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CHAPTER FIVE
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The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER SIX
I consider just leaving entirely, but something pulls me back to the party. If I’m honest with myself, it’s because I want to see Caleb.Even if he can’t possibly be my mate. Even if he’s likely to be just as disgusted with me as everyone else. He’ll regret the kiss, deny me, kick me out of the pack - everything an Alpha is supposed to do in this situation.Still. This might be my last chance to see him. I need to.So I push the doors open to the Badger Lodge, only to face a wall of jeering, mocking faces.“Useless!”“Pathetic!”“I heard she can’t even shift!”“Worse than a regular Omega.”“Why did they even send her?”Tears well in my eyes as I shrink away from the attention, trying to find Caleb in the crowd. But someone grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me into the center of a circle, where Malcolm and Miranda and all their friends poke and prod me.“Not even a fang? A claw? A whisker?”“Nothing. Basically a human.”“Gross!”Malcolm puts his
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER SEVEN
Caleb helps me up off the mattress and pulls a key from his pocket, unlocking the door.Silently, we slip out through the back door of the pack house, into a misty early morning. I shiver, and he takes off his coat, wrapping it around my shoulders.He leads me away from the pack house and away from town, deeper into the woods, along narrow and overgrown trails that he seems to know very well. The whole time, he holds my hand, his grip sure and strong.“Where are we going?” I ask as the sun begins to rise and the pack house has disappeared behind us.“My dad’s old cabin,” Caleb explains. “The pack doesn’t know about it. It’s just for the Alpha and his family. A hideaway.”“If it’s only for Alphas and their families, then why are you taking me there?”Caleb stops, turning toward me and holding my face in his warm hands. “Because you’re my family,” he says. “You’re my mate.”“But -”“I know, I know.” Caleb’s silver eyes are tinged with sadness. “You’re an Omega, an
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER EIGHT
I see relief and happiness on Caleb’s face when I tell him I want to stay at the cabin. “I just want you to be safe,” he says, smiling.I know he’ll keep me safe. He’s the Alpha, after all. And he’s my mate.Together, we cuddle up under the warm quilt, listening to the fire crackle and nibbling on the snacks he laid out for us. I find myself wrapped up in his arms, my head resting on his chest, his fingers carding lazily through my hair.“You’re amazing,” Caleb says.I laugh. “I’m an Omega who can’t shift. I got sent away from one pack only to get banished from another one. I’m anything but amazing.”“Don’t talk like that.” Caleb’s voice sounds stern. He’s a true Alpha. “No one insults my Luna and gets away with it.”My cheeks burn, hearing him refer to be that way. “I’m not a Luna yet,” I remind him. “Not until we made.”“I know, I know.” He dips his head down to kiss my neck, right where he would mark me if we mated. “Soon. But in my heart, you’re already my
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER NINE
“Sarah? Are you okay?”Caleb pushes open the door to the cabin and I sigh in relief. I run to him, jumping into his arms as he embraces me and nuzzles into my hair. “I missed you,” he says. “I’m so glad you’re still safe.”“Did you see my parents?”He nods. “They know you’ve been banished, but that you’re okay. I was going to send them away too, for their own safety, but Malcolm wants them to stay at the pack house. I guess he thinks we ought to keep an eye on them.”“You’re the Alpha, though,” I point out.“I know. But Malcolm has a lot of support among the other pack members, and it’s not the time to pick a fight with him. At least with them in the pack house, I can look out for them too.”“Thank you.” I rest my head against his shoulder. Then I notice he’s brought a large bag with him. “What’s that? Are you staying here with me?”He smiles, kissing me on the forehead. “For a little while, at least. I brought you some clothes, and books, and a few surprises.”
