The Alpha's Heart (Wilde Creek Two) (11 page)

“Who are those guys?”

“Protectors.  Think of them like the police of the wolf pack.  They patrol around town and stand guard where I need them to be, whether it’s at the home of a female when her male is gone, or like today, when they will be making sure that my home is safe.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “Why are you always talking about being safe?”

“Because I’m alpha.  It’s important to me that my people are safe.  Not just the wolves in the pack, but my family and those that I care about.”  He reached his hand out to stroke her arm but she flinched away so he let it drop.  “Come on, we’ve got a lot to discuss.”

He got out and came around to her side.  This time when he picked her up she didn’t protest.  She wasn’t exactly snuggling into him like he’d prefer, but she wasn’t arguing with him about her ability to walk.

Zander, who was watching the front yard, took the house key from Acksel and unlocked the door, swinging it open and dropping the key into the bowl by the front door.  No words were exchanged, but Acksel knew that Zander would stand there for as long as Acksel told him to.  Although not a high-ranked protector, he was strong and fast and very serious about his job.

Acksel kicked the door shut and strode through the front room and down the hall.  After he had been notified that Barry had been killed by the pack, he’d gone to the site and investigated the remains — what little there was — and then he’d asked some of the females for their help.  He could have ordered them to do it, but he was trying to be a little less of an asshole.  Mia had gone to Brynn’s home and gathered clothes and toiletries for her.  She hadn’t really been happy about it, but after a stern warning from her brother, Malachi, she hadn’t said anything.

Three she-wolves who were his dad’s age went to Acksel’s house and cleaned up, making sure the bed was made in the master and the fridge stocked with food that was more appropriate for a pregnant human female.  As he carried Brynn into the bedroom, he was inwardly pleased to see that one of the females had put a vase of pink roses on the dresser.

Brynn stiffened when she saw the bed.  Acksel tugged the covers back with one hand, laid her down, and covered her.  She wiggled up to a seated position, her hands gripping the covers.  “Don’t think you can just be nice suddenly and I’m going to let you into my life, Acksel.  You promised me clothes, so get them for me and let me go home.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and resisted the urge to pull her into his lap and kiss the fight out of her.

“We’ve got some things to talk about.”

“So you’re also a liar?  First you show up at my door dead drunk, then you…you know, and then you disappear.  Six freaking weeks I try to get you on the phone and you ignore me.  Now that you know I’m pregnant, suddenly you’re
all
about the baby.  Well, fuck you, Acksel.  If you want to be part of the baby’s life, I’ll let you know when he or she is born and we’ll set up some kind of visitation schedule so we never have to see each other.”

Confusion skated through him.  “What?”

“Don’t act like you want to be with me just because I’m pregnant.”  Tears glittered in her eyes suddenly.  “I won’t chain myself to you just because we both made a mistake.  Let me go.  Please, let me go.”

She dropped her head into her hands and took in a deep, trembling breath.

Guilt swamped him.

“That’s not going to happen, Brynn.  I know you don’t believe me, but I wanted to be with you.  You’re not a wolf, so you don’t understand how the pack works.  I couldn’t just bring you home with me after our night together.  I had just recently declared that wolves and humans could mate together and stay in the pack.  To bring you in as my mate so quickly would have caused an uproar.  You would have had a target on your back, been seen as my Achilles’ heel.”

Her hands lowered but she didn’t raise her head.

“I know you were taken and hurt and I’m so sorry that happened.  I wish I could have protected you.  I thought I was doing the right thing.  I thought that staying away from you would let you have a safe, normal life.  If I had brought you into my life immediately, you would have had to defend yourself against the females who wanted to prove that they were better suited to be an alpha’s mate than you.”

“You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“You’re not a prisoner, Brynn.  But I do want you to stay with me so I can take care of you.”

“I need to go to work.  I want to go home.”

“Your boss knows what happened and you have the rest of the week off work to recuperate.  As far as going home, if you stay with me for a few days willingly, I’ll let you go home if you want.  Give me a chance to tell you what I need to tell you.  Don’t shut me out the way that I did to you.”

