Page 49 of A Wolf in the Garden

“About what?”

“About what will happen to you, when you have a new alpha born into your pack.”

It’s something that bothers me too. I grind my teeth together, shaking my head. “It’s decades away from being an issue, at least.”

“What if…” she trails off, looking back out the window.

I can guess what she wants to ask, but is too afraid to say. “What if we have kids, and one of them is an alpha like me?”

She nods, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her close. “I have no answer for that, baby. It’s so unlikely. Please don’t let it worry you. We haven’t even had thekidsdiscussion yet.”

She laughs, pressing her face against my neck. “We’ve been together five days. What the fuck are we doing, talking about kids?”

“Everything wrong, apparently.” With my hand under her chin, I tilt her head up to face me, running my thumb over her plump lower lip. “It still feels pretty right, to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

“So you haven’t had a full moon here in New Zealand yet? This time around, I mean.”

Ellie and I sit on the private beach below my house with our fish and chips dinner, complete with tomato sauce, slices of lemon, and deep-fried chocolate bars for dessert, laid out on greasy butcher’s paper on the sand between us. I pick up my bottle of beer, a small-batch IPA from a local brewery, and take a swig, shaking my head in answer to her question. “I flew in the day after the last one.”

The full moon rises tomorrow evening. The weather forecast for tomorrow is the same as it’s been all week: clear skies, low wind, pleasant temperatures. As much as I enjoy the sun, I’m thankful for the rain that’s due to roll in on Sunday afternoon — the grapevines are getting to the point where they need water, and it saves me from relying on the irrigation system, at least for the time being.

Ellie pulls the edges of her cardigan, worn loose over her shoulders, around herself a little more, and I spot the goosebumps on her legs. After we got back from the city we took her car from the island’s ferry terminal to her place, where she showered and changed while I watered her garden and shut the chickens away for the night. “Here, come sit with me,” I tell her now, offering her my hand. “I’ll be your heater.”

“Yeah, I should have worn leggings. I keep forgetting that even though the days are warm, there’s still that springtime chill in the air when the sun starts setting.” She sighs as she settles between my legs, leaning back against my chest as if I am a living armchair, and I wrap my arms around her middle. “It’s a good excuse to cuddle up with you, though.”

I grunt, my lips pressed to the top of her head, breathing her in. I am utterly addicted to her scent. “You don’t need an excuse, and you know it.”

I pass her a piece of crumbed fish, and grab one for myself. “This is nice,” I tell her. “It reminds me of when we were growing up.”

“Yeah, it does. Fish and chips on the beach, and you’d always buy extra items off the menu, and then make me take all the leftovers home.”

“I used to worry about you,” I admit. Her mom had been an early-childhood teacher in nearby Whangarei for as long as I could remember; unqualified, and therefore paid less than those that had been to teachers’ college. Between the mortgage on Amaia Harding’s home — a place she had inherited from extended family on her mother’s British side, along with the debt — and the cost of raising a daughter by herself, money had been tight for the two of them. My mother had given Amaia money over the years, I know that much, but from what I gathered it was only ever in emergencies — a broken down car, a busted hot-water cylinder — and it had made my father loathe Ellie’s presence around us kids even more, cementing the idea that she did nothing but take from us.

“I was fine, but I appreciated the treats you gave me. We always had enough food in the cupboards, but there was never any money for extras — no takeaway dinners, no lollies or chocolate, no week-long trips on a chartered superyacht.”

I groan. “I’m still pissed that I missed out on that trip.” That was one of the years that I had been away for college, my exams falling too close to Christmas to bother to make the trip out. The photos had looked amazing — dolphin watching and swimming off the bow of the boat — and the petulant child in me, forever angry at my father, had felt like I was being punished, having to watch it all play out from afar.

“I wasn’t supposed to be on it. Weston was so pissed off.” Ellie laughs, a dark edge to her voice. “My mum had an accident — I don’t know if I ever told you — she fell down the stairs and broke her leg, and that’s how I ended up on the boat. Your mum was all‘Ellie’s living with us for the next month while Amaia recovers,’ and I swear, the vein on the side of your father’s forehead looked like it was going to burst.”

The growl that rips from my throat is louder and more menacing than Ellie has heard before, and she freezes in my arms in a perfect prey animal response. I take a deep breath through my nose, squeezing her arm gently in apology. “I don’t know what the fuck his problem was,” I tell her.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“It’snot,” she admits. “But being upset by it doesn’t change anything. It’s not worth my energy. Besides, we’ve already established that your family wanted to do wolfy things every summer and couldn’t every time the human showed up. Maybe that’s got something to do with it.”

“You’re too forgiving, Ellie.”

“Maybe.” She turns her head, planting a kiss on my arm where it frames her body. “But then, it’s a good thing I wanted to give us another chance, right?”

“Mmm. Alright, you can be forgiving.”

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