by Rosko, Mandy
Alpha Wolf
Alpha Bites #4
Mandy Rosko
Copyright © 2019 by Rococo River
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Art by Jennifer Munswami
Created with Vellum
To my Patrons on Patreon:
As always, thank you. Really. You make these books possible. Your support means it’s possible for me to get the covers, work on audio, and even get some new writing programs and other odds and ends that go into this job when they’re needed. I truly am grateful to you for that and I cannot thank you enough.
You are amazing. A patron of the arts, and I love you for that!
Hugs,
Mandy
Any names missing from this dedications page are accidental and entirely my fault.
Tami Gryder, Denise McNamara, Jessica Ripley, Nicole Henry, Nancy McDonald, Barbara Burdette, Johanna Snodgrass, Andi Downs, Alisha Derr, Nicole Cook, Michelle Fortune, Teresa Ward, Sherry Smith, Angie Kyle, Melinda Miller, Leslie Gordon, Saleena Chamberlin, Ramona Cabrera, Dusty Weller, Terri Eaches
Daria Donnelly, Kayla Reindl, Clare Parrott, Patricia Cassar, Sheryl Tegtmeyer, Lori Martin, Anne Rindfliesch, Stacy Ittersagen, Megan Mills, Christina Morgan, Monica Lynn Emery, Leanne Ede, Cassandra Hyden
Anne Samson, Pauline Dixon, Rachelle Binkley, Rebekah Snyder, Michelle Chantler, Thomas Werner, Kaer Baer, Sharron Anthony, Roxanne Johnson, Rachel Morse, Karen, marlene eaton, Julie Spencer, Wendy Custer, Annette Alex, Shelia Deal, Carolyn Lown, Mellissa, Jill Micklich, Confused child, Samalee Johnson, Sandy Folz, Janet Rodman, Jeanne Clark, David Friend,
Lizzy, SoshanahLila, Alexandra Smith, Virginia Robinson, Donna Hogel, Nanci Quinn, Janice Richmond, Stacey F, Barb Sands, Marcy Schwendiman, Charlotte Brincat, Sharon Manning-Lew, Teresa Albarran, GerryAnn L., Denise Holder, Gail Powell, Rose Allen,
Opal Carew Lori Trask, RetiredHsMom, Maria T, Rachel Barckhaus, Laura Furuta, Angela Cowen, Diana Mason, Beth Wolfe, Toni Mcconnell, Valerie Cobb, Valerie Jondahl
Tiffany Villeda, Iona Stewart, Charz Moore, Samantha Quinones, Seen Cassell, Melissa Carlton, ugo, Amanda Barker, Tricha Fely, Corrina Mayall, Ellen Swindall-Bailey, Alexis Abbott, Selena Kitt, Essie Munro, Anna Garcia-Centner, Biggi Ziegler, Jill Morrison, Alexia Falco, Kerrin Brittain, Ruth Roberts, Carol Ingham, Cynthia Powers, Tanya, Yolanda Pedroza, Belinda Jarrell, Miriam Loellgen, Pam Van Veen, Tammy Francis, Valerie Marshman
Contents
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
About the Author
Also by Mandy Rosko
Alpha Wolf
Does it have to be so complicated for a villain to get his happily ever after?
Dennis is used to being the villain. He’s used to being chased by people who want to take him down. But this time, things are different.
Annie and Dennis are on the run from his old pack. Desperate to save his mate and his son, the villain will throw away his old anger, for now. If it means giving the woman he loves back to the alpha he hates, then so be it.
It will most likely kill him, but Dennis' old pack will kill Annie if he fails, and his son isn't safe with the pack of his enemy, or the wolves hunting him down.
If Dennis is to survive this with his son and his mate, then he must carefully navigate the hundred year rage of his enemies, and come to terms with the crimes of his past.
Alpha Wolf is Book Four
in the Alpha Bites Series.
Alpha
Alpha Bear
Alpha Dragon
Alpha Wolf
1
Anna Maxwell jerked awake. She barely realized she’d nodded off, but she supposed that happened after a kidnapping gone wrong, and then she was stuck helping a very tall, very heavy, very bloody alpha into the motel room for his recovery.
It was still dark out. A quick glance to the table showed sweat still on the ice bucket.
And Dennis was so still.
She shot up, pushing her blond hair behind her ears. Anna reached her hand out to his chest. Her fingers barely grazed his skin before she felt the intake of breath. Anna jerked her hand back. Her fingers burned, as though licked by fire, and in that moment, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
But she was grateful. The fact that he was breathing was good.
If he’d died while she lay next to him…
Anna didn’t even want to think about that.
The bandages she wrapped around his stomach were showing red through, but this was an alpha. He was strong. He was a warrior, and everyone knew they could heal faster than normal.
