True Alpha (14 page)

Jack’s lips curled in the faintest of smiles. “Well, now that we’ve got that settled I reckon we can agree on just about anything.”

Daniel shot him a wry look. “I should’ve come back to get you and the others instead of pursuing the outsider.” He touched a finger to his hairline, tracing the scar his mistake had left him with.

Jack nodded, his expression unreadable. “I’m glad you realize that, but there’s somethin’ I need to know.”

Daniel arched a brow. “About the other wolf? I—”

“No. Not that – at least, not yet.”

“I need to know that I’m an alpha you can submit to – that you
will
submit to. Because a pack only works if every member knows exactly who the leader is, and you seem to have come back from Alaska with a preference for a different sort of alpha than me.”

Daniel drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “To be honest, you’re a hell of a lot better than the alpha of the pack we lived with back in Alaska.”

“Am I?” Jack’s face and voice were still impassive; his guarded tone and expression told Mandy that he was withholding judgment, seeking out the truth so that he could avoid jumping back on the merry-go-round of Daniel’s recurring defiance and plays for authority.

“You are.” Daniel’s expression was serious as he held Jack’s gaze. “I figure he’s the one I’m really pissed off at, not you.”

Jack had been right – something
had
happened in Alaska. As they waited for Daniel to continue, Mandy’s curiosity was piqued despite her eagerness to head into town with Jack.

Daniel wrapped his arm around Clarissa’s shoulders and drew her close. “The alpha was Clarissa’s brother. He let us into the pack, but we were never quite equal with the others in his eyes – in some ways, he treated us like outsiders, though we officially belonged. When he found out that Clarissa and I were meant to be mates, he didn’t like it.”

Clarissa gazed up at Daniel, her eyes affectionate, though her mouth bore a slight frown.

“And he treated her like crap. He didn’t have a mate, and he bossed her around like she was some sort of domestic servant. When she wasn’t out with the midwife she was apprenticed to, she was almost always at home taking orders from him.”

Clarissa, still frowning, didn’t contradict him.

“For a while, I tried to hold off even though the urge to make her my mate was driving me crazy. I told myself that he’d come around eventually, once I’d been a member of the pack for a more substantial length of time, and that I’d only make things harder for her if I circumvented his wishes. But he never did, and we got sick of it.” He looked up. “Can you imagine having your mate right under your nose, seeing her around, sometimes every day, and not even being able to touch her?”

Daniel kicked a piece of gravel, sending the little stone tumbling across the driveway. “Eventually we reached a point where we couldn’t take it anymore. When he found out what we did – when he saw our marks – he kicked us out of the pack.”

“Noah, April and Violet decided to come with us to Tennessee,” Clarissa said.

Mandy eyed Clarissa with a new sense of sympathy. No wonder she was so cheerful about her new life in the Smoky Mountains – all she wanted was to be with Daniel, and she’d been treated poorly in Alaska. This was the first environment she’d ever been in where nobody tried to keep her apart from her mate. “So you two haven’t been mated long, have you?”

“We left for Tennessee the day he kicked us out,” Clarissa said.

“I’d never try to come between the two of you,” Jack said. “I know what it’s like to find the person you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with.” He squeezed Mandy’s hand and nodded in Clarissa’s direction. “Your brother hasn’t experienced that yet; maybe he was being overprotective, or maybe he was just a jackass – I don’t know. But I’m not him; I haven’t wronged either of you, and I don’t expect to be treated like I have. My orders will be fair, and they’ll be obeyed by anyone who calls themselves a member of the Half Moon Pack.”

Daniel nodded. “Right. I know. I just ... got on a kick of doing whatever I thought was best, I guess. I’m over it.”

Jack nodded, and that was that, or so it seemed. “Now, about that other wolf…”

“A shifter,” Daniel said, his eyes flashing. “Definitely a shifter.”

“Did you see him in his human form?”

“No.” Daniel shook his head. “But I followed him to where he’d been bedding down beneath a little overhang in the face of a short cliff – he had a backpack there. I didn’t get to see what was inside it, but how many animals do you know that own a backpack?”

“Did it look chewed or beaten up?”

“It looked almost new.”

“What happened after you tracked down his den?”

Daniel compressed his lips into a thin line as his cheeks turned faintly red. “He’d been watching me from nearby, I guess, and saw me checkin’ out his stuff. He came out of the trees and we had a confrontation. To be honest, he was more dangerous than I’d originally pegged him as bein’ – he knocked me down a bank and I guess I hit my head on rock. I hardly had time to realize I’d been bested before I was out like a light.”

“Were you aggressive from the get-go?”

Daniel turned a little redder. “Mighta been. What right does he have to be camping out near the edge of our territory and snooping around?”

Jack’s brow furrowed for a moment, making him appear thoughtful. “Why don’t you two go home and get cleaned up? Mandy and I are headin’ into town for a while.”

“That’s it?” Daniel asked, his expression incredulous. “You’re not gonna go after the outsider?”

“Not now,” Jack said. “Noah and April are on patrol – they’ll know if he enters our territory. I’ve got somethin’ more important to see to.”

Daniel looked like he wanted to ask what could be more important than hunting down the stranger, but held his tongue as Jack rounded the car and held the passenger side door open for Mandy. As she slipped inside, she noticed Daniel and Clarissa’s gazes lingering on the V-neck of her dress. At first the attention seemed perplexing, then she remembered – the wide neck revealed a little bit of her mark, just a couple of the puncture wounds Jack’s teeth had made. It was one of the things she liked about the dress. She raised a hand and traced the smooth scars as Jack pulled out of the driveway and guided the car down the mountain, toward civilization.

