by R. E. Butler
He kissed her. Held her close. Tried to memorize the way she felt in his arms so he could dream about her accurately.
“Goodnight sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Goodnight, Acksel.”
He waited until she shut the door and then he turned and headed into the family room to camp out on the couch. They were closer now than they’d ever been before, and there was something very sweet about the time they were taking to get to know each other. He wasn’t put off by her challenge that he prove his affection for her; it inspired him to search through his memories of what he knew about her.
Pulling his cell from his back pocket, he called Jeremiah.
“Yes, Alpha?” The male was twenty-seven years old, and what the pack referred to as a non. Jeremiah was a big man, but he was just a man. Even though both his parents were wolves, Jeremiah was unable to shift completely. He could extend fangs and claws, and sometimes when he got really pissed a fine coating of gray fur would sprout along his arms and legs, but for all intents and purposes he was considered a human. Which was why, even though he could take on many of the pack wolves, he was relegated to omega status. There was something off about Jeremiah being such a big brute of a guy but being forced to serve in such a fashion or leave the pack. That he’d grown up in Wilde Creek was the only reason he was included in the pack at all. Most packs refused to include nons, and back in the old days, if a wolf was shown to be a non, he or she would be killed by the alpha so their non-shifting genes didn’t taint the pack.
“I read about a flower that smells like cinnamon. It’s called a Shooting Star. Can you find a plant for me by dinner tomorrow?”
“Of course, Alpha.” There was no animosity in his tone. Even though Jeremiah had to be miserable in his position, he was always friendly and always helpful.
“Thank you. Keep me posted.”
Ending the call, Acksel pulled his shirt off and tucked his shoes under the coffee table, settling down on the couch to try to get some sleep. Brynn was going to work in the morning and it was the first time since her abduction that he wasn’t going to be in the same house with her all day long. He was anxious for her safety, but he knew he couldn’t keep her confined in the house for the rest of her life.
She wanted to work. It would make her happy and he’d do anything to see that she was happy. As long as she was safe and protected.
Chapter 17
Brynn woke up in a cold sweat, fear racing through her. Her wrists and ankles felt incredibly heavy and the sound of chains echoed around her.
They’d found her! She’d been kidnapped again!
Thrashing with a shout of alarm, she fought and struggled, desperate not to be cut and bitten. She struck out blindly, all rationale gone, and felt herself connect with something soft, her nails digging through flesh as hands wrapped around her arms and she was pulled up to a seated position.
“Brynn! Brynn! You’re having a nightmare. You’re safe now.” Acksel’s voice cut through her panic.
She froze and blinked as he released one of her arms and flicked on the small lamp on her nightstand. Four bleeding scratches marked his cheek.
“Oh no,” she gasped, “I’m sorry!”
“They’ll heal, don’t worry. You’re the one I’m worried about.”
Without a word, he sat down on the bed and pulled her into his lap. The spicy, woodsy scent of him filled her nose and calmed her immediately. She shuddered and hugged herself against him.
“I don’t know what happened. I haven’t had any nightmares before, but tonight I felt like I was back in that basement in chains.”
It had felt so real.
Fear still licked at her, but she felt more calm and secure in Acksel’s arms. She hugged herself closer to him, pressing her face into the crook of his neck. He held her tight, stroking her back and easing the fear away from her with his gentle care.
“I think I know why you haven’t had nightmares before tonight, sweetheart,” he said in a low voice.
“You do?”
“I think it’s because of my scent.”
Scent? She leaned away slightly and looked at him in confusion. “I like the way you smell and everything, Acksel, but I don’t see how your scent has kept nightmares of my kidnapping away.”
He gave her a long look and then lifted her from his lap and put her on the bed. The loss of contact ripped through her and her fear rose inside her immediately. Acksel pulled her close again with a deep sigh. “You’re carrying my pup, Brynn. Some of our wolfish tendencies are starting to become evident in you. In the last few days, I’ve seen things that can’t be explained in any way other than that the baby is causing them.”
“Like me eating only meat at dinner?”
“Yeah. And you’ve growled a few times in anger, and you snapped at the she-wolves who were being disrespectful. I was aware that you hadn’t had any nightmares from your captivity, but I hadn’t given it much thought. Everyone reacts to trauma differently. And you slept through your healing, so you didn’t have to deal with your wounds knitting over time and the pain associated with that.” He stroked her cheek with his finger. “You’re my mate, Brynn. A part of you, no matter that you’re human, recognizes that I’m going to keep you safe. You felt safe in my bed probably because my scent is everywhere. Being here in your bed, without my scent, must have triggered those fears to resurface.”
She absorbed his words. In spite of the fear that had captured her minutes earlier, she managed to find some humor in the situation. “So I can’t escape you, can I?”
He grinned. The bastard.
“I think you’re stuck with me, sweetheart. But I’m still going to prove to you that I care about you,” he tapped his finger over her heart, “and not just because you’re gorgeous and smell like cinnamon and are having my baby.”
