Page 98 of Alpha Brock

Annalise rubs her belly, and my eyes drop to see that it’s swollen- she’s pregnant. And again, I feel nothing. “Same. I think we’re gonna head to Denver until this whole shadow pack thing blows over. We were invited to stay with the same family that we housed recently, and Alpha Reid just granted us permission.”

“Ooh, which family?” Astrid pipes up, interest piqued.

I grin, tipping my head toward my mate. “Astrid’s brother is the alpha of the Denver pack.”

Anna’s mouth forms a little ‘o’ in recognition.

When she doesn’t answer Astrid’s question, Wes answers for her. “The Bloomfields,” he supplies. “Nice people.”

“Ahh,” Astrid smiles fondly in recognition. “They’re lovely.” Her gaze shifts from Wes to Anna’s belly, to her face. “While you’re there, make sure you ask them to introduce you to Lola Hendricks, she lives a few houses down. She’s a yogi and does this awesome prenatal yoga class a few times a week, the pregnant women in our pack swear by it.”

A prideful smile pulls at my lips- Astrid just can’t help herself, can she? She’s just so…good. So kind. I don’t deserve her.

“Thanks, I’ll do that,” Anna smiles, looking between the two of us. She still seems a little caught off guard by Astrid. “Well, I guess we should get going, but it was nice to see you.”

“You too,” I reply with a nod, and surprisingly, I actually mean it.

Annalise grabs ahold of Wes’ arm and starts to walk past us, but she suddenly pauses, looking back at me. “Brock, about what happened between us all those years ago…”

“Hey, I get it,” I say, cutting her off. I glance down at Astrid, a grin spreading across my face. “I didn’t until I met my mate, but now I do.” I brush a strand of hair out of Astrid’s eyes and she smiles up at me, and I swear I can feel my heart swell in my chest when our gazes collide.Fuck I love her. More than I ever thought possible. I didn’t understand Annalise’s motives for doing what she did before, but I do now; the mate bond is special. I look back to Anna, tipping my head. “No hard feelings, honestly.”

And the shocker is, it’s true. I don’t harbor any animosity or resentment toward her. In a way I want to thank her, because if she kept her word and stuck with me, then I wouldn’t be here with Astrid right now. I’d never know how happy I could truly be.

“Thanks for letting this one get away,” Astrid smirks, turning sideways into me and wrapping her arms around my torso.There she is- sweet with a side of snark, getting in a subtle little dig while remaining non-confrontational. A hothead like me could learn a thing or two from her.

Anna pauses, glancing up at me. “He was never mine to keep.”

She gives me a little smile, leaning into her mate and turning to leave.

And there it is.Closure. I never thought I’d get it- hell, I never thought I needed it, but standing here right now with Astrid by my side, I feel strong. Unburdened. Like the past is past.

Reid comes strolling around the corner from his office, his brows lifting when his eyes meet mine.

“You’re early,” he comments, looking to the front door of the packhouse that Annalise and Wes just exited through. “Did you see…”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “It’s fine.”

Reid studies me curiously, but he doesn’t say anything else about it, just walks past and gestures for us to follow. “C’mon, since you’re early you can help me set up.”

I lean in toward Astrid, dropping my voice low. “See? This is why we never come early.”

“I heard that!” Reid calls over his shoulder, and Astrid giggles.

~

A half an hour later, everyone has arrived for the council meeting and we get right down to business. While the council is technically comprised of the current, acting alphas and betas of every pack, Theo and Jax have been involved in most of the council meetings lately and their opinions have had a lot of pull as squad leaders. The addition of the girls is outside of the norm, but since all of our lunas are so involved with the security squad, it makes sense that they’re here to participate. I’m thinking of suggesting that we overhaul the council to include them regularly in the future- if we make it out of this war with the shadow pack, that is.

Those of us who were in Denver bring everyone else up to speed on what went down during our time there, including what we know about the shadow pack targeting the six-pack. The council is usually split between the old dudes: Anders, Damian, and Vaughn- and the young bucks: me, Gray, and Reid. Tonight, though, we’re all on the same page for once. We know a war is coming, it’s just a question of when and how we’re going to handle it when it arrives.

“From what I’ve seen, they’re gathering resources before they coordinate their attack here,” Astrid states. “Their attack on Denver gave them a glimpse into how many we have and what we can do. I think they’re intimidated, honestly.”

“They should be,” Theo scoffs, always so fucking cocky. He sweeps his gaze over the rest of us. “I wasn’t the only one on the battlefield in Denver, you guys saw how shoddy their training is. We took them down five to one.”

“But we can’t rely on those odds,” Gray interjects. Mister pragmatic. “I sure as hell don’t want to be outnumbered five to one when they come here.”

Anders turns to Gray. “Which is why you’re suggesting that we train up every able-bodied man and woman in the territory to join the fight.”

Gray nods. “Exactly. That’s how we boost our numbers. I mean, we’re shifters, we all learned how to fight when we were in school. If every Alpha can get their pack together a few days a week in the evenings to brush them up on skills, then we should be able to use them as a last line of defense. Some of our senior squad members can help facilitate that training.”

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