The Alpha’s Tempting Mate

Amber

Nausea hits me the minute they leave. Between the drugged out feeling from being marked, the pain and general exhaustion, my body rebels at what I know I need to do-

Leave.

If I’d known Garrett would lose his position as alpha by marking me, I never would have let him do it. His pack is everything to him. I’ve seen how tight they are-closer than family. They care for each other, have each other’s backs. His guys would do anything for him. He has a pack tattoo on his arm, for God’s sake.

Loneliness shoots through me, just contemplating leaving him. Before I met Garrett, I managed my loneliness. Used measures of order, control, and a sense of contributing to society to keep my life on the upswing.

But now I see all those things for what they were-a mask to hide the truth that’s always gnawed at me. I’m alone in the world.

Which is fine. Not everyone can be from big packs or families. I’ve learned to manage on my own, and I’ll manage without Garrett, too. I have my job. And my best friend. And foster kids who need my help. Well, yeah, that’s my job.

We were only mated for a few hours. I’ve only considered him my boyfriend for a day.

Letting go won’t be that hard.

Yeah, right.

My eyes burn as I throw my things into the silver rolling suitcase I filled when Garrett ordered me to pack. Every time I waver into self-pity, I remind myself I’m doing this for Garrett. He deserves an alpha wolf for a mate.

Not Crazy Amber.

Definitely not Crazy Amber.

I don’t want Crazy Amber-how could she be what Garrett wants?

No, his worry over Sedona, the full moon, and their proximity made him impetuous. Sooner or later, he’d realize he made a mistake. Maybe next week. Maybe in a month. Maybe not for three months. But it would happen, like the inevitability of the next moonrise. Better to rip the Band-Aid off quickly. Or leave before more damage is done. Or whichever saying best fits.

It’s been a wild weekend, but that’s all it was. Wild. And a weekend.

I leave the hotel room and take the elevator down to the lobby. It’s past midnight, but I find a cab outside and ask to go to the airport.

As I ride away, my head begins to throb. I pull the bottle of ibuprofen Trey brought me out of my purse and pop three, even though I know they won’t do any good. I stare at the dark streets whizzing by and brace myself against the pain. Not in my head but from the giant javelin lanced through my chest.

I’ll get by. I always do.

In the airport, I check the departures and find one going to Phoenix at six a. m. It’s two hours from Tucson but close enough. I pay for a ticket and sit down in a chair to wait for morning.

The visions come the moment I close my eyes. I fight them back, but it feels like my head will explode. I see fast-forward movies playing of Sedona, a beautiful brunette, locked in a sparsely-furnished room with a young Mexican man. It blurs and shifts into a fight between the young man and the wolves who guard the door. Then, the two of them, standing on a beautiful veranda that overlooks a vast jungle. The van Trey stole from the warehouse drives in on the road below.

Garrett.

My body grieves for him, as if he didn’t embed just his scent, but his very essence in me, making me forever addicted to him. I shove the visions back, swallow them down. My legs are shaky when I stand, but I walk to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. It’s almost morning. My plane will leave soon, and I can sleep on it.

Tomorrow, I’ll be home, and I can go about pretending this never happened.

I look in the mirror, but I don’t see myself, I see the white-haired woman from the airport restroom years before. She stares back at me with accusation in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I choke, but the room is spinning. It’s all I can do to hang onto the counter and not fall down.

The last thing I remember is my vision going black right before my head strikes something hard and I blessedly lose consciousness.

Garrett

I sit in the passenger side of a twenty-passenger van and crack my tattooed knuckles. We have three giant vans-more like mini buses-driving in a caravan into the jungle. My father brought sixty men with him. The Montelobos have over one hundred. Decent odds, considering how ferocious my home pack can be. Still, it’s the first time I’ve gone into a fight with someone waiting for me to return.

Life feels more precious now. My own life, Amber’s. Certainly Sedona’s. Fates, she’s just a kid, still. This shouldn’t have happened to her.

I ride in the van with my pack members, to let them know how much I appreciate their support. How important this battle is to me. I’m not going to go in there and lose. Losing isn’t in my blood, especially not where Sedona’s involved. Since the same blood runs through my father’s veins, I know we’re undefeatable.