She already knew that, though. Somewhere between their night together, the news of the baby, her kidnapping, and his attempts to show her proof of his feelings for her, she’d come to realize that he’d cared about her all along. He’d just been an idiot about it. Still…she’d let him prove a few more things to her before she let him off the hook, and then she’d reserve the right to throw his idiocy in his face whenever she felt like it.
“Stay with me?” she asked simply.
He didn’t say anything, just turned off the light and settled onto his back, beckoning her forward. She didn’t hesitate, snuggling close to his warmth and aligning herself against him. Drawing the blanket up over her shoulder, she rested her head on his bare chest and inhaled his scent.
“You were right,” she said, yawning.
His hands stroked up and down her back. “It’s been known to happen.”
“No, about being around you. I haven’t really had to deal with what happened to me because we’ve been embroiled in pack and personal issues. I think being around you, being surrounded by your scent, kept those demons at bay.”
She giggled a little and he asked what she was thinking about.
“It sounds so weird in my head to talk about your scent, but it’s a normal conversation for you wolfy types, right?”
He chuckled and the sound made her smile. “Yeah. Us wolfy types are big into scent, my sweet, cinnamon-scented mate.”
She yawned once more and closed her eyes. “There you go again, calling me mate and being all sweet.”
He hummed in his throat. “You don’t really want me to stop, do you sweetheart?”
She brushed her hand across his chest lazily. His skin was warm and smooth, and for a long moment she wanted to turn her head and lick him to find out what he tasted like. “No,” she answered finally.
They were quiet for a few moments and then he said, “You can talk to me about what happened to you.”
She didn’t feel that he was pressuring her to talk, but rather reassuring her that he would listen if she wanted to. And suddenly she did.
Resting her chin on her hand, she looked at him. The room was dark, but she could make
out his shape in the darkness, and the warmth of his body under hers was reassuring. His hands continued their light stroking up and down her back. She could feel the steady beat of his heart under her hand.
She decided to start at the beginning, because that’s where things had gone all nuts. How she’d always cared about him and been attracted to him. How surprised she’d been to not only have him show up at her door, but how completely and utterly he’d rocked her world. She didn’t withhold sharing her feelings of disappointment that he’d bolted and refused to contact her, and how she tried to move forward, to hate him for his actions, but that she could never really get him out of her head.
The utter shock at her pregnancy.
More anger at him. More loneliness. More want.
And then the kidnapping.
“I didn’t understand all that was going on or why they took me, but I knew it was because of you.” Her voice was thick with the remembered pain of her captivity. She’d cried a little as she spoke of her feelings for him during the six weeks after their one night, but now the tears flowed faster. He stopped stroking her back and instead held her more firmly. He growled low and the sound rumbled in his chest, somehow easing the pain of the memories until she could speak.
“I was scared. Terrified. I’ve never been faced with my own mortality like that before. I was worried about the baby being hurt. Scared I’d never see my dad or Mia again. Or get to tell you that you were going to be a dad.” She trembled and gave up holding herself away from him, climbing up him until she could rest her face in his neck. “I thought you were going to be killed, and even though you were the reason that I’d been kidnapped and hurt, all I could think about was that I wanted you to be safe no matter what happened to me.”
He growled softly and hugged her close. “I would have gone to the grave for your safety, Brynn. Nothing is more important to me than you being safe, and if I had to die that day to set you free, I would have embraced it.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear, “I have no plans to head into the great beyond for many, many years. I have too much to make up for.”
She laughed and a few more tears slipped over her cheeks. “Acksel,” she started and he hushed her gently, arranging her against his side once more until her ear rested over his heart and she was surrounded by his warmth and scent.
“We’ve got the rest of our lives, Brynn. Sleep well and know that I’ll be here when you wake, and every morning forever.”
His words rang with enough truth to bring fresh tears to her eyes, but she held them back and said goodnight, letting her eyes drift closed and sleep overtake her.
Her wolf held her tightly and his scent soothed her frayed nerves.
“Goodnight, my mate,” he whispered.
Chapter 18
Malachi Slattery stood at the passenger door of his dark green SUV and waited for his alpha female to finish kissing her mate goodbye. They’d been kissing for at least two minutes on the front porch of the home that had belonged to his parents before they moved to another town to join his uncle’s pack. Malachi had been part of that pack as well, but he hadn’t been happy there. Wilde Creek was in his blood; he didn’t really want to be anywhere else.
He watched Caleb, a fellow protector, look everywhere but at the couple and Malachi hid a smile. Apparently Brynn had decided to embrace being the alpha’s mate. From what Mia had told him, Brynn had been none-too-welcoming to Acksel’s advances when she’d been freed from the kidnappers. Considering she was human, he hadn’t thought she would be susceptible to the natural mating call between wolves and their mates, but it was easy to see — even from a distance — that she was as affected by Acksel as he was by her.
Malachi and Acksel had grown up together in the pack. He knew that Acksel had long harbored a crush on the pretty human, but since their laws had forbidden a mating without the consequence of banishment, she’d been off-limits. Malachi didn’t care whether Brynn was a shifter or not. The only thing that really mattered to him was that Acksel was with the right woman. The one woman meant to be his. Acksel would have taken a she-wolf to mate with because the pack was happier when the alpha was mated, and many of the single she-wolves would have gladly hopped on the mating train with him. But Acksel wouldn’t have been happy. Not really.
