Page 14 of A Beta Protects

He tilts his head, expression quizzical. “Know what?”

“That I left Bryce, and that Shawn, your cop friend, knows it was me he was looking for?”

“I suspected something of the sort,” he says, voice giving nothing away.

I’m relieved he doesn’t ask why I ran, what I’m doing here, and where I plan to go next. The answers to all of the above would be too big, too messy, and too painful—never mind embarrassing—to say out loud.

“Do you know if anyone is hiring?”

His slow blink tells me I just surprised him.

I stiffen my back and my shoulders. “It would only be for a few days. Then I’d be out of your hair.”

He looks at me for a long moment, his chest rising as he breathes in and then falling when he exhales. Then he turns around. “Leave it with me. I’ll ask around.”

He puts his hand on the door, and I call after him. “You’re not going to ask about Bryce?”

He keeps his back to me. “I figure you’ll tell me what you want me to know, and right now, it’s probably for the best that time isn’t now.”

I frown, confused, as he disappears inside.

6

DOM

Galen is in the kitchen, talking with Sierra as I stalk through it on my way to the back door. I’d hesitated about following Kira when she’d hurried out of breakfast after mumbling an excuse that sounded like a lie.

She had been thinking of leaving. I’d seen her hands on the steering wheel as she sat in her car, and caught the determination flickering across her pretty blue gaze.

I’d seen it and I’d stepped out with no clue what the fuck I was going to say to stop my mate from leaving me.

“Dom, I need to talk to you about…” Galen’s voice trails off as I keep walking through the kitchen, past the dining table filled with my packmates finishing their breakfast.

The door slams shut behind me as I jog down the back porch and head into the forest, the main selling points for us settling in Wylder.

He hurt her.

I thought leaving Kira with her husband was the right thing to do. That I was giving her what she needed and what she wanted. That she was happy.

Instead, I walked away, leaving her with her abuser.

For years.

My wolf is snarling in my head and I’m fighting the itch to shed my clothes, then my human skin and run this fury out of me when a hand grips my shoulder and turns me around.

I drive my fist into them.

Galen slams into the ground.

He stares up at me and lifts his hand to swipe at the blood on his lip, then sits up. “If it was anyone else, they’d be six feet under by now. But since it’s you, and I happen to like you—a little more five minutes ago than now—I’ll give you one opportunity to explain yourself.”

His eyes glitter with feral intelligence, and his growled order is more wolf than man. His muscles bunch under his check shirt, like he’s fighting a battle with himself to stay human. He probably is.

“I left her to suffer.” My voice is quiet. “I failed my mate.”

For one long moment Galen doesn’t say a word, then he springs to his feet in a move that isn’t the least bit human. When he swipes the last of the blood away, his cut lip has healed and the wolf in his eyes is giving way to the man.

Because he isn’t just my alpha, he is also my friend.

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