Page 3 of The Alpha's Forced Rejected Mate

“Who said anything about drugs?”

My hand floated instinctively to the back of my neck. “Uh, well…”

She pushed my arm. “Are youserious, Clifton? You used to sell drugs up there?”

“No, it’s not that. Adrian had just—”

“Don’t blame Adrian for this!”

Maybe laughter wasn’t the best reaction for this conversation, but the awkward levels had risen way past my limits. I had to chuckle to get the weird feelings out before they consumed me.

After a quick shake of my head to loosen up the rest of the strangeness, I took my sister’s hand and squeezed it. “Faye, I’m sorry to break it to you, but Adrian was definitely running a little bit of an illegal thing a while back.”

“A while backwhen?”

“After you left, but before you came back.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s specific.Thanks.”

“We were struggling to make ends meet. Adrian had a hook-up in the psych unit of the hospital, so we were splitting some earnings on expired medication.”

“Sierra, do you hear that? Your uncle is a criminal.”

Now I was really laughing. “Hey, people can change. You, of all people, should know that.”

Her smile turned from teasing to genuinely warm and loving. “That’s why I think you should go up there, Cliff. You can act as a liaison to the new Alpha and extend an olive branch to a pack that strayed away. We can show strength in gentleness.”

Sierra stirred again. Both Faye and I stiffened, listening closely to the baby, who was beginning to wake from her nap. Downstairs, the front door squealed, followed by the sound of a short beep and a digital voice announcing, “Front door.”

As if she knew, Sierra cried out. I shot to my feet just like my sister, our motions matched as if they were coordinated all this time. We strode in three long steps to the crib and bowed over the edge to coo into the darling face that was sleepily blinking up at us.

“Cherry pie!” Hector boomed from the bottom of the steps. “And my little cupcake!”

Faye threw her head back and laughed. Sierra, unaware of the joke but wanting very much to mimic her mother, gave us a gummy grin before breaking into a fit of giggle. Behind us, Hector burst with four pronounced exclamations of laughter, a hearty chuckling that would be useful during the holidays when he was inevitably asked by his daughter to dress up as Santa Claus.

Since my sister was occupied, I scooped Sierra from the crib, doubling the round of giggles, inspiring the room to explode with laughter as I held Sierra between the three of us. She was a swaddled pup surrounded by her pack. While each of us chose something to compliment—her little toes are so eetie-beetie—I kept an emotional distance from my sister, something that I typically didn’t do.

But she had already done some damage to my internal layers, the ones I tried to hide behind a protective shield.

Robyn wasn’t my mate. She’d never be my mate, not in a million years. Her Alpha would never allow such a thing, and her family was too priss about royal blood and inheritance crap to really give a damn about a guy like me doing my best. Now wasn’t a great time to be thinking about mating anyway, especially with the possibility of demons making a comeback.

One hybrid witch-wolf was enough to bring a hoard of demons. I didn’t want to know what a fresh hybrid witch-wolf might attract.

That was why I had to stay in West Virginia.

Faye smiled at me over Sierra’s big head while speaking to Hector, “Let me run an idea by you, Darling.”

I held out my hands like Faye was pointing a gun at me. “Alright, let’s be reasonable here.”

Hector ignored me. “What’s that, sweetie?”

“We should send your best friend to Maine as a liaison to the new Alpha. You know, get connected with…What’s his name again?”

I dropped my hands to my sides. “Bill Parks.”

“Alpha Bill Parks,” Hector stated carefully. “I’ll have to ask Adrian about that.”

“Why would you ask Adrian? He’s not the Alpha anymore,” Faye argued.

---