She was quiet for long enough that he almost dropped to his knees and began begging.  But then she looked at him.  “Tell me why you came to my house in the first place.”

“Because I smelled you.  Your scent.  It made me nuts.”  He didn’t remember much about that night prior to passing out except that he smelled cinnamon and knew it was the scent of his mate.  But when he woke up later on her couch, he could think of nothing but making love to her.  Maybe he had been a little hungover at that point and his control wasn’t what it should have been — maybe if he’d been a little more sober he wouldn’t have had unprotected sex.  Although the last six weeks had been hell, he didn’t regret the pup she carried; he only regretted that he’d been foolish enough to believe she would be better off without him, or that he could live without her.

He looked away as he told her that he’d always liked her, starting back in school when he was a scrawny bit of nothing and she was part of the popular clique.  Her pretty eyes and sweet smile had gotten him through some hard times, and he wished that he’d been the kind of guy she liked back then so they could have been at least friends.

After baring his soul, he stood and looked down at her.  Her eyes were wide, her lips parted.  “I was losing a battle with myself to stay away.  These six weeks have been the longest of my life.  It wouldn’t have been too much longer before I was banging on your door again, but this time I wouldn’t have left before you woke.  I would have stayed right there in bed with you snuggled next to me.  I’ll spend the rest of my life apologizing for walking away, but I will never regret what we did or the baby that you’re carrying.  I know you’re pissed at me, but I’m not leaving you again.  I want to be part of your life and take care of you.”

“If I say no?” she squeaked out.

“I’m just the kind of asshole that’s not going to take no for an answer, Brynn.  Not from you; not about this.  However long it takes, I’m going to earn your forgiveness.”

He paused for a moment but she didn’t say anything, only stared at him with a look of both anger and disgruntled happiness.  “I’m going to make you something to eat.  It’s been a long night.”  Dropping a swift kiss to her forehead, he left the room, leaving the door cracked.

“You said I could have clothes,” she said loudly as he walked down the hallway.

“I didn’t say when,” he answered.

“Asshole,” she growled and he chuckled as he went into the kitchen to cook for his mate.

After checking in with the protectors that surrounded his home, he called Sam for an update while he looked in the fridge.

“I’m out of touch for the rest of the day unless it’s an emergency,” Acksel said, after Sam told him that all was well.

“The lady doctor called and asked to have Brynn check in with her.  She’s worried and won’t take my assurances that she’s okay now.”

Dr. Kimmi.  Acksel smiled inwardly at the thought of the doctor, glad that Brynn had such a fierce friend.

“I’ll have Brynn call.  Thanks, Sam.”

“My pleasure, Alpha.”

Ending the call, Acksel pulled breakfast fixings from the fridge and began preparing a meal for her.  He was hungry as well, but he wanted her to be fed first.  From now on, she would be his highest priority.  As two steaks sizzled in a hot pan on the stove, he thought over a conversation he’d had with his dad and Eveny before her heat cycle, and the reason his father hadn’t wanted to fight for alpha many years earlier.  Acksel hadn’t given much thought to his dad’s reasoning — that he didn’t want to be alpha because it would take away too much from his family and put his life on the line.  Before Brynn, there hadn’t been a family for him outside of his dad and sister.  But
blood family
was not the same as a mate and pup.  Brynn was solely his responsibility and their pup, and any future ones they might have, would fall to him alone to keep safe.

Which begged the question — how did he ensure that no one messed with Brynn?

Turning the steaks in the skillet, he took a notepad from a drawer and jotted down ideas on how to handle things in the pack.  He had already made several changes recently in pack law.  First he’d declared that pack members could mate with whoever they wanted, whether they were wolves or humans or another supernatural creature.  Although the mates would not be accepted into the pack if they were not wolf, now mating with a person other than a wolf was not grounds for banishment.  Then he’d changed how the pack handled ranks, expanding the protectors and giving them more responsibility under the guidance of the theto, Sam.  Ren, as beta and Acksel’s right hand, was going to be handling more of the day-to-day, which would free Acksel up to handle the bigger issues with the pack, which now included re-writing several thousand years of pack law.  The most important thing for him now was to make sure that the females didn’t try to prove that they were more suitable mates for Acksel than Brynn by beating her to a pulp.  Not only was it an unfair contest because she was human, but it could potentially harm her pup.  Females could be vicious in dealing with others they viewed as threats.  He needed to make it clear to them that if they physically harmed Brynn in an attempt to sway him they would be punished harshly.