Malachi had personally never been in a relationship with a female — shifter or human — that had meant anything to him. He’d always been fond of the females he dated, but had known whatever was between them was just superficial. Even if he’d wanted to get more serious with a female, his wolf would never have allowed it. His wolf was looking for the female that was meant to be his forever. So far, he hadn’t found her. But she was out there somewhere. Wolf. Human. Otherwise. It didn’t matter to him.
“Hi Mal,” Brynn called to him as she walked down the front sidewalk with Acksel at her side.
Starting off on the right foot with her was important to him, so he opened her door and ducked his head in deference. “Alpha Brynn.”
“Are you kidding me?” Brynn demanded.
Malachi lifted his head in surprise. “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah, you’re sorry. You’re my bestie’s brother. You used to dump ice cubes down my shirt in the summer when we were kids. Don’t go all formal on me.”
Acksel chided her gently, “Sweetheart.”
“Don’t sweetheart me, Acksel. He calls you by your name except for when you’re around the pack. Can’t that apply to me?”
Acksel sighed exaggeratedly but smiled. “Of course, if that’s what you want. As long as the wolves are appropriately respectful, they can call you by your first name.”
“Alright then,” she nodded. “Mal?”
“Good morning, Brynn.”
She smiled. “Good. See, old dogs can learn new tricks.”
“Funny.” He rolled his eyes. His sister’s best friend was spunky and always had been. As long as he’d known her, she’d always spoken her mind and been fiercely protective of her friends. She’d also enjoyed teasing him about being a dog. The first time she’d seen him in his shifted form, she said his coat was ‘pretty like a husky’ and that had made him snarl, which had made her keep on calling him a dog whenever she could squirrel it into the conversation. Which turned out to be fairly often.
Acksel kissed her goodbye and shut her door. “Ice cubes, huh?”
“It was a long time ago.”
He hummed. “Dr. Frank is going to give you access to the security cameras, so check in with him and get set up. Make sure she eats lunch. Text me when you’re on the way home. I’ll be at my dad’s with the elders, but I’ll finish in time to be home for her.”
“Will do.”
Acksel touched Malachi’s arm and his face was as serious as he’d ever seen it. “Keep her safe.”
“On my life, Alpha,” Malachi answered.
Acksel nodded, waved to Brynn, and watched as Malachi climbed into the SUV and pulled away from the curb.
The short drive to the clinic was filled by Brynn asking him about his desire to return to Wilde Creek and join the pack.
“It just didn’t feel like home,” he said of the other pack.
“Even with your parents?”
He shrugged. “My wolf wasn’t happy. We know the woods here, the pack. It’s familiar. Plus, I guess, the other alpha was a little too stodgy for my tastes.”
“Stodgy?”
“He didn’t separate the males into groups the way that Acksel does — the highly ranked like Ren and Sam, the elders, the protectors, the omegas. His pack was just straight rankings from top to bottom, with no specific groupings. The females were basically the omegas, even the alpha female.”
“What is an omega, exactly?”
“A weak, elderly, or injured male. We heal fast, but sometimes injuries are so severe that they don’t heal. Some wolves are just weak by nature. I guess meek might be the better word. They prefer to be nurture
rs. Gedding, the pack doctor, is an omega. He’s physically strong, but his temperament is one of healing. He won’t fight for rank. No omegas fight for rank; they are arranged by the alpha according to their abilities. And then there are the permanently injured males. I don’t know if you remember Adam Cruz?”
She nodded. “He was two grades ahead of me. I remember he left school suddenly.”
“His dad was a drunk and a gambler who got in over his head with some bad people. They decided to torch his house and one of the Molotov Cocktails that they tossed through the windows landed on Adam’s bed while he was sleeping. He was old enough to shift and heal a lot of the damage, but he’s still got scars on his body and some of his tendons and muscles didn’t heal right so he can’t run in his shift.”
“That makes him weak?”
“To the pack, yes. She-wolves want mates that are strong enough to protect them and their pups. Males want to fight alongside other males who are strong and will have their back. He’s weak because he’s lost some of his abilities. Truthfully, in his human form, he could punch a hole through concrete. In his shift, he can’t do more than trot along, which means he can’t hunt game, he can’t protect his pack members, and he can’t run for help in an emergency.”
She was quiet for a moment and then crossed her arms over her chest. “You guys are just mean.”
“Not mean, Brynn, practical. You have to stop thinking like a human and start thinking like an alpha female. When your pup is born, do you want to have him or her protected by a male that can’t keep it safe?”
“Of course not. I just feel bad for him.”
“Well, don’t. Adam doesn’t want pity. He’s a good man. He would fight to the death for you if it came to it, but he’s just not as capable as other, healthy wolves are. He’s accepted his place in the pack, and you should, too.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”
He snorted and pulled into a parking space next to the clinic. Turning off the engine he said, “Acksel’s lucky to have you in his life. I’m glad you two found each other, even though it took you long enough.”