Alpha's Strength (Fallen Alpha) (10 page)

“How old were you when you became in charge? When you took over as Alpha?”

“Oh.” He wondered what had sparked that thought in her mind. “I didn’t take over. I battled for it when I was twenty. When I won, I took control.”

“Hmmm.” Her voice was getting softer. She really might pass out at any time. “What happened to the last Alpha?”

“That’s not really for a late-night conversation. It won’t give you good dreams.”

She growled low in her throat, and he stared down at her. How had he ever imagined she was passive? “I’m not going to run away in fear. What happened to him?”

“I killed him.” He’d torn his throat out and had his blood dripping from his muzzle. Just stating that he’d killed him sounded much nicer.

“So you challenged him for Alpha, you won, and you killed him?” She drummed her fingers on his chest. Nothing about her scent had changed. Betsy really did seem to want to discuss this, right before sleep, after great sex, and it didn’t bother her at all. His little latent princess was becoming a full-fledged she-wolf.

“Exactly.” There was a lot more detail to all of that, but it seemed enough for the night.

“What made you decide to do that?”

He shifted his position a bit, her words biting into long buried memories he didn’t allow to surface into the light of his consciousness very often. “Shepherd was a bad Alpha. Werewolves kept dying under his leadership. He didn’t take care of us.”

“I’m sure he was.” In the darkness of his bedroom, with her face buried in his chest, it felt okay to answer her. He wasn’t so certain he’d want to discuss this over breakfast. Some things were better left put away. “But I meant, what prompted you to suddenly challenge him? Did you feel overwhelmed with the need one day, or did it happen over time? You could have died in that battle with him. You couldn’t have made that decision lightly. You wouldn’t even bite me without holding back.”

“Oh, well, actually it wasn’t me who thought it was time. Lucian came to me and let me know he thought I was ready and that Shepherd had hurt enough people.”

She yawned again. “Who was Lucian? I know you might have told me. I got a lot of information today.”

“Lucian was our Alpha Prime. He was in charge of all the Alphas. We all held fidelity to him. He was a great man. When I was a teenager, he used to run wolf training, which is I guess the equivalent of camp, at his home in Virginia. He had acres of land. We used to go there to become better wolves. The summers started off with about fifty wolves, but by the time he stopped doing that, there were fifteen of us total. They were special times.”

“And your parents sent you?” Her voice had perked up a little bit. Where was she going with this?

“It was an honor to be asked, to be noticed by him. Even Shepherd liked the idea. He wanted strong fighters since we were always at war.”

“And Lucian told you to go challenge the Alpha of Manhattan when you were twenty years old?”

“He did.” Cyrus scooted her over a little bit to look at her. “Where are all these questions coming from?”

She stroked the side of his face. “I’m trying to understand you. I feel so connected to you, but we don’t know each other that well. Becoming Alpha was more than taking over a job, right? It became your identity in the same way that, I guess, my identity will have to shift as your mate. Mitchell keeps calling me ma’am, and he’s older than me.”

He laughed, loving the way she touched him. “I can make that stop.”

“I think it would make him really uncomfortable if he couldn’t do it.”

She was probably right, but he wouldn’t have worried about that. Mitchell would adjust to whatever Cyrus’ mate needed. He had no doubt the whole pack would.

“It did change things. I think sometimes I was born to do it.” There, he’d said it aloud, and he never had before because it sounded presumptuous and stuck up, as though he had some kind of special destiny when, in truth, he knew that things happened randomly and he’d been lucky.

Lucky he’d not been killed when he took down Shepherd—and luckier every day since that the world hadn’t fallen apart. Lucky that whoever had managed to take down Lucian hadn’t come after him. Lucky that he’d walked into the Starbucks and found Betsy.

“Well, Lucian must have thought you were born to do it.” She snuggled closer. “All right, enough. I’m closing my eyes. I can’t think straight. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

“Goodnight, princess.” He stroked her hair and listened while her breathing got more even, and she fell into a deep sleep.

Well, Lucian must have thought you were born to do it.
Her words resonated in his head while he stared at the ceiling. Had Lucian thought he was born to be Alpha Prime? How had he determined which ones of his students got invited back year after year to his home? They all had Alpha tendencies. Which ones did he keep and why did he let some of them go? What had been the determining factor? And why had he done it all?

He watched the ceiling fan spin. Betsy hadn’t cured his inability to sleep, but that was okay. He’d probably doze off at some point for an hour or two, and he was more comfortable than he’d ever been before.

