Текст книги "Alphas burden"

Автор книги: Luna lark

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“What happened out there? The alpha sounded pissed. We heard it over Alma’s barking.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Yeah, okay. That’s why your face looks like that and your eye is twitching.”

“Nothing,” I repeat. “It’s fine. Just male posturing. Lorne always making sure I don’t forget my place.”

She tosses an unimpressed look through the small window in the door. “I hope a witch curses his dick. That’d take him down at least twenty pegs.”

“I’d pay to see that.” I stifle a surprised smile, not used to having anyone take my side other than my sisters.

“He deserves it.” She flips off the door with a gesture I’ve seen the humans in Ashbury use when they’re angry with each other.

A snort escapes me. It helps chase away the indignation upsetting my stomach.

I keep busy enough that Alma doesn’t make me go back out there again, sending Emily when she catches her flirting instead of cooking. It works great to keep me off serving responsibilities, but by the time the breakfast shift ends Alma’s nowhere in sight.

“Where did Alma go?” I ask Taryn.

“Home for a nap. Martine manages the kitchen for lunch,” she answers.

“Oh, I wanted to talk to her.” I thumb the tin of paste shoved into my pocket.

“Good luck. She’s grouchy with anyone who tries to wake her up before she’s snoozed for at least three hours.”

There goes my plan. I’ll have to try to catch her later to bribe her for letting me access the honey stores.

Taryn balances two plates of food and nudges me through the back door. The others on kitchen duty are eating together. She leads us to a shady patch of grass and plops down.

“I put some extra on yours. I didn’t see your sisters and thought you’d want to take some back for them,” she says.

I chew my lip, peeking at her. “What’s up with that?”

“With what?” She’s tearing into her food, stacking her eggs and bacon on her cornbread to make a sandwich.

“Talking to me. Being…nice.”

She shrugs. “You’re pack. Why wouldn’t I talk to you?”

A lump forms in my throat. I pick at the food on my plate.

“You haven’t talked to me in a long time. I mean, not like this. Like it matters.”

Taryn stops eating to level me with a look. “Part of that is because you stay pretty secluded. Since—you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have any problem with you, Avery. You’re the girl who would braid my hair so that I didn’t get it all tangled while I played with Callie because I told you it hurt when my mom brushed it. You taught me how to swim. And the time I ate those wild berries I shouldn’t have, you were the one to run all the way back to the commons to get the healer.”

I nibble on a piece of bacon, closing my eyes to keep the emotion clogging my throat at bay. If I hadn’t made a point of making myself scarce, would I have kept some of the friendships I believed were lost?

She bumps her shoulder against mine, and I don’t move away.

12CADEN

The scene at breakfast has me wrestling my wolf into submission before he takes my skin and fucks everything up by attacking Lorne again without an official challenge. It was hard enough to keep my attention from drifting to Avery the moment she stepped through the doors to the kitchen. Next to impossible to ignore her when she came near, tantalizing me with that divine scent I need to wipe from my memory.

Watching him get that close to her—again—as if he has a right to, mere fucking hours after I came close to tearing his throat out for it?

It’s a miracle I managed to restrain myself, only going as far as breaking the table instead of every damned bone in my cousin’s body.

Putting Avery on kitchen rotation was a mistake. I thought it would be best to show the pack nothing’s changed after last night.

I’m fooling myself because everything feels so different.

Everything about her entices me. Tempts me to take her as mine.

To learn if her caramel hair is as soft as I’ve wondered when I wind it around my fist and use it as leverage to make her bare the delicate column of her throat for me. To see if it’ll make her amber eyes flash in the audacious way that lights my veins on fire. To knead the dip of her waist and map her slight curves as I take my time scenting her, scraping my stubbled jaw over her skin until she smells so much like me no other male will come near her.

My wolf is amped up, prodding me to go find my female. Now, right now. I jerk with the force of his pull on my will, exhaling forcefully.

