Page 34 of Possessive Alpha

What is he doing? Sitting in the seat next to mine? Waiting to pin me to the dining room wall and bite my throat, claiming me as his in front of everyone now that we’ve slept together?

Should I run?

Would now be the best time to?—

“Martha? Hey! Earth to Martha.”

I whip my head toward Clara. “What?”

“I asked what happened with you and Ty last night?”

I blush. “What makes you think something happened?”

She rolls her eyes. “Uh, maybe because I left him pinning you to a tree in the forest, and now you’re all about soft sighs and gazing into the distance. So did he romance you?”

“I am not about soft sighs. Stop being so dramatic,” I deny as I make a mental note to pay more attention to what I say and do around Clara.

But she’s right. About all of it.

If you can call what we did against his bedroom door romance, then maybe?

Someone literally walked past the door he was fucking me against and I didn’t care.

“Martha?”

We’re at the bottom of the staircase, and I have no memory of it. I must have zoned out. Again. A dangerous thing to do while walking down the stairs. I’m a shifter, so the fall wouldn’t kill me, but do I want to tumble head over ass down the stairs if I can avoid it?

No.

“Sorry, just distracted,” I mutter as I lead the way to the kitchen, following my nose to all the delicious scents that are making my stomach growl. “Let’s grab breakfast.”

I’m half-tempted to tell Clara I want to eat somewhere other than the dining room, but that change in our routine would set off every alarm in my little sister. She’d know for sure something happened, and since she left me alone with Ty, she’d know that the something involved him.

I flash Regan a smile, and she returns a distracted one.

She has a cell phone pressed to her ear as she points her chin at the kitchen island loaded with platters.

Everything is out. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, toast, and pancakes. No matter what time Clara and I come down, she has everything ready. I don’t know how she can so effortlessly cook for so many people, day in and day out, and how she can enjoy it, but I’m grateful for her.

“Help yourselves. If you want blueberry muffins, come back in a couple of minutes and they’ll be out of the oven. I’m all cleared out of the first batch. They went fast.” She grins.

“Does Jackson know how lucky he is to have you?” I ask as I reach for a plate.

“He does,” Jackson yells from the entryway, making us all smile.

Clara and I help ourselves to breakfast, filling glasses of juice as Regan returns to her conversation with Talis. I’ve never met any of Regan’s former packmates, but she still counts them as family and is usually chatting with them on a near-daily basis.

The second we step into the dining room, I stop.

Not because I remembered I was supposed to get up extra early to start the washer. Regan is such an early riser, she must have beaten me to it, since I hear the faint sounds of it spinning through the last cycle. I stop because of Ty.

He turns in his chair, the one beside my usual seat. He has his breakfast in front of him, but it doesn’t look like he touched it. And he’s tired again.

Because I snuck out of his bed, or because he had a nightmare?

I wish I could ask him without letting him know how much it bothers me to see those lines of strain on his face.

Clara must know something happened between us because I freeze in the doorway, saying nothing.

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