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER TEN
“Miranda, no! Stop!” Caleb shouts at her, racing after her, but she’s disappeared into the woods, leaving us alone again. “She’s going back to the pack house,” I say. “She’ll tell everyone that I didn’t follow the rules of banishment.”“I’m the Alpha,” Caleb growls. “She can’t to this to you. To me. To us.”“I should go,” I mumble, bending down to clean up the picnic supplies. “You can tell them that I tried to trick you into letting me come back, that you were just taking advantage -”“No.” Rage flares in Caleb’s grey eyes. “You’re my mate. I love you. This can’t happen. Let’s go.”“But,” I protest, “I’m banished.”Caleb isn’t taking no for an answer, though. He shifts into wolf form, his jet black fur rippling in the forest breeze. He tosses his head, gesturing for me to climb on top of him, and I grip his thick fur in each fist, sticking close to his muscled back as he rushes through the woods. His paws take each twist and turn of the forest path perfectly, and so
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ELEVEN
My jaw falls open. Caleb has just reversed my banishment, using his powers as the Alpha to undo what the pack just did.Chaos erupts in the pack house, snarls and shouts and arguments, and I shrink close to Caleb’s side, worried that a fight will break out any minute.“Quiet!” A loud, gravelly voice silences everyone. I see that the man who was speaking up on my behalf has stepped into the center of the room. He’s really old, with a reddish beard and thick, square glasses. “Caleb,” he says, “you know that I was close with your father. I’ve been with this pack since long before your dad was a little cub, and I have always helped to advise Alphas. You have a lot of power here, but according to pack laws, an Alpha cannot simply reverse a banishment.”“I know, Arnold,” Caleb says. “I looked it up.”“Ah.” The older wolf raises one bushy eyebrow. “I had noticed that some of my older books on ancient pack laws were missing. I wondered whether our young Alpha was seeking to
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER TWELVE
Caleb takes the stairs of the pack house two at a time, loping up on long legs toward the main bedroom.“Now that you’re not banished anymore, you can live here, with me!” He turns to me with a big smile, opening the door to his room.It’s gorgeously decorated, with a wooden four poster bed in the center, its posts carved intricately with scenes of wolves hunting together. The curtains are slate gray and the carpet is a deep blue, which is soft and plush under my feet. “Arnold wants his books,” Caleb grumbles, looking around on various shelves to see if he can find them. “I think they’re back at the cabin, though. So is your stuff. I should head back and get them.”“I’ll go with you,” I offer. I want to spend more time with Caleb, and I definitely don’t want to be alone in the house with a bunch of werewolves who just voted to kill me.He shifts, and again I ride on his back, but the journey through the woods isn’t the same as it was earlier, when we chased Miranda. We
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Caleb promised to take me on more dates after the picnic was interrupted, and he keeps his promise. A few days after the ritual to reverse my banishment, Caleb tells me to get dressed up and meet him outside by his Jeep. I pick out a slinky black dress with silver fringe, making sure the amulet I wear so proudly is displayed against its fabric. Caleb is waiting for me, looking sharp in a black jacket with silver buttons.“You look nice,” I say, climbing into the passenger seat.He smiles, looking me up and down. “We match.”“Where are we going?”“You’ll see.” Caleb drives me into the center of town, the downtown area that most of us shifters tend to avoid. It’s packed with humans, and we prefer the open air and wild spaces of the woods. That’s why our pack house is out on the edge of the city, in the forests.But Caleb parks outside a cool concrete warehouse type building, then turns to me with a grin. “Do you like live music?”I shrug. “I’ve never actually been t
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The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED
Damian is a healthy baby, well loved, and by the time he’s a few months old, it’s obvious that Jasper and I don’t need to stick around in Serpent’s Creek. The mansion is nearly full to bursting with wolf and bear shifters excited to be part of this new family and to dote on the precious baby whose existence symbolizes a fresh start for everyone.Jasper mentions going home to Santa Cruz a few times before I’m happy about it, though. I tell him that Orsina could still use my help, or that there’s still some magic I want to learn from Clara. He sees right through my excuses, though. “Are you nervous and going back to live somewhere with those guys in the basement?” Jasper asks me one evening, sliding his hands around my waist to nibble at my earlobes as he asks. “Maybe,” I say. “Now that he’s not a rabbit anymore, and he’s seen me and spoken to me, and he’s already gotten out once -”“He didn’t get out,” Jasper reminds me. “We let him think he escaped.”“I know, but he th
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE
My eyes fall shut easily, after such a long day. But I don’t sleep very deeply. Instead, I get caught up in a long, complex dream.In the dream, I’m back in the celestial realm, standing in the same dungeon cage that Coello used to keep me in. Sterling is there, too, walking up to me with those piercing gray eyes and that familiar smile. “Hello,” he says. He leans in to kiss me, and I think that the bars will prevent him from being able to, but he just passes right through. I feel his hands on my face, his lips on mine, and he kisses me for a long time.When I open my eyes after the kiss, I’m no longer in the cage. Now, Sterling and I are standing on top of the massive tower where we found him, high up above the rest of the celestial realm. But when I look out, I don’t see the rolling, starlit darkness of the celestial realm. I see the golden yellow plains of Montana, the valley that stretches out around Serpent’s Creek.“Where are we?” I ask, feeling strangely dizzy.
