The Alpha's Heart (Wilde Creek Two) (16 page)

Brynn leaned back in her chair and gazed at Acksel with a look that told him she was feeling mischievous.  “I’m thinking if it’s a boy that we should name him Jack.”

He frowned.  Jack?  Why would she want to name his pup Jack?

She pressed her lips together for a moment, clearly trying to suppress a grin, before she said, “You know.  For Jack Daniel’s.”

Shit.  That night when he came to her, he’d tried to drown himself in whiskey.  His cheeks reddened and Mia and Malachi both coughed to cover up their laughter.  Brynn held his gaze, her eyes dancing with mirth.  “It’s not nice to tease the alpha.”

“I think I can handle you,” she countered.

He chuckled, very certain that she’d already very effectively wrapped him around her finger.  The food arrived, and he watched her dig into her three burger patties with gusto.  Conversation dropped off as everyone ate, and then resumed again as dessert was ordered and Brynn shared her brownie sundae with him.  Acksel handed cash to Malachi to pay the bill, and they all said goodnight.

Before Acksel could shut Brynn’s door, Malachi said, “I’m heading home with Mia.  Zander is done with his shift at the restaurant and he’s going to ride along with Sam.  What time should I arrive tomorrow?”

Acksel looked at Brynn and she said, “For what?”

“To drive you to work,” Malachi answered.

“Oh, right.  7:15.  I need to clock in by 7:30.”

“Yes’m.  See you tomorrow Alphas.”  He ducked his head slightly and then turned and walked to where Mia’s car was idling.  Zander gave a short wave before climbing into Sam’s truck.  Acksel shut her door and climbed in behind the wheel, starting the engine and pulling out of the parking lot.

“Where are we going?” she asked, noticing that he wasn’t going towards her home.

“Just for a little drive.  Did you have a good time?”

“I did.  It was weird that everyone waited for me to go first.  Why is that?”

“Because you’re the alpha female.  I know I haven’t asked you officially and you haven’t said yes, but the mark on your neck and our new laws make you the most important female in the pack.  It’s something related to natural wolves.  The alphas always eat first because they’re in charge.  For the other females, it’s just our way to ensure that the females are taken care of.  Even in a restaurant, you’ll always see the females ordering first.”

She hummed in her throat but said nothing.  Quiet settled in the SUV, but it was a comfortable silence.  The evening had gone as perfectly as he’d hoped.  He’d gotten to take her out on a date, keeping things light by having friends along, and he’d felt himself relax right along with her.  For as long as he’d been alpha, he’d held himself apart from all but his highest-ranked males.  At the time, he’d convinced himself that showing any softness would be dangerous to his position.  He’d never socialized.  Never dated.  Although the leader of the pack, he’d led a fairly solitary private life. Without his father’s weekly dinners, he probably would have been all business all the time.  He couldn’t forget that he was the alpha; the strongest and the best.  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a balance.  And Brynn was worth finding balance for.

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” she asked.

“Something my dad said a while back, about not wanting to be alpha when he was younger because he didn’t want to always be fighting for his position and endangering his life when he had my mom and us kids to look after.”

“You can’t just declare yourself alpha-for-life?”

“No.  Any wolf could challenge me.  I have the right to ignore the challenge, but doing that invites the pack to wonder if I’m losing my abilities.  A pack that has no confidence in their leader is a pack that isn’t happy.”

“Do you get challenged often?”  He could hear the worry in her voice.

“One of the males that took you challenged me.  I’ve put a few wolves in their place since I’ve taken over, but I haven’t had anyone else challenge me outright for the position.”

“Your people seem happy with you.  When you made the changes to pack law, there weren’t any who challenged you, and they could have then, right?”

“True.  I think you’re heralding a new age for our pack.  We’re not bound by the stodgy, ineffective laws any longer.  Although completely re-drafting the laws of our people is going to take months.  Some of the laws in our history have been in effect for hundreds of years.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t.”

“Are you always so cocky?”

He put the truck in park and turned off the engine, glancing at her.  “You’ve known me a long time.  What do you think?”