If I don’t find a way to keep him in check, this mate bond will continue upturning the careful order I’ve strived for to run this pack smoothly. I rejected her, so my life should return to normal. A sharp buzz pings around inside my chest. I rub at it with an annoyed grimace.

Callie leans against the wall behind the broken head table, arms folded. Her sour assessment of me prods at what’s left of my patience.

“What?” I ask through my teeth. “Are you pissed off because Liam made you face the consequences of your actions with Taryn last night? Tough.”

She scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re an idiot.”

My head jerks. “Your undermining isn’t funny. It’s time you grow up, isn’t it? Think of what Dad would say. I’ve told you a hundred times, everything reflects back on me. So when you follow Taryn’s wild impulses⁠—”

“Yeah, yeah. Follow your rules, set good examples, blah fucking blah,” she snaps with an eyeroll. “I didn’t mean that. It wasn’t a big deal, anyway.”

“I beg to differ,” Liam interjects behind me. “How do you think it looks to have the alpha’s own family doing as she pleases?”

She serves him a withering stare before turning it on me. “If you can’t figure out why you’re an idiot, goddess help us all.”

My jaw sets when she stomps off. I scrub my face, adding one of her tantrums to my list of shit I don’t need right now.

“Let’s go.”

Liam falls into step with me when we exit the building. “I take it your wolf’s still attached to Av⁠—”

“Yes.” I whirl on him with a growl, fur sprouting across my forearms.

He freezes, lifting his brows. The outburst attracts attention from people milling around the commons. I grunt, shaking off the sense I need to fight my loyal beta and best friend. What’s wrong with me? He’s my trusted right hand man, not my enemy because he said her name.

“Sorry. I’m just—fuck. I don’t know.”

“Don’t look at me.” Liam smirks. “It’s not like I know what happens when you reject the Fates’ plan. This is why I’m more inclined to keep things strictly casual between me and any female interested in a night together. Maybe that’s what you need to sort this out.”

“No.”

This time the wolf rides me so hard I nearly choke on the thundering growl. It startles several birds from the trees. Liam bends his neck, as do the people dotted around the central lawn when my glare shifts around. I blow out a breath and shake off the intense power of my wolf.

“It must be an aftereffect,” I mutter. “I’m handling it. We just need to go about our usual business, and in a few days it’ll fade away.”

It has to.

He stares at me. I can tell he wants to say something else, but he keeps his mouth shut as we head for my office in the lodge.

I barely manage to focus on a review of various trade teams. One’s asking for personnel reassignments and another’s put in a request for a new auger for drilling fence holes because they insist the one we have is busted and they’re fed up with repairing it. I’ll have Neil go over. If the mechanic can figure out how to keep the engines running on every vehicle we have, hopefully he’ll be able to troubleshoot an alternative to get the thing running until after the summit.

Every few minutes, the words blur together. My mind strays to rain drenched meadows, and bright amber irises that dare me to chase, to hunt my prize and claim what’s mine.

Adam bursts in. The youngest enforcer added to the patrol roster last year is a welcome interruption from my wayward thoughts. Liam stops him with a hand to the chest before he rushes my desk.

“What’s the problem?” Liam urges.

“It’s—Alpha, you need to come,” Adam blurts.

I exchange a tense look with Liam and rise. “What’s happened?”

“It’s maintenance group C. They’re on my patrol route. They wouldn’t stop.”

The three of us are on the move, Liam signaling for Ford to leave his post in the hall. Adam explains on the way that the group was causing a scene and turning on itself.

The raucous fighting echoes through the trees before we round a bend in the road, finding maintenance group C brawling. Two have shifted while the rest throw punches. It’s unclear who the instigators are at first glance. Their truck is in a ditch at the side of the road and their tools are strewn everywhere.

Liam and Ford enter the fray, shouting orders to stop. One stocky female holds off one guy while elbowing another who charges her. An older male spots me and snarls.

