Page 10 of His Prodigal Alpha

“Come on,” Jazz urged from the other side of my truck. I could barely see the top of her thick, brown hair through the window, “Beckett and Ollie are waiting for us.”

I nodded and made my way around to her, then followed her up the front steps of the farmhouse. The wrap-around porch was freshly painted, as was the front door. Jazz gave three firm raps on the glossy white surface and, barely ten seconds later, the door swung inwards to reveal a willowy young man with a baby on his hip.

He smiled warmly at me, extending his free hand. “Hi,” he beamed, his green eyes sizing me up from my toes to my hair, “I’m Ollie. And this,” he bounced the baby at his side, “is Duke. Come on in. Beck’s just changing Rory.” The look he shot towards my companion was almost plaintive. “Jazz, could I trouble you to make us all some coffees?”

I shook his hand as Jazz bustled past me, declaring his request was no trouble at all. “Rex,” I introduced myself, then wiped my feet on the welcome mat and moved inside as I’d been instructed to, “it’s nice to meet you.” I looked around the cozy timber-hewn living room and smiled at the worn floral couch, so much like the one we’d had back in Texas. “You have a lovely home.”

“Thanks,” Ollie replied, still making absolutely no secret of his curiosity in me. He cocked his head. “So, an alpha, huh? Bet that came as a shock. It did for Beck.” His lips curled upwards. “Especially with the way it happened.”

“Oh?” I arched an eyebrow at him. I didn’t know much about the Pack Alpha’s backstory, only that he’d thought he was human…until he wasn’t anymore.

“Popping a knot mid-orgasm is understandably unnerving,” Ollie shrugged.

“Oliver!Honestly.” I turned my head at the sound of the exasperated admonishment, watching as another guy —older than Ollie, but he had to be close to a decade younger than me— came down the stairs, holding a dark-haired baby to his shoulder. He was about my height and broad shouldered, with short dark hair and dark eyes. He held himself straight, even while his smile softened and became almost conspiratorial as he turned his attention to me. “Sorry,” he said, his gravelly voice deep and more mature than I’d anticipated. “Ollie likes to overshare. I don’t think the word ‘boundary’ is in his vocabulary.” He came to a stop in front of me and extended his hand. “Beckett Smith,” he introduced himself easily, but there was a subtle power about him that told me he was an alpha.TheAlpha. Even though I hadn’t met another alpha before, my instincts told me he couldn’t be anything else. Hell, even his scent seemed kind of electric, so different to the other shifters I’d encountered so far. “But you can call me Beck. Everyone else does.”

I shook his hand. “Rex. Rex Murphy.”

“Come sit down, Rex,” Beck gestured to the couch. He waited for me to sit before he chose the matching armchair positioned on the other side of the timber coffee table, then he extended his arm out to Ollie. “I’ll take Duke if you want to head down to the clinic and get Eric or Brandt. I’m sure they’ll have questions for Rex, and answers to any of his questions, too.”

Ollie nodded and carefully maneuvered the baby he was holding onto Beck’s lap, where Beck secured him with his free arm. He paused to smile at the way the boy reached for the other baby, making gurgling sounds. Then he cocked his head back at Beck. “What about D—”

Beck cut him off with a shake of his head. “One step at atime,” he cautioned, then leaned his head back for a quick kiss. Ollie obliged. Beck’s smile was warm. “Thanks, babe.”

Ollie nodded and then bade us goodbye as he headed back out the front door.

“He won’t be long,” Beck told me when a few moments of awkward silence had passed. “Eric and Brandt are the town doctors and researchers. Eric’s been researching alphas for years: long before I kind of magically discovered I was one. He’s been a huge help through all of this.”

One of the babies —the darker haired one; Rory, was it?— squawked in his lap. He bounced his knee and gave Duke a soft pet on his back. “Be nice to your sister.”

I hadn’t even noticed that the little guy’s hand was squeezing the other baby’s arm, no doubt causing the sharp complaint.

I jutted my chin at the pair. “Looks like you’ve sure got your hands full.”

Beck chuckled, and he sighed in that tired way that all new parents seemed to do. “They’re not easy, no,” he agreed. “But I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

“How old are they?”

“About four months,” he answered. “They’re way easier to handle now that they can support the weight of their own heads. I was terrified I’d break them when they were all fresh and new.”

I blinked at him and did some quick mental math.When did the whole mess in New York happen? About a year ago? Assuming babies cook for about nine months…

“Hang on,” the words were out before I could remind myself that his relationship was none of my damn business.

I took a closer look at the babies in his lap. One looked a hell of a lot like him, not that I thought I was any good at being ableto see resemblances between squidgy baby faces and adults. It wasn’t exactly something I often found myself in a position to do, and it wasn’t as though I spent a lot of time with kids. I definitely had no plans for any of my own, either.

“I mean…” I trailed off and shook my head, holding my hands up apologetically. “Sorry. It’s really none of my business.”

There were a number of plausible explanations for the situation, really. He might have already gotten a woman pregnant prior to being with Ollie. He and Ollie might have had an open relationship. He might have hired a surrogate before meeting Ollie. They might be his sibling’s kids.

It was none of my damned business.

Except he spoke about them like they were his own and…nope.I didn’t know the story and it wasn’t my place to poke around asking about it, either. I was there to get answers about the whole ‘surprise alpha’ thing. No sense getting derailed by my natural curiosity. That had always been my downfall.

Beck’s dark eyes were locked on mine as he sat in what felt like contemplative silence. He hummed in thought to himself, then sighed. “How much do you know about shifters?”

I blinked. “Pardon me?”

“Like, there’s the basics we learned in history back in school,” he continued, back to bouncing both his legs to the contented babbles of the babies in his lap, “but that didn’t really cover the whole alpha/omega/beta thing at all.”

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