She folded her arms with a grunt.  “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”  Before he could ask, she grumbled, “They better not think about challenging you.”

“Taking on the whole pack for me, sweetheart?”

She made a face and shrugged with a light laugh.  “I’m liking being the alpha female so far, even if it’s not official yet because you dropped the ball six weeks ago.”

“Are you ever going to forgive me?”

“About two weeks after never,” she quipped.

Other men might have thought her statement meant it wasn’t even worth trying, but Acksel didn’t look at it that way.  Walking away from a challenge wasn’t anything he’d ever done.  She might be joking, but underneath the joke was a thread of truth.  She wasn’t ready to forgive him, and he had no right to expect her to just because they’d had a good couple of days and sorted some things out.

“I’m up for the challenge.”

He got out of the truck and walked around to her side, noticing that Sam had parked just off to the side.  He and Zander were standing outside the truck, but keeping their distance.  “Where are we?” she asked as he opened her door and held out his hand for her.  She took it immediately and he helped her out and shut the door.

“This is the water reservoir.  If I’d asked you out when we were teenagers, I would have probably taken you to dinner at Luna’s and then brought you here.  It’s where all the wolves brought their dates.”

“A wolfy make-out place?”  Her amusement at him lightened his heart.

They walked down a sidewalk and turned to the right, heading towards where the water rushed over the manmade waterfall and into the pool below.  She leaned against the metal railing and he caged her with his arms.  There were lights along the sidewalk and parking lot, but it was still quite dark.

He leaned forward to rest his chin on her shoulder.  In her ear he said, “We like it here because the noise of the waterfall drowns out everything.  In the dark, you can have privacy in a crowd.”

She shivered and placed her hands over his.  He could barely pick up her scent among the overwhelming aroma of nature around them, and he couldn’t hear worth a damn, but he liked having her here in the place he would have brought her years ago if he’d had the balls.

She turned suddenly and placed her hands on his face.  There was only the briefest of pauses before she went on her toes and pressed her lips against his.  The roar of blood in his ears was second only to his wolf howling in happiness that she was kissing him willingly and not because it was bedtime.  Her hands slid around to his shoulders and she pulled him close, swiping her tongue against his lips until he opened his mouth for her.

Most of the kisses they’d shared had been of the chaste sort, closed mouths or just the lightest touch of tongues.  But when he’d kissed her earlier in the day and the decadent flavor of her had hit him full force, he’d been unable to think of anything but kissing her again and again.

He released his grip on the railing and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her deeply, chasing her tongue and devouring her with every ounce of passion he possessed.  The air was cool around them, but the heat between them scorched him from the inside out.

He wanted to be burned by her.  It was the sweetest agony.

They eased away from each other slowly and his wolf snarled at the loss of her warmth.

She turned in his arms and looked out into the darkness.  She snuggled into him and he kept his arms around her.  He could see better than she could in the darkness, making out the glint of the churning water below, but she seemed to enjoy herself, and he didn’t want to break whatever peaceful spell had surrounded them.

An hour later, Sam and Zander left them at Brynn’s home.  Caleb, Mia’s cousin and a protector, stood on Brynn’s front porch as Acksel unlocked her door and ushered her inside.

“I’m patrolling around the perimeter every hour, Alpha,” Caleb said.

Acksel nodded and said goodnight, closing and locking the front door.  Leaving Brynn in the entryway, he checked all the windows and doors and scented in each room.  When he was satisfied that no one had been in the home aside from them, he went back to her.

“Walk me back to my door?” she asked, dropping her shoes in the hall closet.

“Of course,” he smiled.  “We’re still technically on our date.”

“If this were when we were teenagers, the porch light would be on and my dad would be watching through the curtains to make sure you didn’t do anything more than give me a quick kiss.”

She stopped at the bedroom door and turned to face him, leaning against it.  “I had a really good time tonight, Acksel.  I feel like I’ve learned more about you in the last couple of days than I have in all the time I’ve known you.  Thank you for my book and thank you for dinner and sharing the reservoir with me.”