She mumbled something, and he grinned. It was nice that she could be so at ease with him.

The windows in his apartment had been designed to keep the noise of the street out, but with one of them cracked, he could make out some of the traffic noise from below. Easing himself out from under Betsy, he crept on silent feet to the cracked opening and closed it. New York was always awake, like him, it seemed. He could order Thai food if he wanted it and have it at his doorway in half an hour. Or have his dry cleaning delivered at three a.m.

He shook his head. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t he get his brain to shut off?

Cyrus closed his eyes and leaned against the cool pane of the window. What had Lucian said to him that day he’d told him it was time to be Alpha? He hadn’t thought about it in so long.

“Shepherd is destroying New York. Your parents are dead. Do you want your sister to be?” The Alpha Prime had always seemed ancient to him. He’d probably been about a century old when he delivered that question. They lived to be one hundred and fifty or so if they managed not to get killed. Cyrus had been so young himself, thinking his mentor so old when he wasn’t. Such a childish way to be…

Cyrus had pulled a drink from his beer bottle and set the alcohol down on the table. All of his enjoyment of the afternoon fled into the wind. “It’s not customary to simply go and challenge an Alpha. Especially not one as powerful as Shepherd.”

“Who made him powerful, boy? The pack that follows him. If you kill him, they’ll follow you.”

He couldn’t imagine that. How would they follow him, the kid who destroyed their leader? Even his wolf instincts couldn’t clear up that distinction for him. Would Shepherd’s mate follow him? His children? Would they flee and plot against him? Who was to say he could even manage to do it? Sure, Cyrus was strong but so was Shepherd.

“It’s time, Cyrus. Take your place or get out of the way and let someone else do it.”

Betsy sighed in her sleep, and he opened his eyes to look at her. She had asked him how he’d decided to be an Alpha, to take over the position. Well, he hadn’t wanted to get out of the way. It wasn’t in his nature. And he’d been stronger. On that one day, he’d won, and it hadn’t been his blood left on the ground.

Betsy opened her eyes and knew two things instantly. First, it was still the middle of the night. There was no light anywhere in the room. The curtains were even closed. And she didn’t think they had been when she’d conked out. She rolled over and checked the clock, confirming that it was three a.m.

The second thing she knew was that she was alone in the room. Cyrus was gone. Not even the bathroom held more than a shadow of his scent. She got up and walked to his closet. Having no idea where her clothes had been discarded, she was going to have to wear something of his since she wasn’t going to go traipsing around the apartment in her birthday suit.

She tugged on a T-shirt that said Columbia on the front. It fell to her knees, and she supposed it would have to do. It smelled like Cyrus, and she grinned. It was hard to imagine him in a T-shirt. Naked? No problem. Wearing a designer suit? No problem. T-shirt? Maybe if he was lounging around, but did he even do that?

Betsy padded out into the living room. She stopped in the archway and took in the scene in front of her. Cyrus was passed out at his desk, his head down on top of something he’d been reading. She approached slowly and stared down at what he’d been doing when he fell asleep. A bunch of spreadsheets and numbers looked up at her. She’d never been able to make sense of them before and didn’t want to try at that moment. What concerned her was the man head down on top of them. He couldn’t be comfortable like that.

She smoothed his hair off his forehead, and he jolted backward as though he’d been stabbed. He jumped to his feet before she could even say anything.

“Are you okay?” He turned left and right.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” She walked around the desk toward him. Did he always awaken like he had to fight something off? “I’m sorry I woke you like that. You didn’t look comfortable head down on your papers.”

Cyrus grinned a big smile. “Wouldn’t look good to drool on the spreadsheets in front of my new mate.”

“Amazing, you still use spreadsheets. Don’t you high-powered people all do everything digitally? You actually printed paper?” She still had no idea exactly what his company did except serve as a front for werewolves and cage humans in the basement.

“Sometimes I have to have things printed out to really see them. I’m missing something in the marketing department. There’s a problem with their budget.”

She took his hand in hers. He was such a mixture of contradictions. The tough Alpha, the focused business man, the lover who didn’t want to bite her for fear of hurting her, the playful guy who told her to run.
The twenty-year-old kid sent to kill an Alpha by a man who should have been powerful enough to figure out a way to handle that Alpha himself.
She pushed that thought away. What happened years before she was here couldn’t be the focus of her time.

“Is it standard for the CEO to go over budgets?”