“Enough,” I boom.

The fighting ceases, even Ford and Liam jerking to a stop mid-movement from my Alpha command. I ease back to free them and they round up the three Adam points out as the cause of the scene.

I pace before the lineup, arms crossed. “What the fuck is going on here? Why are you turning on your packmates?”

“They didn’t think they needed to work anymore,” says a male who has shifted back and prods at his swollen eye. “When we tried to stop them, they did that to the truck.”

“This is unacceptable. You’ve destroyed pack property and attacked the members of your group without cause.”

“We got cause,” the youngest male jeers.

He can’t be more than eighteen. I stop in front of him, staring him down until he falters and lowers his gaze to glare at my shoes.

“And how long have you been assigned to team C?”

“Six months too fucking long,” the older one beside him complains. “I’m sick of it. I ain’t doin’ no more.”

The other two pipe up with similar sentiments.

“It doesn’t give you a right to do this. The job rotations mean everyone pulls their weight and puts in their fair share,” I say. “If you want to remain part of this pack, you contribute no matter what the pack requires of you. It’s so we’re all working together.”

“I didn’t sign up for it,” he objects.

I shake my head. “And what do you expect instead?”

“What I been promised!”

My eyes narrow. “What promise?”

“Promise of somethin’ better. Not working to the bone doing grunt work day in and day out. Not this bullshit life you’re forcing on me with a rule and schedule for every little thing, down to when I shit.”

Liam jerks him with a warning snarl for his outright disrespect, forcing his head to bow. “Watch how you talk to our alpha. Where did you hear that?”

“Jana’s tavern,” he spits.

I go rigid. The seedy tavern is where I’ve heard my uncle is known to harp about how good he had it coming up under my grandfather until he wasn’t named heir. There’s no doubt in my mind this traces back to him influencing drunken packmates who feel overworked and overlooked. If he sways enough of them to splinter the pack into factions, I’ll lose the footing I’ve busted my ass to stabilize in the wake of the trouble with the Morgans turning on my father.

The pack won’t survive a second revolt.

“Liam, Ford, take them to the patrol cabin,” I order.

“Don’t worry, we’ll deal with them,” Liam says.

“Alpha Dempsey never shoulda named you his heir,” the older male gripes as he’s dragged off.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and turn to the rest of the workers. “Let’s get this cleaned up. I’ll have the other teams from maintenance send over replacements until this is all resolved so your group won’t be shorthanded.”

The she-wolf that held her own against two of the workers in the fight gives me an approving smile. “You heard the alpha.”

I help them get their truck out of the ditch the other three drove it into and stay with them until everything’s righted. By the time we’re done, the minor injuries from the fight have healed and they offer to share their lunch with me.

“Thank you. I would, but I have to get back. Your efforts are an important part of the community. If you have any problems or wish for a reassignment, come see my office.”

“You don’t have to tell us,” Candace, the strong female, says with a hearty chuckle. “There’s no such thing as a pack full of people that can scratch their asses all day, or nothing would ever get done. Someone’s gotta do this, and right now it’s us. Honestly, I like this assignment better than my last one in laundry. I like being outdoors all day.”

I nod in appreciation, thanking each of them again before I head back to the lodge.

Dealing with the disgruntled maintenance workers makes me late getting back in time for my meeting with Timber Hollow Pack’s liaison.

“Apologies,” I say when I stride into my office. “There was an urgent matter I needed to resolve.”

The last thing I need is other packs hearing I don’t have things in hand. It won’t help my bid for better trade agreements if they think we’re in shambles.

The liaison is old enough to be my mother, with her blonde hair pulled into a severe bun. She gives me a judicious once over.

“Thank you for fitting me into your busy day, Alpha Blackburn. Gina of Timber Hollow Pack.”

I shake her hand. “I hope your travels were pleasant.”

“Quite. The foothills between here and Timber Hollow’s forest to the south are beautiful this time of year.”