He kissed her.  Held her close.  Tried to memorize the way she felt in his arms so he could dream about her accurately.

“Goodnight sweetheart,” he murmured.

“Goodnight, Acksel.”

He waited until she shut the door and then he turned and headed into the family room to camp out on the couch.  They were closer now than they’d ever been before, and there was something very sweet about the time they were taking to get to know each other.  He wasn’t put off by her challenge that he prove his affection for her; it inspired him to search through his memories of what he knew about her.

Pulling his cell from his back pocket, he called Jeremiah.

“Yes, Alpha?”  The male was twenty-seven years old, and what the pack referred to as a
non
.  Jeremiah was a big man, but he was just a man.  Even though both his parents were wolves, Jeremiah was unable to shift completely.  He could extend fangs and claws, and sometimes when he got really pissed a fine coating of gray fur would sprout along his arms and legs, but for all intents and purposes he was considered a human.  Which was why, even though he could take on many of the pack wolves, he was relegated to omega status.  There was something off about Jeremiah being such a big brute of a guy but being forced to serve in such a fashion or leave the pack.  That he’d grown up in Wilde Creek was the only reason he was included in the pack at all.  Most packs refused to include
nons
, and back in the old days, if a wolf was shown to be a
non
, he or she would be killed by the alpha so their non-shifting genes didn’t taint the pack.

“I read about a flower that smells like cinnamon.  It’s called a Shooting Star.  Can you find a plant for me by dinner tomorrow?”

“Of course, Alpha.”  There was no animosity in his tone.  Even though Jeremiah had to be miserable in his position, he was always friendly and always helpful.

“Thank you.  Keep me posted.”

Ending the call, Acksel pulled his shirt off and tucked his shoes under the coffee table, settling down on the couch to try to get some sleep.  Brynn was going to work in the morning and it was the first time since her abduction that he wasn’t going to be in the same house with her all day long.  He was anxious for her safety, but he knew he couldn’t keep her confined in the house for the rest of her life.

She wanted to work.  It would make her happy and he’d do anything to see that she was happy.  As long as she was safe and protected.

Chapter 17

Brynn woke up in a cold sweat, fear racing through her.  Her wrists and ankles felt incredibly heavy and the sound of chains echoed around her.

They’d found her!  She’d been kidnapped again!

Thrashing with a shout of alarm, she fought and struggled, desperate not to be cut and bitten.  She struck out blindly, all rationale gone, and felt herself connect with something soft, her nails digging through flesh as hands wrapped around her arms and she was pulled up to a seated position.

“Brynn!  Brynn!  You’re having a nightmare.  You’re safe now.”  Acksel’s voice cut through her panic.

She froze and blinked as he released one of her arms and flicked on the small lamp on her nightstand.  Four bleeding scratches marked his cheek.

“Oh no,” she gasped, “I’m sorry!”

“They’ll heal, don’t worry.  You’re the one I’m worried about.”

Without a word, he sat down on the bed and pulled her into his lap.  The spicy, woodsy scent of him filled her nose and calmed her immediately.  She shuddered and hugged herself against him.

“I don’t know what happened.  I haven’t had any nightmares before, but tonight I felt like I was back in that basement in chains.”

It had felt so real.

Fear still licked at her, but she felt more calm and secure in Acksel’s arms.  She hugged herself closer to him, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.  He held her tight, stroking her back and easing the fear away from her with his gentle care.

“I think I know why you haven’t had nightmares before tonight, sweetheart,” he said in a low voice.

“You do?”

“I think it’s because of my scent.”

Scent?  She leaned away slightly and looked at him in confusion.  “I like the way you smell and everything, Acksel, but I don’t see how your scent has kept nightmares of my kidnapping away.”

He gave her a long look and then lifted her from his lap and put her on the bed.  The loss of contact ripped through her and her fear rose inside her immediately.  Acksel pulled her close again with a deep sigh.  “You’re carrying my pup, Brynn.  Some of our wolfish tendencies are starting to become evident in you.  In the last few days, I’ve seen things that can’t be explained in any way other than that the baby is causing them.”