Page 12 of Cruel Alpha

My jaw dropped. Abe Thorne had only been in his mid-forties, and he was the kind of Alpha who seemed… eternal. He was strong and solid, and he might have ruined my life, but he made keeping the Pack in line seem easy. I could never imagine him doing something as mundane as dying.

“Oh,” I breathed. “I-I’m so sorry—”

“You don’t have to pretend. The guy was an asshole,” Julia’s tone was flippant, but next to her, Caleb flinched. “Cal’s an asshole, too, but I can take him.”

She nudged him playfully with her shoulder, but Caleb didn’t respond. His jaw was tight, and I could see the pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” I said softly. “I know you looked up to him.”

Caleb shrugged.

“It is what it is,” he said, but his voice was strained. “At least now I can—well, I’m the Alpha now, so you don’t have to worry about anything.”

That was a bit of a stretch: I could still think of plenty of things to worry about, but I knew what he meant. With Abe Thorne gone, there was no one to object to my return to Lapine—or at least, no one whose word outweighed Caleb’s because he was Alpha now.

Caleb was Alpha. Suddenly, his serious demeanor made sense; he’d been thrust into a leadership position long before he was ready. No doubt some of his father’s Betas—men I’d avoided like the plague when I was younger—would be jostling for influence, trying to find weak spots in his leadership. Bringing me back to Lapine was a huge risk for him: to put the whole Pack in jeopardy for the sake of a banished half-breed and her unclaimed children? I could only imagine the kind of shit he was about to get, Alpha or no.

The silence that hung over us was thick and loaded, but what broke it was worse: a knock at the door.

Chapter 6 - Caleb

The three of us froze. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Julia, but she shook her head. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

“Julia?” Nate’s voice was muffled by the wood of the door, but still immediately recognizable. “Liam said he saw Cal—I mean, he saw the Alpha come in here. Can you open up?”

I gave Julia a nod of approval, and she crossed to answer the door, ushering Nate in quickly. Nate looked around her living space, his gaze lingering on Alyssa and the kids before I snapped,

“What is it, Nate?”

He straightened immediately.

“Oh, uh—the Arbor Alpha is here,” he said, his gaze still flicking between me and Alyssa. “He wants to talk to you. He looks… pissed.”

Across from me, Alyssa squeaked in fear, pulling her children closer to her. They both squirmed and complained, completely unaware of the danger they were still in. I wanted to comfort her, to pull her soft body against mine, and promise that everything was going to be okay, but I couldn’t do that now. She wouldn’t let me, for one.

“He’s in the hall?” I asked, and Nate nodded.

“Wait for me outside, I’ll be right out.”

He didn’t hesitate to follow that order, as much as I could tell, he was hungry for gossip about Alyssa’s sudden return and about the twin toddlers she had spawned in her absence.

“Stay here, all of you,” I said as I rose. “I’ll send some guys—Dale and Harry, probably—to stand guard. They’ll let me know if they see anyone they don’t recognize within a hundred feet of the house.”

Julia nodded, but Alyssa was still frozen on the couch, holding the twins against her chest. I had to go, had to move, but I couldn’t just leave her like that. She was my mate, and she was afraid. She was afraid that I would fail her for the hundredth time. Dropping to my knees in front of her, I placed a hand lightly on her knee. She didn’t flinch, but she did look at me as though I’d taken leave of my senses.

“I’m going to fix this,” I said. “You’ll be safe. They’ll be safe. Trust me.”

She said nothing. Her lip trembled. I had to go.

“Lock the door after me,” I told Julia. “Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

Despite the anxiety that was thrumming in my veins as I took off towards the hall, I found myself almost excited to go up against the Arbor Alpha. I’d gotten Alyssa to safety, and that was what mattered, but I was sick of running. I was ready to look her enemies in the eye, to fight if I had to. I wanted to prove to her that she and her children were safe with me, that I would never let anyone hurt her again. If I had to fight the Arbor Alpha and all his hunters, as well as whatever mongrel knocked her up, then I would.

A bolt of fear flashed through me. What if the twins’ father was an Arbor wolf? It was more likely than not, the more I thought about it. If he was, then the Arbor Alpha could claim the kids as their Pack and their property. The maternal line hardly counted for any kids on the islands; if I wanted to keep them on Lapine, my only option was open war. Arbor and Lapine had been peaceful neighbors for the last century—Lapine hadn’t seen any conflict with any other Pack since my great grandfather’s falling out with the Opifex Alpha, and that breach was long since healed—but not even three years into my reign, it looked like that was about to change.

Was I really willing to do that for Alyssa? Yes. Of course I was. All this was my fault in the first place. I should have stayed away from her entirely. I should have claimed her proudly and openly. I should have done almost anything but what I did, giving us both a taste of what it could be like—whatwecould be—before dropping her back in the dirt. Sure, she shouldn’t have lied about the pregnancy, but what else was she supposed to do? There was nothing she could have said that would make me forget my pride and claim her as she deserved back then. I had caused this problem for both of us and now I was going to fix it, whatever it took.

“Alpha?” Nate panted next to me—he was having to jog to keep up with my determined strides—looking up with a frown. “You’re uh—you might want to get a handle on that growl before we go in.”

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