Page 24 of Alpha Rising (Secrets of the Northland Shifters)

“I need to make some phone calls,” she said.

“Sarah.” I pulled her even closer. “Kitten.”

She stopped and looked up at me with those wide gray eyes that made my heart clench and my groin tense with need.

Though I sensed my siblings’ reaction to my use of the endearment, for a second it was as if Sarah and I were the only ones in the room. “It’s gonna be okay. It’s just the staff.”

“But I wanted to make the party really great for them.”

“It will be. They’ll love it. Whatever you do.Trust me.”

She blinked. When it came to trust, we’d made big strides. She let out a breath and her shoulders relaxed. “Okay. I trust you.”

I pressed my fingertips into her shoulder, coaxing her to turn her body into mine. Then, surprising everyone—perhaps most of all myself—I kissed her. And she didn’t pull away.

My lion wasn’t the only one that rumbled its approval, though a lioness was noticeably missing from the family chorus.

9

MELANIE FITZPATRICK

Isat behind the check-in desk, doodling pictures of motorcycles on a piece of scratch paper and tugging at the end of my ponytail, which stuck out the back of my baseball cap. I’d never been what you might call agirlygirl, but I’d never really had much choice in that.

I’d grown up with no mother and only brothers, so when it came to people outside my family, I’d always gravitated toward males—platonic or otherwise. For that reason, I’d never felt the need to make friends with Sarah McAvoy, even though my brothers had warmed to her with ridiculous speed.

But now, she and I needed to talk.

With Reese acting like an idiot about the woman, and with that woman now knowing our secret, I needed to make sure Sarah McAvoy understood how a shifter pack worked. I needed to know her expectations were properly managed.

Because an alpha’s first priority would always be to his family. We needed Reese. Without him, what was left of the Fitzpatrick clan would surely crumble.

So if Sarah McAvoy thought, when she left Evergreen, that she could convince Reese to leave with her, she was dead wrong.

She had to be.

Unfortunately, given my lack of practice with female interaction, I didn’t know how to begin what was sure to be an awkward conversation.

Two days ago, I’d considered broaching the subject over a shared bowl of mac-n-cheese. I figured anything cheesy made the worst of situations more bearable. But when I got back from the grocery store with the milk, Sarah still hadn’t come back from her pointless mission up the county road.

At first, I’d found that annoying, but then I’d got worried. I never liked it when a family member was gone for any stretch of time, and Reese had been gone for days. It had made me wonder…

If Sarah had succeeded and found Reese, given none of us were there to run interference, was it possible she’d convinced him to leave with her already?

I would’ve never imagined Reese leaving without telling us, but he’d been acting strangely ever since Sarah’s arrival, so I didn’t know what to think.

Obviously, to see him walking into the cafeteria this morning...

I hadn’t fully realized the heaviness of my concern until its weight had been lifted. And now, one hour later, here I was, waiting at the front desk in hopes of another opportunity to talk to the woman who’d stolen my brother’s heart, if not completely scrambled his brain.

The sound of an office door shutting made me set down my pen. A second later, Sarah passed, heading for the front door. The staff-appreciation party was tonight and she’d mentioned going to town to pick up the keg and the cupcakes she’d ordered from the local bakery.

“Heading out?” I asked.

“What?” Sarah was digging in her purse, and her long, light brown hair curtained her face. She raised her head with a look of surprise. “Oh! Yeah. I’ll be back soon.”

“Want some company?”

Sarah glanced around as if there was some question about who I was talking to. “Um...really?”

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