He called Ren and had him set up a meeting with the females for the following morning.

Tucking the phone into his back pocket, he finished making breakfast for her.  He was feeling a lot more confident that she would be safe from the pack females until the November full moon when he could take her officially as his mate and make her alpha female.

If she was willing to become his mate by then, that is.

Once Brynn was formally his, no one within the pack would think twice about hurting her because it would be against pack law.  The females were not held to hierarchy the way that males were, so there would be no challenging for position once he claimed her.

Placing the dishes on a metal baking sheet, he carried breakfast back to the bedroom, feeling more confident about his decisions.

Until he opened the bedroom door and saw Brynn staring at him suspiciously and angrily.  Then all his confidence fled.  He stood in the doorway, breakfast in hand, feeling like an awkward teenager with no social skills.  It didn’t help that his wolf wanted him to crawl on his belly and beg her for affection.

Her stomach growled and he snapped out of his awkward feelings and marched into the room.  In spite of the angry glint in her eyes, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.  That she was in his bed, carrying his pup, only increased her beauty to him.

“Hungry?” he asked as he set the tray on the nightstand next to the bed and sat down.  Placing a napkin across her lap, he picked up one of the plates and began to cut the steak on it into bite-sized pieces.  He wasn’t sure what she would like, so he had brought a variety of things, including a bowl of scrambled eggs topped with cheese, cinnamon raisin toast, and two large glasses of milk.

Spearing a piece of steak, he held it up to her mouth.  Her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line as she turned her head slightly.  “I can feed myself.”

“I know.  But it’s my duty and honor to take care of you.”

“Duty?  Honor?”  She shoved his hand away.  “Don’t talk to me about those things, Acksel, I’m not even fucking kidding.  Get me some real clothes and let me leave.”

Shaking his head, he lowered the fork and said, “I can’t do that, Brynn.”

“They’re dead, right?”  She swallowed hard and met his eyes.  “I mean, those guys that kidnapped me are gone, so there’s no more threat.”

Tears welled in her eyes and it took every ounce of his willpower not to haul her into his lap and comfort her.  “Yes, they’re dead.  But there are things you don’t understand yet about what’s happened between us.  I’ll explain everything, but you need to eat.”

“And then you’ll get me clothes and let me leave?”

Not in a million years.

“First eat, then talk, then we’ll see.”

She gave him a grumpy look, but her stomach growled again and she flushed with embarrassment.  “You’re not the boss of me.”

“What are we, twelve?  You’re a courageous, independent, beautiful woman.  I don’t want to boss you around, I just want to take care of you.  Let me, damn it.”

She looked at him speculatively.  He was certain that words like
asshole
and
idiot
were rolling through her mind.  Then her lips parted and she looked at the fork in his hand.  Taking the hint that she was ready, at least for this much, he began to feed her.

There was something extremely satisfying about taking care of her needs.  He hadn’t expected it to feel so good to do something simple like make a meal and feed her.  Just hours earlier he’d found her, set her free, dealt with the ones who had hurt her, and gotten her medical attention.  But feeding her a meal he had prepared?  He was off the charts proud.  His wolf was prancing around in his head like a puppy.

She ate one whole steak and half the bowl of eggs before swiping a piece of toast and chewing on the corner.  “Thank you, Acksel.  For coming for me and taking care of me now.”

He brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder and was pleased when she didn’t flinch away.

“I’m sorry that you were hurt.  It grieves me that those wolves took you and harmed you to get to me.”

Swallowing her bite of toast, she said, “I’m ready to hear whatever else you think I need to know and then I’m dead serious — I want clothes.”