Page 53 of A Secret Baby By the Alpha

“If you engage in any violence against a member of the Dark Alphas in the future, we will have no choice but to remove you from the group and hunt you and your pack down. It is only through our cooperation with one another that there can be any trust,” Axel added.

Axel helped Jenny back to her feet and ushered her toward me and Christa while Alpha Charles moved in to talk with Gage.

“Trust,” Gage scoffed at him. “As if there is any trust between us.”

“Look, Des,” Charles said quietly as he placed a hand on his arm. “You’ve got to get on board with this. If Axel lets you go against a member of the group, then what is there to keep the rest of us safe from each other? Or you safe from us? This is how it has to be.”

“Whatever,” Gage muttered, shaking Charles’s hand away from him. Gage whistled for his wolves, who followed as he left the valley and ran off back to their homes.

Axel sighed as they departed. “That one is trouble. Maybe more than he’s worth,” he said.

“But he’s still a member of the group,” I pointed out. “As you said, we can’t go against a member of the Dark Alphas.”

“I know. But if he senses any weakness in our frail alliance, he’s going to exploit it. We’ll need to be on guard against him,” Axel said.

“We will be,” I agreed.

Chapter 26 - Christa

The door to our house opened softly, and the three of us filed inside. Everything was exactly as we had left it, and yet everything had changed. The ticking clock on the mantle echoed through the room, somehow louder than it had been before. The cars in the streets and the sounds of children laughing from the houses next door seemed at odds with the somber feeling in the room. Yet, they fit right in. Life had continued while we had fought to preserve ours. It was exactly as it should have been.

Jenny and Colson sat on the couch, sitting silently as the adrenaline from the day left their systems. It had been a long walk back, and we were all exhausted. I stood silently near the door, staring at the faces of the two people who meant more to me than life itself. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from them, afraid that if I so much as blinked, they might vanish in front of me.

I shut the door behind me, and Jenny jumped, looking at me with wide and terrified eyes.

“Sorry,” I whispered quietly.

“It’s okay,” she replied automatically. “I just…”

“We know,” Colson said.

He reached a hand out, and she placed hers into his. His large, muscular hands enveloped her delicate fingers in his embrace, and I could see her relax at the contact. We all knew we were safe now, but an uneasiness lingered.

“Mom?” Jenny asked, looking at me with an expression far too mature for her age. “They aren’t going to come back, are they?”

“No, baby. They’re gone,” I assured her.

“They’ll never hurt you, Jenny,” Colson promised.

Jenny gave a half-hearted smile, and I realized it was going to take longer than one day for her to feel safe again. My new mission in life was to make sure she could return to her carefree existence. The life she led before Gage Desmond pulled her into his bid for power and stole her innocence.

“How do you know?” she asked uncertainly.

I sat down next to her and placed an arm around her, resting my hand on the side of her head and tilting it onto my shoulder.

“Being the daughter of the alpha and luna isn’t always going to be easy,” I began. “Being a wolf isn’t always easy. But you’re lucky. You have two parents who love you more than life itself, who will stop at nothing to make sure you are safe. And more than that, who will make sure that you can keepyourselfsafe in any circumstances.”

“I didn’t do a good job of that,” Jenny said quietly.

“That’s not true at all,” Colson argued gently. “What you did today was very impressive. I’m not sure how you did it, but you convinced them to take you away in your human form on foot. Doing that made it so much easier for us to track you.”

“And faster, too,” I added.

Colson nodded in agreement. “Then when we caught up to you, you kept fighting back. You listened to what we were saying and paid attention so you knew whether to fight or run. I’m very proud of you.”

“But I got captured,” Jenny said. “How do I know it won’t happen again?”

“Because your mom got the other alphas to be on our side,” Colson said with a small smile. “They all know now that ifanyone messes with you, they’re going to be in big trouble. And believe me, they don’t want to be in trouble with us.”

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