CHAPTER ONE
Malachi Slattery sat in the living room of his alphas’ home on Monday morning and waited for Brynn, the alpha female, to be ready for work. Malachi was a protector, a highly ranked member of the pack whose sole job was to keep the pack members safe. He’d been chosen by Acksel as one of Brynn’s personal protectors, for those times when Acksel couldn’t be with her. Malachi enjoyed being Brynn’s protector, and it had absolutely nothing at all to do with the beautiful human woman, Nila, who worked at the doctor’s office where Brynn was a receptionist.
Liar.
He mentally told his wolf to shut up and glanced at his cell, wondering what was taking Brynn so long. Just as he’d decided to play a game on his cell to occupy himself, he heard the bedroom door open and Brynn said, “Stop making that face, I have to go to work.”
“No you don’t, love. I can easily support our family. Stay home.”
Brynn made a happy sound that made Malachi think that she was going to be really late, and then she said, “Damn it, stop using your wiles to tempt me.”
Malachi snorted inwardly as Acksel demanded to know what she meant by that and she rebuffed him, storming down the hallway.
She brightened at seeing Malachi, switching gears from annoyed to happy in two point two seconds. “Hi Mal. Sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“It’s no problem, Brynn,” he promised. He stood and tucked his phone into his pocket.
Acksel came into the family room and greeted Malachi. “Don’t you think your alpha female should be home resting?”
Before Malachi could ask Acksel not to rope him into a personal squabble, Brynn threw a nearby pillow at Acksel’s head. “As if you would let me rest, you big old horn dog. I’m going to work.” Her scowl softened and she moved quickly to Acksel, kissed him, and said goodbye. She strode to the door, and Malachi looked at Acksel, who said the same thing he said every morning Malachi drove her to work. “Keep my mate and my pup safe.”
“Will do, alpha,” Malachi promised.
He followed Brynn out into the frigid December morning, saying goodbye to Sam, the theto of the pack and the leader of the protectors, who was standing guard outside of the home. Malachi opened the door to his dark green SUV, Brynn climbed into the passenger seat, and he shut the door. Glancing toward the house, he saw Acksel watching from the open door and nodded at him, a second, silent promise to keep Brynn safe.
Malachi considered it an honor to be one of Brynn’s personal protectors. The pack only ran well when everyone could do their job. If Acksel was worried about Brynn’s safety, then he wouldn’t be able to lead appropriately. The personal protectors helped to alleviate some of the stress of the alphas being apart, because Acksel trusted them to keep his mate safe. Some of the lower-ranked wolves thought that the personal protectors were nuts for accepting the role to watch over Brynn. Failure came with a hefty price tag. If something happened to Brynn, Acksel would go on a rampage and the ones responsible would suffer greatly. That didn’t worry Malachi, though. He had no plans to let a hair on Brynn’s head—or her baby’s—be harmed.
As he pulled away from the curb, Brynn sighed.
“How was your weekend?” he asked. Their engagement party had been Saturday, and the pack had gathered at Luna’s, a restaurant in town, to celebrate.
Brynn said, “Okay, I guess. Acksel’s getting weirder and weirder about me leaving. Do you think it’s the baby?”
Mal glanced at her. “Possibly. Males are protective of their females and their pups, though. It could be a combination of things.”
She hummed in her throat and then said, “I’ll probably quit working before the baby is born and take some time off to raise him or her, but I can’t see myself actually stopping working.”
“So why don’t you tell Acksel that?”
“I did. When I tell him about going to work he…distracts me.”
Malachi grimaced, hoping she wouldn’t go into details. He’d known Acksel his whole life, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear about the intimate details of their life. Fortunately, she skipped over Acksel’s method of ‘distraction’ and said that while he was busy rewriting hundreds of years of pack law with the elders of the pack every day, she found it powerfully boring and didn’t want to help.
Malachi pulled the SUV into an empty space in the parking lot of the Family Clinic of Wilde Creek, where Brynn was a receptionist. The small doctors’ office was run by Frank and Kimmi Channing, and served not only the human population of Wilde Creek, but also the wolves when they needed things like physicals for sports, school, or work. Wolves didn’t naturally get sick, but they still needed proof they were in good physical condition.
“If you don’t want to quit right now, then don’t. He’s just a male who wants his mate where he can see her. He trusts me to keep you safe, but he trusts himself more.”
She gave him a long look, her green eyes searching his face. “The wolfy instinct stuff is a pain in the ass sometimes.”
He grinned. “It’s also totally awesome.”
She snorted. “Time to go before Dr. Kimmi fires me for being late.”
“As if she’d fire you. She loves you.”
They walked to the building and Malachi held open the door for her. She took her bag to the breakroom while he walked to the small office that was being used to house the security system and sat down behind the bank of monitors. When Brynn had been kidnapped and nearly killed in October, the perpetrators—a small group of rogue wolves—had snatched her at work, which was why Acksel insisted she be driven to work and that a protector stay with her. Malachi was the natural choice. He had a background in security and was good with computers. He had a side business with his best friend, Lucian, setting up security systems, although lately Lucian had been out of the country working at his real job, and Malachi had been running the company by himself.
As he reviewed the recordings from the multiple cameras inside and outside of the building, he heard some very familiar footsteps and his whole body went tense, his wolf alert. He watched the open doorway. Nila Caruthers, a nursing assistant, raced by, her dark blonde hair flying behind her. She was running late again. He could guess it was because of her son and a situation at the daycare. Either the little boy was having a bad morning, or something had happened with her ex. His wolf snarled at the thought of that male, who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as Nila, let alone have had access to her gorgeous curves.