“Let’s get right into it,” I suggest.

She loses some of her curtness and launches into an overview of this year’s gathering. The packs first come together for a welcome feast celebrating our continued harmony before any updates are made to the accords.

As she talks about the formal meeting following the feast, my focus derails. I swear I catch a hint of honeysuckle in bloom and drowsy summer showers spent on the porch through the cracks in the window.

Avery.

My wolf is more interested in following her heavenly scent than sitting through the meeting. Instead of fighting his influence over my instincts again, I hesitate. Her scent acts like a drug that leaves me in a disorienting haze that fills my mind with her, her, her.

Everything I shut down floods back in. My imagination is out of control, supplying me with a vivid recreation of the first moments the bond unfurled.

The way she felt pressed against me last night, with her hand splayed on my chest sparks heat in my veins. She fits in my arms so perfectly. Her bright eyes captivatingly locked on me, so soft and lovely. Those full lips parting in awe, inviting me to claim something I used to dream of with her, even after things changed between us.

I struggle to shut down the line of thought, failing to remember why I shouldn’t want to kiss her to learn what sounds she makes. Or find out the answer to the burning question I’ve always wondered—if she tastes as delicious as she smells.

“Alpha Blackburn?”

I stiffen, tuning back in. The liaison peers at me expectantly. I missed the question.

Damn it, this meeting has been on my schedule for weeks. It’s important, and I’m sitting here thinking of Avery in every way I shouldn’t be. My fist clenches.

Fate changes nothing. I’ll never go there with her.

“You’ve selected the members of your pack you’ll be attending the Pack Summit with?” she repeats.

“Yes. We’re still appointing volunteers to help Timber Wolf Pack put on the event.” As part of the accords, the summit’s host bears the brunt of the work with help from each pack to bring us all together. “This list has the Silver Falls Pack members joining me as part of my entourage.”

She takes the paper and scans it, copying names down. “And just to confirm for the headcount of your group, you are unmated? I don’t see one included here.”

“That’s correct. I don’t have a ma⁠—”

The end of my sentence becomes garbled, my wolf jerking control from me with a howl that rattles the windows. He’s pissed at me and the female for discounting his mate. My nails become claws and my arm swings across the desk without my permission, knocking a stack of paperwork to the floor.

The wolf is done with this. He wants to leave, to spend the day at his mate’s side. I won’t let him take my skin, gritting my teeth until I have him locked away where all my thoughts of Avery should remain—buried in my mind.

I clear my throat, gripping the armrests so hard that my shifted claws dig into the lacquered wood while my expression settles into a blank mask. Rather than apologize or make excuses for my wolf, I plow on with the meeting.

“I’ll send a final headcount for the group ahead of the gathering.”

“Very well.” She quirks her brow. “Please do so with at least three weeks notice so arrangements can be finalized.”

I’ll be hearing about this outburst from Alistair when she returns to his territory. Great.

“Of course.”

She shuffles her notes and stands. “Thank you for your cooperation and accommodation, Alpha Blackburn. We look forward to hosting this year’s event and seeing your pack there.”

I nod, shaking her hand. “Thanks.”

Once she’s out of my office, I lean my elbows on the desk and rest my head between my hands. An insistent tug yanks an invisible cord rooted in my chest. Fucking mate bond.

13AVERY

Something wakes me with a gasp in the middle of the night. I scramble to sit up, straining my ears.

There it is again, outside my window. Even with better sight, the cloudy night makes it too dark to make out any detail besides the fur of a huge dark shadow. I hope my garden plots haven’t attracted bears again.

I slip from the sheets and grab a knife from my satchel hanging on the wall, then creep to the window.

The beast lifts its head, snout raised and ears forward with interest. It’s not a bear.

I lower my small knife. It’s Caden. He’s out there again, this time as his wolf.

Sighing, I brace on the windowsill while he paces outside my room. He rises to his hind legs to sniff at the trim. I squint, tilting my head. He seems more beast than man at the moment.