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT
Clara and Zach arrive soon enough, and we all go careening up the mountain. With Clara behind the wheel, we get back to the house in record time. Orsina is sweating now, her breaths coming heavy and hard, and Zach has to help her out of the truck and into her room.“Can you shift?” Clara asks her, gently lowering the laboring mother down into her bed. “It’s so much easier if you shift.”“I think so,” Orsina says. She squeezes her eyes shut, holding her breath. It takes a few tries, but soon she’s a bear, curled up on top of the quilts in her bedroom.“Perfect, perfect,” Clara coos. “There you go, mama bear.”“Could that cause a problem for the baby?” Zach asks, hovering in the doorway. Clara asked him to bring towels, and he’s already brought twice as many as we’ll need, but he has yet another armful. I don’t even know where he’s getting them from, at this point. Even a mansion like this can only hold so many towels.“What do you mean?” Clara asks, her voice calm and unf
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SEVEN
When we call home to let Regan and Isaac know what’s going on, they’re thrilled to hear that Barrett is okay and that Zach and Orsina have a safe place to land. They tell us that Howling Wolf is doing amazingly well - after so many volunteers and friends came to help us with the battle, we’ve gotten tons more clients in the shifter world, and we’ve been able to hire a handful of new employees.Since they seem to have things well in hand, Jasper and I decide to stay in Montana. We set up in one of the westward facing bedrooms, next door to Zach and Orsina. Clara and Bennett take an upstairs bedroom, smaller but cozier and with more privacy. With Weston defeated and his supporters scattered after our Santa Cruz victory, the rest of the bear clan needs a leader and a place to stay. Through a peaceful process, Clara and Barrett become the Alpha and Luna for the bear clan. Bear clans don’t typically refer to their Alpha’s mates as a “Luna,” but Clara is a wolf, and the title just see
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SIX
“Barrett!” Orsina rushes to his side, laying a hand over his forehead. He lifts his head weakly at her voice, then his eyes spark with recognition.“Orsina…” he croaks, his eyes fluttering shut again. “Help…”Everything then happens in a flurry of activity. Clara sends everyone but Orsina out of the room, giving each of us specific directions. Jasper is sent to get a bowl of hot water and towels, I’m supposed to find a medicine kit under the sink in the kitchen, and Zach is told to go secure the perimeter of the house, especially the rear door.I return with the medicine chest in my arms. It smells familiar, full of the healing herbs and magical potions Layla often uses. It’s also got modern medical stuff like clean white bandages and stitching kits.Clara instantly sets about getting Barrett to sit up. She holds a glass of water to his lips, encouraging him to drink and take a handful of pills and capsules she’s picked out of the medicine chest. She works on Barrett fo
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FIVE
We barely have time to process everything Clara has told us before she’s packing us a picnic dinner and ushering us out the door. We pile into her battered, ancient Jeep, which is almost definitely running more on shifter magic than gasoline at this point, and she heads out toward the mountains. “So, uh,” Orsina asks, after a bit of silence, “does that mean this is, like…you?” She rolls up her sleeve to show the tattoo mark of the wolf that appeared on her arm after the spirits from the carving gave their blessing.“It is perhaps an image of me,” Clara says in her cryptic way as she careens up the switchbacking roads. “Or, perhaps it is another manifestation of my spirit. There have been many over the years.”“What about your beloved?” Orsina asks. “The bear shifter you fell in love with. Where is he?”“That is a lovely question,” Clara says softly. “At times, we have found each other. At other times, our spirits have been far from one another. Since the curse took a deep
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR
It takes Malcolm and Coello a little while to accept the reality of their new situation - that Malcolm is irreversibly bound to Coello, and that Coello is bound to us by virtue of some very powerful magic Layla cooked up for us. They snarl and fight, argue and wheedle, and even try to bust out of their chains by brute force. But nothing works. We’ve won. Malcolm and Weston are both banished to cells in the basement, very far apart to prevent them trying to scheme together. Maybe someday we’ll have another use for them, but for now, it’s a breath of fresh air to know that my biggest enemy, and the biggest enemy of my pack, are both completely neutralized. I had hoped that we would be able to relax and settle down for a bit now that this problem has been solved. In fact, we had a lovely day after the battle, with all our friends and volunteers and former trainees lounging on the beach and splashing around in the cool water.But something is bothering Orsina. She paces, agitate
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY THREE
The Moon Rabbit doesn’t waste any time once Malcolm agrees to the binding spell. With quick, almost spider like hands, Coello spreads the stalks and herbs out on the rocky beach, fluttering them into complex shapes. I stand on my tiptoes, peering out from behind my hiding place. Coello’s form of magic is rough and brutish, nothing like the delicate work Layla does. But it does the job. Malcolm steps over the edges of the intricate shape Coello has created on the ground, and even I can feel the burst of intense magic that snaps through the air as the spell takes effect. “I look forward to having you in my service,” Coello says with a low bow. “For now, however, I must depart. Do enjoy your newfound power.”Malcolm smiles, flexing his hands like he can somehow feel himself getting stronger. Then the two separate, Coello sneaking back into the tree house before anyone catches him outside.I’m surprised, but not entirely so. Some of us thought Coello would try to get as far a
The Alpha's Mate CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO
The various wolf shifters staying with us to help out have been instructed not to speak with the Moon Rabbit, but to keep a close eye on him. Coello soon gives up trying to draw them into conversation and instead just wanders around the busy tree house, doing what he clearly thinks is subtle reconnaissance in preparation for his escape attempt. What he doesn’t know is that his ability to slip out of here isn’t going to be the result of his own careful cleverness. It will be perfectly engineered by me and my team, right down to the very moment. It’s early afternoon when we get the signal. We’ve had scouts placed in inconspicuous locations all around the forest and the town of Santa Cruz watching for any sigh of Malcolm or Weston. Sure enough, they roll into town with a huge entourage of bear shifters and werewolves. Our scouts say that they’ve set up a campsite near the beach about a mile south from our location, and that Malcolm is heading our way on his own, apparently to chec
