this officer.
They'd never had to actually back it up with anything, the offer usually made guys blush and fall all over themselves to please the gorgeous Kate, and the intimidatingly quiet Emma. They weren't quite sure what would happen if anyone ever tried to take them up on it, but so far the line, delivered with one of Kate's bright smiles, was all that was ever needed.
"Sorry Lucy and Ethel, but you're in my county now. I didn't have you arrested, purely out of professional curtesy, but the only way you two are being released is to your parents, at the police station. You guys can cool it in the drunk tank until someone comes for you. It's conveniently empty right now, although I can't promise that it smells very good."
"Lucy and who?" Kate asked.
"Sorry, am I showing my age? How about Thelma and Louise, then? Is that better?"
Emma looked at Kate, confused. Had he lost his mind?
Kate mouthed to Emma, "He's as crazy as your old man!"
Emma nodded, her recently acquired conviction that all would end well turning around again, sliding back down into her stomach and starting to burn. No one had ever called her dad before. She felt the feeling in her stomach turn into panic.
Actually having to face their sins, at a strange police station, waiting behind bars for their parents was new. And neither of them was looking forward to it.
2
Emma watched as Kate paced back and forth in their small cell. Even locked up and desperate, Kate looked beautiful. All dark hair, dark eyes, and a smile that promised every unsuspecting male she ever turned her attention on not only sensual pleasure, but pure, uninhibited fun.
"Wait, back up." Emma ordered Kate, quietly. "Now turn a bit, look all pouty and worried, staring off into space again. You reminded me of someone, and I just couldn't place...oh! Megan Fox. That's who you just looked like. And now you ruined it."
Emma giggled as Kate crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, most un-Megan Fox-like.
"I wish I looked like you," Emma sighed, trying to kill the time before their parents arrived by pretending she wasn't locked in a drunk tank, waiting on her dad.
"Me? Whatever for?"
Emma was about to elaborate, comparing herself and her giantess height, garish red hair and fair coloring to her friend's beauty, lingering on the size of her stomach, ass and thighs, but she stopped when her dad stepped in front of their little cell.
He was led by the officer that brought them in here, and followed by Kate's father, who was bringing up the rear of the small group.
Emma couldn't help but smile at her dad's appearance in front of her. Every time she saw him, which wasn't very often as he was always gone or working, he reminded her of a taller version of the cartoon dad in the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast.
She'd always been told she got her fiery looks from her mother, who’d died shortly after Emma was born. All she knew was that she didn't see any of herself in her father, Henry, at all.
His prematurely white hair stood up in little poufs where he had obviously run his hands through it, probably worrying about her. That thought made Emma feel guilty.
His moustache twitched as he took his time, preparing to speak.
Henry looked at both girls, nodding an acknowledgement at Kate, before focusing in on his daughter. His eyes drooped a bit, always making him look like he'd lived a tough life, but when you looked past his weary face, and into the eyes themselves, there was a calmness in their depths that made even strangers want to trust him. It was part of what made him such a good and well-respected Sheriff, once you got past his eccentricities.
"Emma, you aren't going to like what I have to say, I'll tell you that much right up front. But it's got to be said. I haven't done right by you, not by a long shot."
Emma started to protest, standing up in a rush to face her dad. She was just as tall as he, looking him eye to eye for a few years now. She was used to it. She’d towered over most women, standing eye to eye with most men, since she'd turned sixteen or so.
He stilled her protests with a small motion of his hand and a narrowing of his eyes, and kept talking.
"I've been easier on you than I ever should have been, not having your mom around to help me and all. I've done you a disservice in that, and I know it. I've left you to largely raise yourself, relying on the proverbial village, so to speak. I knew it wasn't right, but it is what it is now."
He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable, buying himself a little time before continuing.
"In the old days, men that were headed down the path you ladies seem to be headed down were given the choice of jail or the military. I’m offering you a similar choice and I'll have your answer before I let you out of here.”
“My choice is between jail or the military?” she as
ked, confused and starting to panic all over again.
“No, I just meant,” he stopped, then shook his head. “That’s just where I got my idea. Between that and the pressure I’ve gotten over the years from your mother’s side of the family, to see you…”
His sentence faded off again as he tried to gather his thoughts, but Emma was used to it.
She waited somewhat impatiently to hear where this was going. Her heart sped up first at the mention of the military and then it spiked high at the mention of her mother's family. Her dad hardly ever spoke of them, so hearing them brought up here, now, made her breath come in quick pants, and her eyes widen in surprise.
"I can leave you here to be processed, letting the store manager press charges, which would result in you having an official criminal record. Or, you can choose to spend one year with your mother's people."
Emma shook her head in shock and confusion.
My mother has people? she thought.
"They aren't very far away, but they do keep largely to themselves. It's a rather, how should I say this?" He paused, his eyes darting to Kate and then to Kate's father, before continuing in what felt to Emma to be a more guarded tone.
"It's a rather contained, traditional, almost tribal population. I think they would be good for you. They'd teach you respect. Honor. Things I seem to have failed to instill."
"Dad, don't! Don't send me away, please. It's my first offense, I've learned my lesson, I swear."