Page 58 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

We cracked up, leaning against each other as the laughter bubbled free. It felt good to relax, to let off some steam.

“I’m gonna freshen up a little,” I said, wiping away another stray tear, though it was caused by laughter this time, not sadness. “I’ll be right back.”

As I mounted the staircase, I felt my wolf stiffen. I paused on the steps, confused at the shift in her mood. Downstairs, someone knocked on Violet’s door, and the sound of it caused my wolf to howl, scratching for me to let her out.

Night

I paced back and forth in my kitchen. Dom sat at the table, watching me lose my shit with a smirk on his face.

I had dropped Bryn off minutes ago, but I was going crazy not having her at my side.

Was this how everyone felt with they found their mate?

How did men not just lose their minds completely?

There ought to be so much in-fighting that being part of a pack was impossible.

“Night,” Dom said. “Did you hear me?”

I stopped and looked at him. “Of course I did,” I grumbled. “You were talking about the trade.”

“Uh-huh…” Dom grinned, leaning forward with his chin in his hands. “It’s only three days away from the next full moon, which means you’ll have to hand her over—”

I snarled at Dom with all the righteous fury of a wolf hopelessly in love.

Now that Dom understood why I’d been having so many violent outbursts, he wasn’t alarmed by them anymore.

In fact, he seemed concerningly delighted by my momentary lapses in control.

I almost wished Dom didn’t know. It made dealing with him so much more of an annoyance.

“Obviously,” I said, my eyebrow twitching as he snickered, “that trade is not happening.”

“I figured as much.” Dom straightened as he became more serious. “How are you going to deal with the fallout?”

I had taken Bryn’s virginity, which meant that the conditions Troy had set were broken. But Bryn’s wolf made the situation even more complicated. She wasn’t human, so the exchange, the deal—all of that no longer mattered. Now, I just needed to figure out how to keep her safe.

“Maybe we could get one of our wolves to trade places with Bryn,” I said, rubbing my chin.

“We would dress her up in Bryn’s clothes to confuse them.

They probably won’t notice it’s not her until the challenge ceremony is underway.

” I still didn’t like the idea of putting any of my people in the clutches of the Kings, but at least the decoy would know how to defend herself.

As I started pacing again, Dom snuck in one last tease. “By the way, it was my idea to take Bryn off the table.”

I glared at him, a deep growl in my chest. I didn’t mean anything by it, and Dom knew that.

“Still so testy even after you’ve met your mate,” Dom tsked. “What’s got you all worked up?”

I turned pale. “Right. Mate.” I stopped pacing. Dom raised a brow, curiosity in his gaze. But slowly, that curiosity turned to horror as he realized what I was implying.

“You claimed her, didn’t you, Night?” he asked. “You bit her the first time you had sex, right?”

“Ah…No, not yet.”

Dom leapt from the chair and shoved me hard against the wall.

The entire cabin seemed to shake from the force of it.

I stepped away from the wall, brushing bits of sawdust from my shoulder.

I had every right to snap at Dom and put him in his place, but I knew that I needed to listen to what he had to say.

“You dumbass,” Dom seethed. Standing before me wasn’t the man who had teased me about Bryn or who could charm any person with his smile.

This was the wrathful Dom, the one that I took with me into battle.

“If you have any sense, you’ll go and claim Bryn right this second,” he growled.

“An unfulfilled, unclaimed true mate bond is dangerous as hell, Night.”

“What do you mean?”

Dom narrowed his eyes. “Haven’t you paid any attention to the stories your mother tells us? I guess not if you’re this ignorant about it.” He sighed and turned away from me. “When true mates consummate their relationship, if the claiming isn’t done, it can actually kill the wolves.”

My body went still and cold. “What?”

“If the mates go too long without claiming, it will be as if they were rejected. Their hearts will break, they’ll never recover, and terrible, mystical shit will happen to them. I don’t remember all of the specifics, but I know that what you’re doing is fucked up.”

I rubbed my chest where Dom had shoved me, my thoughts spiraling down and down into the depths of my fears.

“Bryn hadn’t shifted yet,” I found myself saying.

“Not on that first night. I wanted to explain to her that she was my mate and what that meant for us, but I didn’t get the chance before we ended up in bed together. ”

“And then?” Dom asked. “We both know the two of you have had sex after, so why not bite her during one of those times?”