“It needed doing, so I figured I might as well get it done.” He cleared his throat. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” He’d dressed himself in a white undershirt and a pair of boxers. Cyrus was far too clothed for her taste. He should be naked. All the time. “Was I snoring?”

“What?” He shook his head. “No, of course not. I can’t sleep. It’s nothing to do with you. I have insomnia problems. I can’t sleep, and then when it gets quiet enough at night, I kind of nod off for a few hours here or there.”

Her mate needed to relax, and he needed caring for. Whatever her parents’ issues were—and she clearly had a lot of them—her mother and father had taken care of each other. Cyrus required some tending, and she was glad she was here to do it.

“I can’t imagine that even a werewolf should be running a company and a pack on a few hours of sleep, here and there.”

“Not much I can do about that. We don’t respond well to traditional medicine. Lake has gifts that can heal us, but it’s not like I can go take a sleeping pill. It’s likely to have the opposite effect, and I’ll be jogging the streets of New York for two days straight.” He shrugged. “Come on, let’s get you back to sleep.”

She took his hand. “I have a different idea.”

He led her into the bedroom. “Oh?”

She walked to the side of the bed and turned on the reading light that sat there. “Sit on the edge of the bed.”

Cyrus stopped moving and gaped at her. “What?”

“Come on, Alpha-boy, do what I say. Sit on the edge of the bed.”

“Betsy, what do you have planned here?” He stretched his neck, and she could see the tension in every muscle. If what she wanted to do didn’t work, she’d start reading on how to give massages. Maybe she would anyway.

She waited, deliberately not answering him until he sat down on the bed. He grinned and shook his head. “If you are planning on making me do deep breathing exercises, I can assure you, I’ve already given that a go.”

“No.” She dropped to her knees in front of him. “I don’t want you breathing deeply while I do this. I’d rather you get really excited.”

“What…”

His voice faded away when she kissed his leg. She started at his ankle and moved upward, planting a kiss every few inches on her way up. Cyrus had muscular legs, and there were lots of places to explore. His body vibrated slightly beneath her ministrations.

When she reached his thigh, she tugged on his boxer shorts, letting them drop to the floor. His cock, which had clearly come to attention when she’d started kissing him, was in perfect position for her to stroke it.

He hissed in a breath. “I can’t wait to get inside of you again, princess. I wouldn’t have suggested it. I thought you might be a little sore.”

“I am.” She wasn’t, but she didn’t want him arguing with her about what she wanted. It had been apparent to her during their lovemaking that he wasn’t used to having oral sex performed. “The only place your cock is going is in my mouth.”

She purposely didn’t look up at his face, but she felt his whole body tense from where she kissed the top of his thigh.

“Betsy.” He lifted her chin to look at him. “Please don’t feel like you have to do that.”

“I don’t have to do it. I want to do it. I like to. What’s the matter? Only had bad ones? Someone bite you?”

“It’s not that.” He seemed so uncomfortable in the way he squirmed that she almost felt bad for him. But she actually liked to give oral sex, and if he had some kind of problem with it, better to find that out now.

“Then what is it?”

“I never chose to have sex with humans. Too fragile. What if I hurt them?” He wiped at his brow. She really didn’t want to make him more stressed out. The idea had been to relax him. She hoped she hadn’t made some massive miscalculation.

“And? Werewolf women don’t give blow jobs?”

“Not really, no.” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “Our longtime relationships turn into either our version of marriage or, if we’re lucky, a true mating. Casual sex is usually because she’s in heat and needs to feel better.”

“And that kind of encounter doesn’t lend itself to blow jobs, just in making her feel better, which is why you were so fantastic at going down on me earlier.”

Things were finally clicking together for her, and a picture of Cyrus, the Alpha caretaker who never even got to relax in bed, formed in her mind. No wonder the moon had picked her to be his mate.

“Did you really think I was fantastic at it?” His eyebrows rose slowly.

“Oh, I’d say the whole thing from start to finish was an A plus, plus. Don’t get all ego-y about it though. I’m going to expect repeat performances.” When he laughed, she took a deep breath. Apparently, he could be teased, which was a good thing. Lack of a sense of humor would be a problem over time. “Here’s the thing though. You mated a girl who thought she was human most of her life. And human girls sometimes—if their men are really lucky—give them blowjobs. I happen to really like to so, unless you have a real objection to the act, I want to put my mouth on your cock as soon as possible.”

