Page 30 of The Alpha's Bullied Mate

Mica smiled up at him, squeezing his arm. “And if they refuse to swear allegiance, they can’t stay. For now, though, I’m accepting them under my protection. Unless you wish for me to send them away, Alpha?”

Hayden gave her a dirty look but jerked his chin toward the hastily built lean-to on the south side of the house. There were three such structures now. The south was for the unmated women, the north was for unmated men, and the west was for family groups. The special ops team all shared rooms inside the house now, too, with the other rooms holding any injured wolves.

“You can keep them, for now,” Hayden said. “But see that you put them to work. I don’t want them causing us any trouble.”

“Of course.” Mica bowed her head toward him, fighting back a smile.

Unlike Monroe and his people, Hayden cared about the pack. He might say that he only returned because Ryder and the others from Bluebell Valley wanted to save the pack, but he did genuinely care. It reminded Mica so much of the Hayden from their childhood.

As she showed the three girls to their new home, Mica dwelt on the conundrum that was Hayden. He had been sweet, kind, and gentle when they were children. She remembered the way he would hold her hand when they were out in the forest, and she got scared. Or the way on the playground when one of the other children took wolf form and started to nip at her, the way he’d jump in and put himself physically between her and her tormented.

When did everything end up so complicated that she no longer knew that side of him? Was it when his parents died?

In any case, she still couldn’t quite convince herself that he was her true mate. For one thing, she was human. Humans didn’t have mates. They had pairings that usually ended with a separation.

A wolf’s mate was something else. They bonded for life and became one another’s life. It was impossible to mistreat one’s mate—or at least, that was what she had been told her whole life. From what she had seen, that was true for some people. But if mates were predestined, then it certainly wasn’t something that bound one another to good treatment.

If they were meant to be mates, how could he have treated her so badly during their late teen years? Even being rejected was unheard of with a true mate bond. But then… if it really was so uncommon, why did it happen so much? If there was only one mate for a wolf, how could they reject that bond for someone else?

It seemed to Mica that the mate bond was used far too often to convince the women to submit to ill-treatment. After all, if she was meant to be a gentling force on a rough man, how could she leave him just because he got rough with her?

Mica shook those thoughts from her head. It didn’t matter if Hayden was her ‘one true mate’ or not. The fact was, they were mates. They had undergone the ceremony. They had lain together.

He was a good man.

He wanted what was best for the pack and, by extension, her.

That was good enough.

“You’ll be expected to pull your weight in this pack,” Mica told the three girls after she’d assigned them a sleeping spot. “I’ll put you three on Christine’s team. She’ll let you know what our expectations are for you.”

Rachel folded her arms. “What sort of…workare we expected to do?”

“The same as everyone else,” Mica answered coolly. “Right now, Christine’s team is training. You’ll find them in the field behind the house.”

“Training?” Clarissa gaped.

Mica nodded.

“You mean, like, to fight? But we’re girls!” Clarissa wailed.

“I know. We’re all learning how to fight. Now get out there.”

The three looked at her as though she was crazy but slowly inched toward the backfield. Mica turned on her heel and marched back to the house. She had been in the middle of something she thought might help free Echo from possession.

If they could exorcise the demon and save Echo, maybe they could do the same to save Monroe.

Maybe there was a chance to end this without Hayden having to fight him. Maybe there was a chance that they could save the pack and prevent more bloodshed.

She got back to the study and continued her transcribing work. It was difficult to make out the handwritten pages, but as she continued to work, her heart sank. Right now, it was describing a possession similar to what happened to Echo. The writer had elected to kill the possessed wolf to ‘save their soul.’

That was out of the question. She wasn’t going to give up on her mother so easily.

Mica stayed at it the rest of the day. It was slow going, but Hayden had told her he didn’t want anyone else in the pack working on this. He couldn’t trust anyone else, outside of the special ops team, to be honest about what they found.

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, Mica’s concentration was broken by a loud howl outside. She jumped to her feet and raced to the window. Spencer stood just beyond the property line in his wolf form. His black fur gleamed like obsidian as he howled toward the sky.

From between the buildings of the town streamed wolves, adding their voices to the call. Mica’s heart leaped to her throat. Oh, no! That was a battle cry—

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