My body went rigid. “My mother is dead.”
“She’s not.”
“Your pack raped and devoured her,” I bit off.
His expression was of mortification. “No. Fuck no. She’s my aunt. And the lead healer for our pack. I assure you, she’s very much alive and wants to see you. You were taken from her, from all of us. Come. I’ll show you. You’ll know as soon as you catch her scent that she’s your mother. He took you young, but that bond was already formed.”
My eyes narrowed. Lies. Had to be.
“Where’s my father?” I bit off.
“Gone,” Riley’s head dropped with sadness. “At the hands of Cornelius. They found him dead and you gone. You’re our true top alpha. I’m getting ahead of myself. Please. Consider coming. We know you know how to get to us.”
Uncle told me they might try to approach if they saw me or caught my scent; might tell their lies to get me there so they can kill me, eliminate me as a threat.
I folded my arms across my chest.
“Leave,” I ordered.
“I just wanted to –”
“Leave! Or die.”
He bared his teeth at me. “We’re your family,” he snapped angrily. “You don’t have to be alone. It’s not right and could harm you. In here.” He pointed to his temple. “ And here.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “Our pack is non-traditional and that’s for a reason. Our lines are so strong, we have six alphas, but we’re meant to have seven. You’re meant to be at the top of the pack.”
I bared my teeth at his insolence.
He went on. “We’re incomplete without you. We’ve mourned you for thirty-three years, Tyson. We live a good life and we’re a strong family, but we mourn you. You’re supposed to be part of us.”
I stared, still baring teeth.
“You don’t have to live alone,” he repeated.
“I choose to live alone,” I snapped.
“Because you want that or because it’s all you know? Because it’s what you need and chose for yourself or what he told you was better?”
I frowned. His words felt like they punched me in the gut.
That was when I caught Ivy’s scent becoming stronger and felt a spike of immediate worry. I shifted, ready to go for his throat.
He immediately shifted as well, his wolf eye-level with mine. Uncle was much smaller as man and as wolf and the size of Riley Savage’s brown wolf didn’t scare me, but it gave me pause. I bared my teeth and he partly submitted, though kept his teeth partly bared, defiantly. This stubborn asshole was determined to make me hear what he had to say. He’s alpha to his bones; I instinctively know it. I’m not sure if he’s a match for me or not, but he feels very strongly about telling me his tale. And maybe that was why I didn’t kill him. Because I had always had doubts about Cornelius and because I wanted to know if there was any truth coming from him at all.
I also realized right then that my Uncle Cornelius was not alpha. Having grown up around only one of my kind, I had no way of knowing. That thought had never before occurred to me. He talked of pack hierarchies when I was a child. I never asked him where he fit in all of that. Why hadn’t I? I’d always been of few words and Uncle Cornelius didn’t like questions. We would go for long stretches of time where we barely spoke and then he’d occasionally begin spewing facts at me rapid-fire out of nowhere and then just as suddenly, silence would fall again.
He was all I had. He was all I knew. And when words came from him, it was often simple directions, which I followed. When it was more, it was usually spewed at me with the scent of whisky and made little to no sense.
When Riley Savage showed that partial submission, she was there, suddenly, standing on the porch wearing my shirt, her beautiful legs bare, golden and purple hair everywhere, her eyes wild with fear, and my scent all over her. My little Ivy stirred emotion in my gut, standing there and holding the fireplace poker in her hand and pointing it at Riley Savage’s wolf form.
To protect me?
I warned her and this made her halt. I got between them, letting him know with my stance that I would not hesitate to rip his throat out if he made a move in her direction.
He left. But not before giving me notice with his eyes that told me we weren’t done.
The sensations I felt were so foreign then. Strangeness at how I could feel a sort of connection to him, how I could know the meaning of his expression.
How I knew he was alpha, and the knowledge, that his strength was formidable. Not just from his size. From more.
And there were a lot of other sensations, vibrations coming at me from him, too that I didn’t know how to decipher.
***
I take her back to bed and set her down.
Her eyes rove over me and I see confusion. Her cheeks are pink as those eyes sweep over my body.
Emotion squeezes my chest like a massive fist. I need her again.
My beautiful little mate, trying to defend me against a massive wolf with nothing but a little stick in her dainty hands. I pounce, pulling my shirt off her body by hauling it over her head, slamming my hips forward, my cock seeking her. She’s still wet and swollen from our last fucking, but behind a barrier. She’s put panties on. I hook the crotch aside with my finger and push my way inside her.
“Mine. You’re mine,” I tell her, cradling her jaw in my hand. “No one will take you from me. I protect you; I keep my Ivy safe. You understand?” My thumb strokes her lips. “Don’t put yourself in danger like that again. You should’ve waited in my bed where I left you. I’d never let anyone hurt you.”
I would do anything to keep her safe from them. Anything. That pack that steals women. That hurts them. That lies. Telling me that I’m their alpha so they can lure me there and take her from me, kill me, hurt her. Devour her beautiful body. No. Fuck no. Seven alphas? This means there are six threats to me. Riley Savage and five more. I want to kill them all. I won’t let them near her.
I fuck her hard, I bury myself in her beautiful body, feasting on her lips, sucking her tongue, digging my fingers into her sweet ass and feeling my body fill with rage at the idea that someone might even try to touch her. I see them in my head, laughing around a fire, palming spent cocks. Pulling beautiful golden and lavender hair from their teeth.
No!
I let out a roar as my cock expands near the base and she cries out an orgasm as my knot pulses against that ethereal inside place that makes her quiver and whimper. I spill with force into her, staring into her eyes, feeling my eyes heat with a glow. I barely manage to beat back the red haze, stopping it from coming through because she’s safe, she’s here, under me, filled with me.
She looks frightened and I feel immediate remorse.
“No. I won’t ever, ever harm you. You need never fear me, beautiful Ivy Savage. I’ve never felt this way about anybody before you, Ivy. My only.”
“Only what?” she whispers.
“Only one. You’re the only one for me. We’re meant to be together.”
Her eyes soften as I growl into her mouth and feel yet another stream of essence leave me.
I bury my face in her hair and go limp on top of her, inside of her. Spent with emotion. I roll and take her to lying on me, so I don’t crush her under my body.