They were more than capable of dealing with any injury.
She was pretty sure of it anyway. Her brother was strong, why not Dennis?
Anna gently pulled back the wraps she’d made out of the bleached towels. What she saw beneath didn’t give her much relief. The wound was still there. Still mean and deep, but at the same time…
Did she imagine it? Or was it possible the claw marks weren’t quite as wide or messy?
A quick check of the clock showed it hadn’t been that long since she’d nodded off. Maybe twenty minutes. Twenty-five at the most?
She sighed. If he’d had a few hours, she would have more to work with. This wasn’t quite what she’d been hoping for.
He needed more time. He needed to rest and get some food in him, but he’d barely eaten a slice of the pizza she’d ordered when an alpha like him should have had trouble sharing one with her. They ate like food was about to become a rarity. As if their stomachs had no bottom.
Dennis ate like a newborn kitten. The tiniest bits at a time, as if he couldn’t quite force any down.
Anna wanted to stay close. Part of her wanted to put her hands on him and keep them there. Because deep down, she knew she could help him if she did.
But that was a ridiculous and narcissistic thought to have. She wasn’t his mate. Why would her touch have an impact on him?
That didn’t stop her from reaching out and touching his shoulder this time. The burning sensation returned. The small hairs over her entire body stood on end, and Anna gasped as the sensation surged through her.
But she kept her hand right where it was, needing to see how far this sensation went. Because it seemed this feeling was getting stronger every time she touched him.
Dennis groaned. He moved, his body shifting slightly beneath her hand as patches of fur came in through his skin. But it was as though he couldn’t hold together the shift. The fur came and went as though rippling through his body. He reached his hand up, sliding it across her arm, down to her fingers.
Anna held very still. This was… holy shit, her entire body was alive.
She’d never felt like this before. This intense surge of…of…she didn’t have the words to describe it because it was so many things coming together at the sa
me time. She didn’t want to remove her hand. It tingled. It burned. It felt good, and it overwhelmed her at the same time with so much information inside her head and body that she could hardly think about anything else other than the delectable way his thumb caressed her hand or the way he smiled with his eyes closed as he did it.
Anna’s mouth went dry so fast she struggled to speak. “D-Dennis? Are you awake?”
He groaned, still smiling, his thumb still caressing her hand in a way that made the inside of her stomach melt.
Anna shivered, her body jolted, and holy shit, she was going to have an actual orgasm just from the way he touched her hand if she didn’t pull back.
So she did.
Anna jerked her hand back, holding it against her chest as though it was injured when she knew she was perfectly fine. And she couldn’t stop herself from staring at Dennis, wondering how in the hell he’d been able to do that to her when she’d barely touched him.
The smile melted from his face. He lowered his hand and seemed to fall back into a fitful sleep.
Anna clenched her fingers again and again, trying to dispel that sensation of something building inside her, even though it had felt good.
She frowned. She looked at her hand, then at him.
He’d risked so much, fought against his own pack to save her after he’d gone through the trouble to kidnap her. Laurence was still out there, and he was…
Right here. With her. She wanted to be close to him. She wanted to care for him and heal him when he should have been ransoming her back to her brother.
But he didn’t. He’d confessed everything to her, was risking everything for her.
Maybe the mating thing wasn’t such a stretch.
She reached out to touch him again but stopped when she heard tires come to a screeching halt somewhere outside.
Anna jumped off the bed, rushing to the window. She pulled back the curtain to have a look at what waited for her outside.
She had to look down the walkway, and there, she spotted something a little too familiar, and her gut went from melty to twisted.
That was Jax’s truck.
Garret was with him, and together they left the engine running while marching into the main office of the motel.
Anna should have been happy. She should have run out there to meet them, to throw her arms around her brother’s neck, but…
One look at Dennis and she knew she couldn’t do that.
They wouldn’t believe her if she told them Dennis wasn’t here, and she couldn’t leave him here alone anyway.
Not injured like this. Not with Laurence out there.
“Go back to your family.”
Anna jumped a little, stunned to see Dennis’ eyes open. His face was pale, and the dark circles under his even darker eyes made him look like a zombie.
She shook her head. “I can’t go.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Garret will kill you if I go out there!”
He didn’t look as though that bothered him too much, and that bothered her all the more.
“When you get out of here, if you find him, tell Derek that I love him.”
She didn’t understand. “Who’s Derek?”
He closed his eyes. “My son.”
That made her jerk back again. “I didn’t know you had a son.” But then again, there were a lot of things she supposed she didn’t know about him.
One deep and meaningful conversation didn’t make them the best of friends.
“He’s probably dead, but just in case…I hope he’s alive.” Dennis looked at her again. “Go to your brother, before Laurence finds you.”
