Alpha (12 page)

"I'm not mad at you," Miranda said. "I'm so sorry. Looking back, I don't think I ever was. I just… He was my dad, you know? One day he was there, and the next he was gone and my mom and I were alone. Things were different and hard for a long time, and I thought I'd gotten over it, but hearing you were there…"

"You don't need to explain."

Miranda glanced up at him, then smiled softly. Lifting her hand, she brushed away some of the wet blood in his eyebrow. "After what you did with Jax, yeah, I do."

"That was just for sport."

The way Garret shrugged it off, looking away from her and standing with his chest puffed out a little more, said otherwise, but Miranda wanted her mate to have his manly pride.

That was a big part of the sex appeal, after all.

She put her hands on the back of his head and yanked his head down, pressing her mouth to his. She kissed him hard. Miranda just had to do it. Affection for this big, larger-than-life man swelled in her chest, and she had to do something to get it out of her before she burst.

When Garret put his arms around her back and waist, she felt dainty and small. She felt like the heroine in a romance novel and that there should be some romantic music playing somewhere.

There wasn't, but she had some Taylor Swift song going off in her head that worked in the moment.

It worked even better when Garret pulled back from her and smiled, and she saw the wolf reflected in his eyes.

He turned away from her, just long enough to turn on the hot spray of the shower.

And then the room was filling up with steam to go along with that Taylor Swift song Miranda played in her head.

G
rowling
, Garret finally pushed his cock inside of Miranda's body. She made a tiny squeaking noise that was mostly muffled by the fact that her lips were connected to his.

Even in the shower, he'd still had to show her how strong he was, impressing her as he lifted her up, pressed her back against the cold tiled wall, and coaxed her into wrapping her legs around his waist and hanging on tight.

And boy, did she ever have to hang on. Garret's strength wasn't just useful in a fight or in keeping the wilder side of Miranda under control. He knew how to use it, especially in the forward and back thrust of his hips.

She moaned, barely able to keep herself hanging on as Garret stretched her wide, his cock touching everywhere that could be reached inside of her.

"That's it, sweetheart, open for me," he said, and he pressed biting kisses to her breasts and the side of her throat that wasn't injured. He left the other side alone.

He said a few other things, whispering with that growly voice hot and heavy into her ear, but she couldn't understand a word that came out of his mouth. Not anymore. She tried to thrust her hips back against his, but couldn't even manage that, not really. It was too good. It felt too good and something inside her took wing and flew away, right toward Garret.

As if she could see it in her mind's eye, he caught it and held it in his hands, gentle instead of strong and rough, and the pleasure that had been swelling inside her burst. She couldn't contain it anymore. That vision of him holding the thing she'd given him vanished, and there was nothing left but the sound of her shocked scream and the clench of her legs, arms, and toes as she could no longer hold in her pleasure.

She felt something warm inside her and realized Garret was grunting. The fast and furious thrust of his hips was slower, jerkier, and less balanced.

His face was pressed into her shoulder as he breathed hard. Coming down off the high of his orgasm, his shoulders suddenly slumped.

Miranda gasped, her stomach rising up her chest as she feared Garret was about to drop her.

He adjusted her position, pushing her a little higher up the wall, and righted her place on his cock.

"Thought I would drop my mate?"

Miranda smiled, opting to fake it this time. "Not for a second."

Garret grinned at her. "Liar," he said, and then kissed her again.

She kept one arm curled around the back of Garret's neck, and put her other palm on his face, just because she needed to feel for herself that he was fully healed.

Also, she liked the hint of scratch against her hand. He needed to shave, but maybe she could convince him to put it off for a little while. Miranda was always into guys who had a fashionable, three-day-old five o'clock shadow.

As she kissed him, she got the sense, the very correct sense, that things weren't over. Garret wasn't done with her.

She felt his cock twitching inside her and moaned as her sensitive sex responded.

She should have needed some time to recover, but for some reason, she was right and ready to go again. If Garret didn't touch her, if he put her down and they just cleaned each other off, Miranda would be fine, but if he continued to thrust his hips forward, moving in that circular motion he was doing right now, that build would start up inside her.

Already she could feel it, that hint of pleasure, the sense of building, of searching for the end and getting higher and higher, hotter and warmer.

Then she was there again, in that place where every thrust brought enough pleasure to yank a moan out of her.

Miranda's claws started to come out and she yanked her hand back from his neck. "Oh no."

Garret shook his head. "Don't you worry about that. I like it."

She struggled to keep her eyes open with the pleasure that assaulted her. "Y-you do?"

He nodded eagerly. "You put your claws wherever you need to. Trust me, I'll enjoy it."