****

The county clerk’s office was anything but glamorous, but Mandy buzzed with excitement as she and Jack neared the counter where a middle-aged woman waited, peering at them over her glasses. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“We’d like to obtain a marriage license,” Jack said.

“All right.” The woman’s gaze flickered towards Mandy’s belly and lingered for a moment before she turned on her heel.

Mandy didn’t care. Let the woman think what she wanted – this was no shotgun wedding.

Mandy’s heart swelled with cheer as she and Jack produced the multiple forms of ID required by the state and began filling out paperwork, printing and signing where the woman pointed with her pen.

When Mandy reached the section where she had to fill in her father’s information, she carefully wrote Michael Alec Foster, marveling at the novelty of it for a moment. Her father’s name had rarely been spoken in her household while growing up; typically, it was something she used only when filling out forms. She wrote down that he’d been born in Georgia, though there was no way she could give his address – he could’ve been anywhere on the planet, or even dead, for all she knew.

When all was said and done and Jack had paid the fee, they had their marriage license in hand. “This can be used anytime within the next thirty days,” the clerk said. “After that, it will expire.”

Together, she and Jack left the office and the building, seeking their car among the dozens of others that filled the parking lot.

Mandy placed the license in the glove box, careful not to bend it.

“Ready to go home and tell the others?” Jack asked.

Mandy nodded. If they’d wanted, they could’ve married that afternoon – a relatively short drive could take them to a tourist town like Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge, where wedding chapels abounded. But Jack, who hated crowded places and treasured the peace and quiet of the wilderness, had often used terms like ‘traffic jam central’ or ‘cesspool of tourism’ to describe those places, and Mandy liked the idea he’d come up with – getting married at their cabin, with the rest of the pack and a few close friends and family members present. After all, what better place for the alpha couple to marry than inside their own territory, the land that their predecessors had defended for generations with blood, sweat and tears?

“I’ll call my mother this evening,” Mandy said, watching the trees fly past as they headed for home. “There’s not enough time to send an invitation.”

****

“I’m glad that all the invitees are shifters – except for my mother, or course.” Mandy pulled a tulle drawstring bag closed, sealing a handful of little chocolate favors inside. “I don’t think it would go over very smoothly if I informed the people I knew back in Nashville that my baby shower is happening the day before my wedding.” She could just imagine the rumors and behind-her-back laughter that would race around her old work place’s office if her former co-workers knew.

Clarissa smiled and shrugged as she hand-selected an assortment of chocolates for the favor bag she was putting together. “Love comes fast in the shifter world. So do babies, more often than not.”

That was true enough. Mandy could easily remember the instant ardor that had driven her into Jack’s arms shortly after they’d met. They owed their impending parenthood to the power of that fierce attraction; they’d had unprotected sex right off the bat – something that Mandy never would’ve considered doing before she’d met Jack. The mating pull was like that for all wolf shifters, so she probably wasn’t the only one who’d had a baby shower and a wedding so close together.

“Besides, it makes sense,” Clarissa added. “Most brides have a bridal shower, but you and Jack already have all the things you need for your home – all you need is baby stuff.”

“That’s true,” Mandy admitted. Aside from a couple adorable things she just hadn’t been able to resist purchasing, she didn’t have any of the items she and Jack needed for their child yet. They’d waited on purpose; until the nursery was finished, they’d have to store baby supplies in awkward places, like the cabin’s main space or their own bedroom.

“The humans at the store I worked at thought I jumped into things with Noah way too fast,” April said, grinning. “They didn’t get why I was suddenly so serious with someone I’d just met, let alone someone who’d just arrived from Tennessee.”

“Last one,” Violet said, pulling one of the little tulle sachets shut. “Ready to head into town?” She hadn’t curled her hair like she had the day before, but she’d taken the time to tastefully apply flattering make-up again, and her smile was worlds away from the somber expressions she’d worn when she’d first arrived in Tennessee. Mandy hadn’t asked what had happened between her and Ronnie after she’d left the cabin the day before.

“Let me just grab my bag,” Mandy said, pushing back her chair and rising from the table she and the other women had spent the morning gathered around, preparing for the wedding. Clarissa had refused to let Mandy help with the baby shower preparations, insisting that she wanted the décor and games to be a surprise.

A few minutes later, they had all piled into Mandy’s car. Mandy sat behind the wheel; none of the others had much knowledge of the local roads yet, and they’d never been to Gatlinburg, where traffic was busy on even the slowest of days. This time of year, when the mountains were cloaked in stunning fall foliage, it would be packed. Their trip would be fun, though. There were lots of wedding dress shops in the bustling tourist town, which catered to the many couples who traveled to the Smokies to tie the knot – or decided to do so spur-of-the moment while vacationing. Afterward, she planned to take the others to one of the infinite restaurants that dotted the crowded streets – wedding dress shopping and dinner would comprise their first girls’ day out.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” April said when they turned onto the parkway that led into Gatlinburg. “This place is packed!”

“It always is,” Mandy said, preparing for a long, slow crawl to the downtown shopping centers she wanted to visit. “The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the country, and most people like to visit the other attractions while they’re here too.” For the most part, Mandy preferred the beauty and solitude of the mountains’ more desolate areas – a trait she attributed to her shifter nature. But she wasn’t going to find the perfect wedding dress by wondering around in the woods.

When at long last Mandy reached a parking garage in the heart of the downtown area and found a space for her car, she couldn’t wait to get out and stretch her legs. As she did so, her stomach gave a low growl, and the baby wiggled, as if in response to the sound. “Anyone up for a snack before we get serious about shopping?”

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one with an empty belly – everyone agreed enthusiastically.

“Handling those chocolates was driving me crazy,” Violet said. “They smelled sooo good.”