He visibly swallowed, and she watched the muscles in his neck clench. “I don’t have any objections at all.”

“That’s good.” She cupped the head of his penis, and it stood up straighter. “Now you’ve got a very impressive piece of manhood here. I can’t wait to taste it.”

She licked the remainder of the way up his leg, squeezing his balls on the way up. He sucked in his breath. Betsy had always loved this part of sharing sex, and now that she knew she was supposed to be with the werewolf in front of her, it was even more fun. She could do this for him, and she could revel in being able to give him pleasure in a way no one had ever before.

Moving to the top of his getting-larger-every-second cock, she wet the head with her tongue. Cyrus made a little moan, and she knew he had enjoyed it. She moved lower, exploring the ridged part of right up against his head of his cock. She licked it slowly, savoring the taste of Cyrus, the heat of him. Was there any part of him that didn’t warm her body?

She proceeded slowly. This was his first time on this part of the rodeo. She wanted him to enjoy it and didn’t want to rush the experience for him. Finally, when she felt his body jerk beneath her ministrations, she knew he was ready to be really pleasured.

Betsy opened her mouth and took him as deep inside of her throat as she could. Cyrus was huge. There was no way she was getting him all the way down, even with her considerable skill set in this department. She compensated as best she could, running her hands up and down the part of his shaft that she couldn’t quite get in her mouth. He moaned, moving in and out of her mouth with thrusts.

She reveled in the act, loving that she controlled it, loving that she could do this for him. For Betsy, this moment was powerful. She gripped him tighter, squeezing his balls with her free hand.

He called out her name, his hips moving at a rapid pace. She raised her eyes to look at him. Cyrus was lost in rapture and to witness it qualified as a moment of beauty. He came in her mouth, saying words of passion over and over, and she swallowed it down, loving every pulse.

She had given him his first blowjob, and she’d bet the farm that he had loved it.

Betsy had no sooner wiped her mouth than she found herself pulled down on top of him.

“That was…”

She grinned. Good, if he couldn’t come up with words then she’d accomplished what she set out to do. “Yes?”

Betsy checked out the clock. Half an hour had passed. Maybe he’d be ready to get some real rest in the bed and not on top of his desk.

“Amazing.”

She would have responded, but he pulled her mouth down on his. God, she loved kissing him. He pulled back to look at her. “You’re such an amazing gift to me.”

Betsy rolled her eyes. Sentimentality didn’t work for her. The television shows that she saw on where it got too gooey made her want to throw something. She had no idea how to handle it. “Sheesh, one blow job and you’re writing poetry. I’m not a gift to anyone.”

“Yes you are.” His eyes were serious. “Do we need to go back to the mirror?”

“Oh.” She smiled at the memory his words invoked. “How about we do when I’m not sore?”

“I don’t need to penetrate you to show you what a gift you are to me.”

“Cyrus…” She swung her leg over him to keep in place. Not that he couldn’t get out if he so wanted. She hoped he didn’t want to. “Let’s go to sleep.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep again.”

His scent said differently, but she didn’t want to point that out lest he get riled up and defeat her purpose. “Would you try with me?”

“Sure.” She’d known he wouldn’t deny her request. Only, this time she wasn’t falling asleep until he did.

They snuggled back into the bed, and she placed her head over his heart so she could hear it beating. Strong and steady.

“What time do you have to get to the office in the morning?”

“I’m usually out by six-thirty.”

Well. That wasn’t going to work. Not for today. Would the world end if he got there at nine?

“Why so early?” She kissed his arm.

“I always have so much to do.”

“Here’s the thing.” Betsy had never really figured out how to manipulate people into doing what she wanted. Or at least any attempts she made hadn’t worked. Maybe it wasn’t fair to call it manipulation when she was really trying to take care of him or to get him to take care of himself.

“Yes?” She could now hear the fatigue in his voice.

“I’m not going to be able to get up that early. I’m so tired. Do you think we could go in a little later? That is, if you want me with you…” She let her voice drift off.

“Oh. You’re with me tomorrow. That’s a given. Okay, we’ll go in later.”

“Great.” She snuggled closer. When she hadn’t been able to sleep as a child, her mother had petted her head until she’d dozed off. Given that she didn’t have any other solutions, she gave into the urge and ran her fingers through his short blond hair.

They lay in the darkness, and she deliberately avoided eye contact with him so that he wouldn’t think about anything but how warm they were together, the quiet, the dark, and the sound of the ceiling fan gently moving the air in the room.