She wasn't sure how he could enjoy it, but the fact that he was the alpha of the pack and could heal so much faster than everyone else probably meant his threshold for pain was a little higher than everyone else's. It made sense that he'd like a little of it during sex.

And she was going to make sure it was only a little. Garret might claim to like it, but Miranda doubted he meant that he liked getting shredded like ground beef.

Miranda ran her claws down Garret's back, pressing as hard as she could without breaking the skin as he pushed his hips forward again.

He grunted through clenched teeth, his eyes falling to half-lidded.

"Like that?" Miranda asked.

Garret nodded. "Exactly like that."

Good, now she had an idea of what he liked, so she kept right on doing it. Giving her claws something to do. Forcing herself to pay attention to them through the pleasure Garret gave her meant she didn't puncture his skin again.

"Ride me. Sway your hips over mine," he said, looking down between them where their bodies were joined. He moaned again before leaning in and sucking on one of her tits.

Miranda moaned, and somehow, through all the pleasure, she managed to do as she was told.

She swayed her hips forward and back, able to move, to better participate this time now that Garret wasn't being so hard and rough.

This felt a lot more like lovemaking than just quick and desperate sex.

That was about when she realized it was lovemaking. Garret was making love to her. Now that he'd gotten the urge for sex to claim his mate out of his system, he was able to be gentler with her.

More of that heat, of that love and affection, blossomed inside her. She touched his hair and face again, still careful of her claws.

This man was hers. He belonged to her and she was luckiest woman on the planet.

"God, I love you."

Garret pulled his mouth away from Miranda's rosy nipple, and this time he kissed her mouth.

Thighs tightening around his waist, she moaned as his warm, soft tongue licked the crease of her lips before pushing inside. Her orgasm hit suddenly, coming from out of nowhere as Garret held her by the hips, kissing and making love to her so sweetly she ached from it.

Miranda moaned, and he swallowed the sound while thrusting inside her, groaning through his pleasure.

"I want you to come inside me," she said. "I want to feel it again. Please."

Garret groaned, and his large, rough hands were suddenly all over her body as he came again, spilling his warm seed deep within her.

Feeling that heat, she sighed with satisfaction as she looked back up into those blue eyes and smiled.

This time, she initiated the kiss, taking a fistful of that blond hair and pulling him down to her mouth. Miranda closed her eyes; so did Garret. It took her a moment before she could hear the sound of the shower spray over her beating heart and gasping breath.

Yeah, she was mated to a wealthy alpha werewolf, but even if he weren't those things, she'd still feel like the luckiest woman who ever lived.

Pulling back, he pressed their foreheads together, and a long, lazy smile spread across his mouth. Their noses touched, and despite the position, Miranda didn't want to move.

"Don't get too comfortable, sweetheart," Garret said.

Miranda smiled, laughing a small, tired sound. "Why not?"

A flash of gold sparkled in his eyes, and she saw a hint of sharper teeth. "You mated an alpha, sweet. It takes more than two rounds before the claiming is complete."

Miranda shivered. Yeah, she was definitely the luckiest woman alive.

D
ane didn't like this
. He didn't like that it was taking his body so damned long to heal, and he didn't like that he was being bullied by the omegas into staying in bed.

The omegas and that damned red-haired woman.

At least he could scare off the omegas; this woman was different.

The omegas had fled several minutes ago, but the redhead was still here. She stood in front of the door, her arms crossed tightly over that perfect pair of breasts. He also had his arms crossed; the difference was, unlike her, he wasn't smiling. There was nothing remotely funny about this.

"I keep telling you, my name is Lois."

"And I keep telling you that I don't care," Dane snapped. His bear teeth were forming in his mouth. He hated when that happened as he was trying to talk because it made it difficult not to lisp. "I'm not an invalid. I can go wherever I want."

"Well, Garret says you're staying here. Since you keep scaring Katie and the others away, I'm just going to have to make sure you stay in bed."

Dane rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and struggled for patience, he really did.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he hissed.

In truth, he was attempting to count backward from ten. His father had always told him that helped when he couldn't control a shift. Sometimes it actually helped more than the training he'd gotten back at Boot Camp when the voice of his sergeant in his head didn't do it for him anymore.

It'll keep you normal enough when you're out and about. Keep the bear inside around humans unless you want a shotgun shoved up your ass, and it won't be the humans that do that to you if you let loose when you're not supposed to, let me tell you that.

His old man had an interesting way of showing affection to his son, but he'd been the old-fashioned type. People more than 200 years old often were.

He was stunned when he managed to get all the way down to one. The woman hadn't interrupted him once. Impressive.

Opening his eyes, he looked at her. She was staring back at him with wide, interested eyes. Her lashes were thick. He wasn't sure why he noticed that.

"Do you have trouble controlling it?" she asked.

He frowned. "No. Why?"