I’m inclined to believe Caden’s not in the driver’s seat, so to speak, because there’s no way he’d come out here at two in the morning for no reason.

“I don’t know what you’re doing out there.”

He whines, pawing at the ledge. Majestic golden eyes find mine through the smudged panes of glass, begging. Definitely not Caden, then. I lift a brow and his wolf lowers his head to rest on his paws.

“I’m not letting you in.”

He gives a grunt of complaint. I can’t believe I’m arguing with a wolf.

I glance at the door, listening to my sisters’ even breathing. Sliding my lips together, I give in to curiosity and wrestle with the window to get it halfway open.

Caden’s wolf pushes his head through before I’ve moved back, sniffing at my hands, licking my wrist, then wedging his nose in my armpit with a happy rumble.

“Okay, wait, wait,” I hiss when he tries to squeeze his massive body through the tiny window.

He nuzzles into my neck when I hesitantly run my fingers through his fur. I’m surprised to find it’s thick and soft beneath the outer coat. I scratch behind his ears and a laugh bubbles out of me at the way he melts with a groan.

“I hope you don’t remember any of this when you shift back to your usual self.” I smile wryly. “I prefer you this way. You’re way less of a dick.”

I spend far longer than I should petting him. When he finally lets me go back to bed, I hear him pacing outside. I sense it in the bond when he settles on the opposite side of the wall where my bed is.

I cover my chest with a hand, and instead of the constant burning ache, the magic of the bond is warm. Almost comforting.

After three days of enduring kitchen duty, forced mingling with the pack, and Caden’s wolf spending every night outside my window, I’m going stir crazy. I want to shift again, but more than that, I need to get out of here.

The kitchen stores don’t have anything else I need to fight Lena’s cold before it progresses into a full-blown respiratory infection. Yesterday I cornered Alma the first chance I got and buttered her up with the paste I made for her stiff joints. She looked the other way while I took two jars of honey.

I know the town has a fall harvest festival coming up where I could obtain better quality honey from the beekeeper than what the pack imports because it’s cheaper. It’s too risky to try to get all the way to town with the increased patrols and tightening of Caden’s rules since the bonfire—his answer to everything when something threatens order in the pack. Once again, a Morgan is the source of that something.

Going to town might be out, but I do know of some good spots beyond the edges of pack territory that could still have useful plants. The trick will be finding the opening in the patrol schedule now that my usual spot where Caden found me has round the clock supervision from his security team.

Taryn’s fiery red hair snares my interest as she stumbles in late under Alma’s watchful eye. Her reputation for skirting the rules might be just what I need.

She comes over and busies herself with the bag of flour I’m scooping from until Alma’s attention is off us.

“Morning,” I say with a hint of amusement. “Did you get lost?”

She frowns into the flour. “Liam’s the reason I’m late.”

My brows lift. A laugh puffs out of her.

“No, not like that. He shows up to make sure I don’t skip out on my assigned rotation, but then he ends up lecturing me like I’m a misbehaved pup.” She rolls her eyes. “He drives me crazy.”

I hum with a smirk, adding eggs to the bowl to make batter for the pancakes Ace and Emily are cooking on a large griddle. We work quietly for a while until I decide to just ask her outright.

“Hey, uh. I’ve heard you have a way of evading the enforcers,” I whisper.

Taryn’s bright blue eyes sparkle and she lights up with a playful smile. “Yeah, why? You want to sneak out?”

I bite my lip, glancing furtively around to make sure no one overhears before nodding. “It’s important. My usual route is under constant watch.”

“Done.”

“I can—wait, done?”

“You can count on me to get you out. I know a spot that’s always overlooked no matter how many times they switch up the schedule.”

“Thank you.” My shoulders sag with relief.

Alma clears her throat, scrutinizing us as she comes over to collect the pancake batter.

“How’s the medicine working out? Does it help with stiffness and swelling in your knuckles?” I ask her.