The drive takes two and a half hours. Enough time for me to replay every moment I’ve spent with Amber, from the day I met her until the minute I left her at the hotel. In a short amount of time, she’s completely changed my life.

I feel so far removed from the never-willing-to-settle-down party boy I was a week ago. The guy my dad rode hard for not manning up and acting like a true leader. The guy who didn’t take much seriously. Yes, I was a successful businessman, but it hadn’t been hard. I had the Midas touch. I got in the real estate market at the right time. My dad provided me with initial start-up capital, but I was able to pay him back within a year. The rest I did on my own.

It’s so easy to see now that I played the rebel out of fear of becoming my dad. Fear of becoming an uptight asshole who rides his pack and family hard.

Except now that my own instincts to protect those precious to me-Amber and Sedona, and my pack members, too-have kicked into high gear, I understand where he was coming from. I’ve made different choices in my leadership style, but we probably both want the same things. And now that I have a mate, it’s obvious to me I need to grow up.

I need to be the kind of man Amber would be proud to introduce to her colleagues. Her foster kids. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put on a suit and tie, but it’s time to stop living like a frat boy.

The van winds up a narrow dirt road, climbing higher and higher into dense rainforest. Everything looks rural and poor until we stop by a high-tech electric security gate. My dad and I get out. I smash the security camera staring down at us and help him rip the gate from its hinges, bending and tearing the metal.

I’m ready to shift right there and run in on four paws, but my dad orders the vans to drive in farther. I tear my shirt off when I get back in the van, and my guys do the same. We’ll be ready to meet them in human or wolf form, whichever is required.

We drive another five miles, still climbing the side of a mountain. In the distance, a citadel looms. There’s no other word to describe it. Surrounded by smooth adobe walls, an enormous palace sits on a high hill, with balustrade-lined balconies and turrets overlooking the enclave of little thatch-roofed huts below. A medieval-style home to royalty and peasants-that’s how it looked.

The road dead-ends at a giant portcullis-closed, of course.

The vans stop, and we start to pile out. A flash of movement coming from behind us makes me whirl and partially shift, but I pull up short.

“Sedona?”

My sister is running at us at top speed. She’s wearing some kind of flowy, old-fashioned gown, and I scent her blood, mingled with that of a male’s.

Amber was right-not that I doubted it. Sedona’s been marked.

“Garrett!” She launches into the air and flies into my arms, wrapping arms and legs around me like a toddler.

I fall back with the impact and hug her. “Sedona. You’re all right. We’re here now.”

When my dad joins us, I put her down, and she hugs him, too.

“How do we get in? I’m going to kill every last motherfucking-”

“No.” Sedona shoots a look over her shoulder in the direction she came. A little boy, no more than nine years old, stands there, looking uncertain. “Take me out of here. I don’t want a fight. I just want to go home. Let’s go.”Text content © NôvelDrama.Org.

My dad shakes his head. “No one steals my daughter and lives.”

“They didn’t steal me, they bought me. You’re welcome to kill the fuckers who stole me, but I just want to get out of here. No bloodshed. Let’s just leave.”

I see my father isn’t going for it, so I grab his arm and jerk my head toward the van. “Dad, come here.”

His mouth closes in a tight line, but he follows me around the back of the vehicle where we can talk in private. Well, the privacy is largely an illusion because wolves have incredible hearing, but at least the others understand we mean to speak privately.

“Dad, don’t you think Sedona’s been through enough? She’s been mated. She might have conflicted feelings toward the guy. The last thing she needs is more trauma. If she says no bloodshed here, I think we have to honor her wishes.”

My dad growls.

I hold my ground, refusing to lift my chin or cower to his animal. My wolf is alpha, now. He needs to hear me on this.

“We don’t kill them and we send the message we’re weak.”

“So we come back later and slaughter the whole town,” I say drily, although my dad is capable of such violence. “I say for right now, we get Sedona out of here, hear her story, and regroup. If we decide to come back, we come back. I’ll gladly rip every last motherfucker limb from limb. You know I will.”

The rumble in my father’s throat peters out and dies. He gives a single nod and stalks around the van, giving the command to load back up. I blink, somewhat dumbfounded that my father actually let me make the call.

The guys move with military precision, and our caravan is on its way out in less than sixty seconds. I sit in a back seat with Sedona, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and waiting until she’s ready to talk.