"Oh." Her eyes widened. A touch of color bloomed across her cheeks as she looked away, as though embarrassed. "Sorry. It's just, you had fur coming out of your face and hands."

Dane looked down at his hands. He hadn't even noticed that. "Did my claws come out?"

"A little."

"If it scares you, then you should get out of here."

Lois shook her head. "I'm not scared."

"You should be." He growled at her, putting all the effort he could into it. "I'm a monster. Do you know how many humans I've killed?"

Those already wide eyes got a fraction wider. He could see the whites all the way around them as Lois shook her head.

Dane grunted. "Neither do I."

"Why would you kill people?"

His job, self-defense, or the times when he'd been a young cub and lost control. There had been a number of reasons.

Not that he would get into too much detail. Dane shrugged. "Some of it was to defend myself. Whenever people think they've caught footage of Bigfoot, sometimes they come out with guns instead of cameras."

He saw the shiver in her shoulders. "And the rest?"

He glared at her. "Because I felt like it."

The words came out harsh, just as he'd meant them to.

Lois shook her head, her red hair swaying around her cheeks. "I don't believe you."

"Why not?"

"You saved my life. You jumped in front of me when Miranda lost control. A real monster wouldn't do that."

"Even the most evil people in the world can decide to be randomly noble from time to time. Didn't you know that?"

"Now you really are trying to scare me off."

"Then by all means, leave my room, stop watching over me like you're my mother, and things will work out all right."

"Your
mother
?"

The fact that the shocked offense on her face and in her voice was strongest when he'd compared her to his mother, instead of when he'd told her he'd killed people for fun, was startling.

Really? That was the thing that offended her so bad? If he'd known that, he would've done it a long time ago.

Those perfect, pink lips thinned into an angry line, and Lois turned on her heel and marched out of Dane's room, slamming the door behind her.

Alone in his room, he let out a sigh. He wouldn't take it personally. It wasn't like it mattered anyway. She was a human. It was better if she didn't get some wrong ideas in her head.

Dane could smell her attraction for him all over her. He wasn't entirely sure how much of it was purely sexual and how much of it was just a fascination with his species.

He didn't like that. He didn't want her looking at him like he was some kind of hero, and he especially didn't want her looking at him like he was a freak. Just because he thought she was a little cute didn't mean he was willing to let that one slide. Humans had fucked with his life too much for him to give her much leeway just for being the best friend of the alpha's mate.

He sat there for a moment. He'd been planning on getting out of bed, but now that he thought about it, he was still sore and tired. For some reason, he wasn't healing like he should be. His wounds were better than they'd been since the attack, but they were still open. They bled if he tried to move too much.

It was quiet in here, and he was bored. He wished he hadn't sent the woman away. At least there had been someone for him to complain to. He looked out the window, staring into the blue sky, and suddenly he hated everything even more.

E
veryone was busy
, all caught up in their normal, everyday, happy lives, which was how he'd managed to get so close.

Dennis wasn't within sight. He wasn't that stupid. If he got too close, his scent would be in the air to the alphas. Omegas wouldn't be able to pick it up, but it wasn't worth the risk for one of them to spot him. The ones who didn't live in that enormous house all had houses close by.

Stupid Garret. Why have so many alphas in his pack? How was that even supposed to work? It shouldn't be working, and yet they hadn't killed each other yet.

Dennis had his eye on his old room. That bear shifter was in it. It wasn't shocking he was alive. Dennis watched him through his scope, so he'd seen the man speaking with that leggy, red-haired woman.

What was shocking was how he wasn't healing. He was still in bed.

Dennis had watched him for a while, staring through the scope, waiting for the stupid bear to get off his ass and walk around. Alphas weren't usually lazy, and unless for some miraculous reason he knew Dennis might be watching him, there was no reason to be faking his injuries.

Even if he was faking, what would be the purpose of letting Dennis think he was still injured?

It was obvious it wasn't a trick when Dennis watched the omegas come in to help him sit up and change his bloody bandages.

It was more interesting when the redhead lent a hand to that as well, taking away bloody wraps, then staying when Dane scared away all the omegas.

He couldn't hear what they were saying, obviously. He could read lips, but the angle wasn't right for that. All he could see was that she was in the room, her body language was irritated, and then she marched out.

Dane grabbed a lamp and threw it across the room.

So he was irritated the woman had left?

Dennis thought he knew why the man was having trouble healing. He might have a better plan to get back at Garret after all. His first plan had been to take that cute, mouthy blonde sister, but Dennis wasn't a total monster. He wasn't interested in kidnapping children, so the idea had been quickly thrown away.

This was a better idea. Getting him through his alphas.

Finally, after everything that bastard had done, he was finally going to know what real suffering felt like.

T
he End