Page 25 of Cruel Alpha (Nightfire Islands Alphas #1)

Three Months Later

The windows of the Alpha’s residence glowed with warm light as I approached, and I hoped that I never grew completely used to it. I’d become so accustomed to returning after a long day to find it cold and empty and too big for only me; knowing that I would open the door to noise and activity and my mate’s warm embrace was a blessing I never wanted to take for granted.

“Daddy!”

Twin voices shrieked with excitement as I closed the door behind me, and I was never going to take that for granted, either. It hadn’t been easy to explain to Jack and Emmy that I was their father—they’d had a lot of innocent questions that didn’t have innocent answers—but in the last month or so, they’d embraced our new family dynamic, and my heart filled with pride every time their little voices called out to me.

Emmy was the first to appear, barreling down the hallway as fast as her little legs would carry her and smashing into my left leg, wrapping her arms tight around it. Her face was covered in brown splotches, and when Jack appeared, his face was similarly decorated.

“What you got on your face, squirt?” I asked, scooping him up with one arm and securing Emmy on my leg with the other. She’d quickly discovered that standing on Daddy’s foot while he walked around was her favorite game, and I was happy to indulge her.

“Choccat pudding!” Jack announced proudly. We could only get chocolate from the mainland, so they didn’t have it often, but when they did, it was carnage.

“Yummy,” I said. “Is there any left for me?”

“Nuh-uh,” yelled Emmy, her denial morphing into a squeal of delight as I picked up my foot and took a step forward. She clung to my leg, smearing leftover pudding all over my pants. These ones needed a wash anyway.

In the kitchen, Alyssa was busy gathering plates and cups off the table, wiping down the sticky mess that the twins’ dinner had left in its wake. She smiled at me—wide and sunny and beautiful—as she dumped the dishes in the sink and picked up a clean, damp cloth.

Standing on her tiptoes to press a long, soft kiss against my lips, she slipped the cloth into my free hand.

“Since you interrupted clean-up,” she said, “you can get the pudding off their faces.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The rest of the evening routine was like clockwork. As much as the island needed me in the wake of the Arbor attack, I wasn’t above using Liam, Nate, and my other Betas to ensure that anything that needed doing after sunset was someone else’s problem. After two years of absence, I needed to be with my family.

Maybe it was short-sighted to think I’d never get bored of bubble baths and bedtime stories, but for now, I cherished every one. Sure, some were easier to cherish than others, and I quickly learned that when Emmy didn’t want to go to bed, she was willing to set things on fire to avoid it, but even the hardships of family life felt sacred to me.

Equally as sacred was the time after the twins went to bed, when Alyssa would prepare our evening meal while I built a fire in the fireplace. It wouldn’t be long before spring was in full bloom, and the fire was no longer necessary, but there was still enough of a chill in the evening air to warrant it, and I had grown attached to this little routine of ours. There had never been softness in this house, but Alyssa had somehow managed to turn the dark and empty mausoleum of my childhood into a warm and cozy home that I could hardly wait to return to at the end of the day.

“How are the girls getting on?” Alyssa asked, placing a steaming bowl of shepherd’s pie in front of me. It was the twins’ favorite, and mine too.

“Better than I expected,” I admitted. My mate and my sister had launched a coordinated attack in order to convince me that I could use some of the stronger females in the Pack to take over the jobs of dead or injured males, and I’d agreed with the expectation that the whole endeavor would fail. To my surprise, however, the females turned up on the first day ready for work, and despite the blisters on their soft hands and the aches in their muscles, they continued to push through, impressing me with their dedication.

The main problem had been the males. If there were females working the quarry, they argued, how would lower-ranking males prove their worth? How would they show themselves to be a good and worthy mate? I was still working on that: I didn’t think Alyssa was wrong when she said that kindness and respect were often more important to a female than how strong her mate was, but it was going to take work for that kind of thinking to sink in with the men of Lapine.

Perhaps once the quarry workers saw the success that the males who had moved into elder care were having with the females, they might be more convinced. Only a few of our males were injured in such a way that meant they could never return to work at the quarry, but those who had were now relegated to “female work”. Most hadn’t been pleased about it, but those who had taken to their tasks well had suddenly found themselves surrounded by admiring females.

“See,” Alyssa told me, smug. “I’m always right.”

“Julia’s a bad influence on you,” I grumbled as I lifted the first forkful to my mouth. In truth, I couldn’t be more grateful that Alyssa and Julia got along so well: they’d both been lonely growing up, and while Alyssa’s popularity, especially among the Lapine women, was growing day by day, it was good for them to have each other.

I could feel her amusement through the bond and couldn’t help amplifying it with my own. She had been right about this, and if she wanted to hold it over me for the rest of our lives, she was welcome to. I had a healthy Pack, despite the recent conflict, and a healthy family, and none of it would have been possible without her.

“It actually got me thinking,” I ventured, “about the twins.”

“You are not letting them run around the quarry to work off steam,” Alyssa said immediately. “Tempting as that may be.”

I huffed a laugh: it was certainly tempting, but I wasn’t any more willing to let them loose amongst the rubble than she was.