The way he looked at her…
Anna shook her head. “You don’t mean that. You don’t want to die, and you don’t want me to go.”
He watched her. Anna went to the door, looking back at him one more time. “I won’t let you die either. Tell your son you love him yourself.”
She ran out the door, locking it behind her and screaming bloody murder.
2
Oh God, what was she going to do?
Dennis sighed, hearing her scream for Garret.
Damn, she sounded as though someone was actively in the middle of murdering her.
Not that Dennis didn’t appreciate how she wanted to keep him alive, but was she not aware that screaming like that would bring Garret down on him even harder?
Dennis wanted Garret to kill him, not torture him to death.
Even though it was probably what he deserved.
The fact that Garret wasn’t rushing in here to beat him into an unrecognizable paste meant that, whatever Anna was saying to him, it was keeping Garret off Dennis’ back.
For now.
Was she actually trying to throw Garret off his trail?
That was… maybe one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for him. It was certainly more than he deserved. The fact that she would want to do that for him in the first place was enough to make Dennis push himself up to sit.
He grunted, the wound on his stomach pulling, his aching muscles struggling against the movement.
Everywhere hurt, but the fact that he could move at all meant he’d recovered at least a little.
Dennis pulled at the bandages on his stomach, getting a look at what lay beneath. Still looked like bloody shit, but it wasn’t quite as bad or as deep as when Anna first wrapped him up. Maybe sleeping next to her had helped more than he thought it would.
Maybe she’d been touching him in his sleep.
The thought made him groan. It made the wolf inside his head sit up straight as though getting ready for a treat.
Stupid animal.
He rarely felt himself at such odds with the animal inside. He always felt himself in control. So to feel the creature as a separatist entity that wanted something as much, if not more than he did…was a strange sensation.
He’d lost Derek. Was he about to lose her?
No. He didn’t want to lose his son, or her. Derek could still be alive. If he let himself be killed by that asshole Garret, then he might not find out what happened to his son.
Anna was right. He needed to live. He had too much shit to get done before he could let himself bite the dust.
If Derek was still out there and Laurence got his hands on him first…
Dennis pushed himself out of bed. Anna was safe. Dennis had done what he meant to do. Now he needed to see to his boy.
He grabbed what little he could. He didn’t need much, just his phone, wallet, and his shirt, even though it was bloodied and torn. Even a bloody shirt could come in handy.
He went to the front door, cracking it open just in time to see both Garret and Jax rushing out of the main office. They didn’t head for him, however. They ran across the street and into the darkness of the trees, Garret while in the middle of transforming into his wolf shape, and Jax as scales formed over his body, his wings spreading out from his back.
They looked like they were running out there with the intent to kill.
Yeah, he needed to get out of here.
Dennis slipped out the front door. He went for the truck. The engine was still running. It wouldn’t shock him if those idiots left the keys, ready for him to grab.
He made it to the truck, and, to his shock, the keys weren’t there at all. And the engine turned off.
“What the hell?”
The passenger door opened. Anna jumped in with him, holding the keys in her hand.
At least what he thought was the key.
“You need this to turn the engine on. The truck is new.” She pressed a button, and the engine rumbled back to life.
He looked down at the dashboard, and yeah, this was definitely a new model, not the sort of vehicle Dennis was used to driving.
“Do you want me to drive?”
He looked at her, putting the truck in reverse. “I can drive just fine. You need to get out of here and wait for your brother.”
“I’m going with you.”
He clenched his teeth, pulling out of the parking space, but Dennis didn’t keep going. He put the truck back in park. “I’m going to find my kid. I need to make sure he’s alive before I let your idiot brother kill me. That will be harder for me to do if you’re here.”
“As hard as it will be to heal without your mate next to you?”
He looked at her. Really looked at her.
She didn’t avert her eyes. She stared him down just as hard. “I’m not leaving you behind when Laurence is still out there. You need to heal if you come across him again, and you need me to make that easier. And you need the keys.”
A howl in the distance made up his mind for him. Garret was going to quickly realize his sister had sent him after a scent trail that wasn’t there, realize he’d been tricked and backtrack.
“If you get hurt—”
“Then you’re not to blame. I got it.”
He put the truck in drive. “That wasn’t what I was about to say.” He started driving. He glanced back, waiting to see the furious wolf and dragon bursting through the trees to chase him down and make him eat their claws.
But no. It didn’t happen. Not that Dennis was going to stop.
Not for the first time, Dennis was glad Jax couldn’t fly. If he could, losing both him and Garret would be a pain in the ass the likes of which he didn’t want to think about.
On the dark highway, his stomach burning with pain, Dennis couldn’t stop from being angry, even though he’d managed to get his hands on a new vehicle with a full tank of gas to drive away in.