Alma flexes her hand, mouth slanted as close to a smile as she gets. “It does the trick.”

Taryn leans in to mutter in my ear when she moves on. “Meet me at the tree with the knot that looks like a face after sunset.”

The rest of our morning shift passes fast enough that I’m hurrying back to the cottage to check on Lena before noon while Beatrix is still at her school lessons. Lena should be attending lessons at her age, too. I’ve been too nervous to let her go. I don’t have to worry about Bea holding her own like I would with Lena.

When I leave the dining pavilion, the main lawn is crawling with young shifters doing training exercises for the pack’s enforcer team. Tryouts must have started.

One group is blindfolded while Liam barks orders at them to scent where he and the other high-ranking lieutenants are. Another group of males and females are being tested on their agility, shifting back and forth between forms. Caden evaluates them with his arms folded while one of the enforcers from his father’s reign marks down times on a clipboard.

I pick up my pace, scolding myself for slowing to observe the stretch of his rolled up flannel sleeves around his magnificent forearms. A spicy hint of sun-baked cedar tickles my nose until I leave the commons.

Once I’m home, I prepare another poultice and smear it on Lena’s chest. She chatters happily about the plot of the book she’s reading. It’s the same one she’s read a hundred times, but I listen with a soft smile.

“The dragon shifter has been cursed to guard the tallest tower, and every year the humans in the provincial town below have to select a maiden to send as a sacrifice to avoid the dragon’s wrath. Except this maiden volunteers to go because she wants to seek revenge for her older sister being the sacrifice the previous year.” She clutches the book and peers over the pages at me. “And guess what happens when she gets to the dragon’s tower?”

I curl her silky hair behind her ears. “You’ve told me before. Sort of spoils the surprise reveal.”

“I know, but guess anyway. It’s more fun.”

I play along. “Does she…slay the dragon and succeed in her revenge?”

Lena gasps for effect. “No! She can’t bring herself to do it because the dragon shifter is her True Mate! Their love is written by the Fates. He’s been waiting for her for over a thousand years after his rival killed her in a previous life.”

“The humans really come up with the wildest ideas about supernatural beings since they learned of us.”

“I love it,” Lena gushes. “They write it so romantically. It makes me want to go on a grand adventure and fall in love with a forbidden fated mate.”

It amazes me that she never complains about her health. When coughing tires her out, I read her book to her until she falls asleep again. Her breathing is still too raspy for my liking.

Sometimes I wish human medicine worked on shifters, but our metabolism flushes it out of our systems too quickly for it to make any difference. Most don’t fall ill the way Lena does, other than those who lose their True Mates and grow heartsick.

If only I could control real magic, like Jade’s. I’ve looked for her coven in the mountains to seek out their help with Lena’s health, but I haven’t seen any signs of them in years.

The extent of my capabilities are basic at best after her guidance. I use simple methods to improve my chances of cultivating soil that isn’t perfect, like adding a blessing circle around the border of the garden. Or lengthening the lifespan of my crops by working with the natural magic of the land rather than truly producing magic the way a witch can.

Beatrix bursts through the door, the racket waking Lena. “You weren’t going to tell us?”

“Tell you what?” I answer mildly.

“Um, hello? That you’re Caden’s fated mate?”

“What?” Lena yelps.

My throat closes and my stomach sinks like a stone. “Oh. You heard about that? I’m—I’m not.”

“I know.” Beatrix softens her tone, coming over to hug my shoulders. “Everyone said something big happened at bonfire night, but they were being vague. You didn’t tell us.”

I lean into her gratefully and reach for Lena’s hand poking from the covers. “Because it’s not important.”

“But—you’re mates?” Lena protests.

I squeeze her hand, not wanting to tarnish her world with the harsh reality that rejecting a mate is possible. “No, buttercup. I have everything I need right here.”

The three of us climb into bed with Lena, snuggled together and inseparable.