I hesitated. “I just…it didn’t feel like the right time. I was intent on getting her to shift and teaching her about her wolf. Bryn only recently learned that she’s descended from the pack mothers. I thought claiming her would be putting too much on her plate.”

Dom growled again. “That’s not the whole truth,” he said. “Tell me all of it, Night.”

“Alright, alright.” I ran both hands through my hair.

My wolf keened inside me, urging me to speak my worries to my beta.

“I was afraid,” I admitted finally. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that she would reject me somehow and abandon me like Gregor abandoned all of us.

I haven’t told Bryn anything about my relation to Gregor or to Troy.

She doesn’t even know that we had a plan to give her back to the Kings.

And now, with this claiming thing, I can’t imagine what she and her wolf are going through.

” I looked at my beta. “Dom, if Bryn doesn’t want me after she learns the truth about all this, I don’t know if I will survive it. ”

Dom’s hard gaze softened now that I had come clean.

“Ah,” he sighed. “You idiot. You’ve been keeping all of this inside, but that’s not fair to you, your wolf, or to Bryn—especially not now that she has a wolf of her own.

The Night I know would never run from a challenge, so why are you doing that now? ”

Damn it. He’s right. For all that I had coached Bryn to let her wolf in and be open with her, I had once again closed off my own wolf and denied him what he needed. It had been a mistake not to claim her when I had the chance, but it wasn’t too late for me to fix it.

I needed to show Bryn that I wanted her completely, not just her body.

I needed to open up to her and trust her, just like she’d trusted me that night.

She wouldn’t reject me; I ought to have known like my wolf knew, that rejection would be the last thing on her mind even if she did get angry with me.

Bryn and I were mates. Forever. It was time I proved that to her.

I grabbed the beer I’d abandoned off the table and downed the rest of it. Dom slapped me on the back, smiling again, back to his usual, friendly state. “Go, get your girl, Night.”

Yes. I was ready. I headed for the door, but before my hand touched the knob, I heard a tiny, frantic fist knocking hard against the wood.

I threw it open and found Pax, of all people, panting at my door.

His face was red from exertion, and the shoulder of his shirt was torn. There was a bruise on the exposed skin.

“Hey, hey.” I pulled him inside and crouched down to look the poor boy in the face. “What’s wrong, pup?” Behind me, Dom emerged from the kitchen.

“A-Alpha Night, I—” his tiny voice stammered. His body was shaking like he’d seen his own ghost. “I’m so sorry.” He dissolved into tears. “I w-wasn’t strong enough or big enough, and I failed!”

I started to calm him down, to parse out what the boy could mean, but a wave of dread washed over me, unlike any I had felt before. It clutched me by the heart, squeezing and squeezing like it wanted to stop my heart from beating altogether.

Dom took the boy when I stilled. He wiped the tears from Pax’s face with a tissue. “Tell me what’s going on, Pax. What’s got you so hurt?”

But I already knew. Somehow, I knew.

“I went to give Bryn a picture I drew for her in school,” he said.

It was hard to understand him between his sobs, but with a bit of focus, Dom and I heard him clearly.

“But there were wolves running around and around the cabin. They weren’t pack.

They smelled weird. Bad. I knew Bryn was in danger, so I shifted, but they pushed me back and held me down.

I was so scared. I heard screaming in the cabin, but they wouldn’t let me go until they’d already done it.

” He paused to fill his lungs with a deep, shuddering breath.

“I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t stop them.

They took Bryn and Tavi from the house, and they ran off with them into the woods. ”

I flew from the house, my feet covering the distance to Mom’s cabin in seconds.

The door was already open, hanging from its hinges.

The first scent that hit my nose was the stench of the Kings’ pack and of blood.

My mom was on the floor in a pool of red, her throat a ruined mess.

I dropped to my knees beside her still body, soaking my jeans in her blood.

Dom burst into the house right after me, cursing and spitting at the scene.

Bryn and Tavi were gone, I could sense as much, but now that I was in the house, there was one scent that overpowered the others. I knew exactly who had done this.

He and I were supposed to have an arrangement. I still had two days left before it was time, but the fucker came onto my land, violated my turf, and hurt the three women I loved most.

Troy Redfield had come for my mate and my family. And he was going to fucking pay.