“No, I mean—I know they’re still young, but as it stands, Jack isn’t exactly a budding Alpha,” I started. Alyssa’s face began to darken, and I moved on quickly before she got the wrong idea. “He’s sweet and shy, and I’m not about to try and make him into something he’s not,” I continued, “but I’m not going to be around forever.”

I felt a pang through the bond—Alyssa didn’t like when I talked about dying—and I reached for her hand over the table. She squeezed my hand, looking pensive.

“You think the Pack will accept an Alpha like that?” she asked, and I shook my head.

“No, I don’t. I don’t think Jack would want that, either. I was actually wondering if they’d accept Emmy.”

Alyssa’s eyebrows shot up: that was not what she’d been expecting me to say. Even a few months ago, I would have been just as shocked by the suggestion, but the more I saw the females mucking in and proving themselves at the quarry, the more I watched my daughter tackle every problem head-on while her brother watched in awe, the more certain I’d become.

I hadn’t thought Alyssa would object to the idea in principle, but I knew she’d worry about what it might mean for Emmy. Sure enough, my mate’s eyebrows knitted together in a frown as she considered it.

“Right now,” she said, “there’s no way, but in twenty years? Thirty? We’d have a hell of a job on our hands, but I think we could do it.”

She was right; it would be a hell of a job, but it was one we were equal to. I wasn’t planning on dying any time soon: with any luck, I’d make it to the age where I chose to step down as Alpha, and I’d be there to help her find her feet, too.

“We can give her and the Pack as much time as they need,” I promised. Alyssa bit her bottom lip, nervous but excited, and she squeezed my hand again.

“You’d really do that?” she breathed, as if I was telling her I could move the moon itself. “You’d make Lapine the first island to have a female Alpha?”

“I would.”

Alyssa’s eyes flashed, and then she was out of her seat and leaning across the table to press a long, lush kiss to my lips. Dinner forgotten, I dropped my fork in favor of threading my fingers through her hair. It had been a long day, and I’d missed her for every second of it.

“So, me being progressive really gets you going, huh?” I said when we finally parted for breath, and she smiled.

“Mhmm.”

Then, it was my turn to rise from the table, scooping her up into my arms.

“The dishes—” she started half-heartedly, but I kissed her silent.

“I’ll get them tomorrow before I go.”

Fresh out of protestations, Alyssa let me carry her upstairs to our bedroom. Our bedroom. Since Alyssa had moved in, my sparse white room had become a riot of color, with knitted blankets strewn over the bed and photographs on every wall. I tossed her down onto the bed, grinning at her mock-offended squeak. I dropped to my knees, pulling her ass to the edge of the bed so I could push her skirt up to reveal the soft plumpness of her thighs. I scattered kisses across the sensitive skin on their insides before I looked up at her.

“I know we cut dinner short,” I said, low and graveled, “but I’m still pretty hungry.”

Alyssa gasped as I licked a long line over the cotton of her panties, savoring the salt and musk scent of her arousal. As I pulled the material to the side, Alyssa froze.

“Stop,” she whispered. “I hear something.”

Sure enough, there were soft footsteps padding down the hallway, and she’d only just pulled her skirt back into place when a little knock came on the door. I opened it to find both twins standing in the corridor, a little sleep-rumpled. Jack’s eyes were red and watery, and he clutched Emmy’s hand.

“Jack had a nigh’mare,” Emmy said, rubbing her eyes with a fit little fist.

It wasn’t a rare occurrence. Jack, Emmy, and Alyssa all had nightmares about the night of their flight from Arbor, and I didn’t blame any of them for it. Crouching down, I took both of them into my arms and brought them over to their mother.

“My poor little guy,” she said, taking Jack from me. “What did you dream about?”

“Wolves and the car,” he whispered, and Alyssa nodded.

“You know we’re safe now, though, right?” she reminded him, and he nodded, tears still leaking from his eyes.

“Right,” he agreed. He didn’t sound entirely convinced, but it always took a little while for either of them to calm all the way down after a nightmare like that. In my arms, Emmy leaned a heavy head against my shoulder; her duty done, she was ready for sleep again.

“We’ve got Daddy here to protect us,” Alyssa was telling Jack, “just like he did back then.”

“Yeah.” Jack still sounded pretty miserable, but his breathing was evening out, and though his eyes were wet, the tears had stopped flowing.

“You and your sister want to stay here until you go back to sleep?” Alyssa asked, and he nodded.

“Uh-huh.”

Emmy was already asleep as I sat down on the bed next to them, tucking her in next to her brother. Jack watched us undress and change into our bedclothes with wide, shining eyes, curled up next to his sleeping sister. Only when Alyssa and I joined them in bed did he really settle, snuggling against Alyssa’s chest and taking several deep, shuddering breaths.

I looked at her over the tops of their heads; limned gently in the dim lamplight, she looked like an angel. The soft smile she gave me was apologetic, and I sent her a wave of simple love through our bond.

In a little while, Jack would go back to sleep, and we would carry our babies back to their own room, tucking them into their own beds for the rest of the night. Then I’d take Alyssa back to bed, and if I was lucky, we’d pick up where we had left off. However this night transpired, I needed nothing more than to have this woman in my Pack and in my bed and in my arms, now and for the rest of our lives.

*****

THE END