Page 5 of Cruel Alpha (Nightfire Islands Alphas #1)

I’d half expected the morning to begin with another fight. Surely, Alyssa had spent the night thinking up new reasons to object to my protection. To my surprise, she had nothing to say in the morning; when I returned from running the perimeter shortly after sunrise—Leo said it was unnecessary, but I was willing to risk offending him—she was busy shepherding breakfast into her children’s mouths. Most of it seemed to be going all over Leo’s table and floor, but he clearly didn’t mind.

I’d never known how Leo made it all look so easy: for all of Argent’s wealth and his happy-go-lucky demeanor, I knew things hadn’t been easy for him. The previous Argent Alpha might have been his father, but his mother wasn’t Alpha female, just some poor woman working in the laundry who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d grown up watching his older half-brother lord it over the Pack, knowing that he’d be a selfish, brutal leader when the time finally came. He’d challenged his brother when his father died; at only nineteen, he’d left the Heir bleeding and broken to claim his right as Alpha.

On my worst days, I wondered if I’d reminded Leo of his brother when I first set foot on Argent, the second stop on my Heir’s Tour. I’d been arrogant and selfish and far too concerned with appearing strong. He’d helped me a lot while I’d stayed here and in the years since.

I hovered in the doorway, pulling on the pants that Leo had left out for me, watching the scene. It was weird to think that, for all we’d grown up together and had known each other all our lives, I’d never seen Alyssa like this before. There was something so vulnerable about bare feet sticking out of the bottoms of her sweatpants, her oversized sleep tee swamping her body, and her hair piled in a haphazard bun on top of her head; several strands of wispy hair had escaped, brushing her forehead and her neck, tender as a lover’s caress.

A growl grew in my chest as Leo leaned over into her space.

“More coffee?” he asked, reaching for the empty mug in front of her.

“Please,” she said with a smile. She’d never smiled at me like that: easy and open and grateful. I tamped down the aggression I could feel rising inside me. Leo wasn’t a threat, he was my friend, he was just being polite. It wasn’t Leo’s fault I’d messed up so spectacularly that my mate no longer had anything but contempt for me.

Sure enough, her face fell as I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table a respectful distance away. Her posture became stiff, guarded, and I hated my younger self more fiercely than I ever had before. He’d had no idea what a gift fate had given him, so concerned with status and appearances and appeasing his father. I’d have that arrogant, conceited little pup on his back now, my teeth in his throat. He’d driven our mate into the arms of someone else: someone who’d knotted her and knocked her up and abandoned her on a witch-hating island. My fists clenched beneath the table, and Leo quirked an eyebrow at me. Clearly, I wasn’t keeping a lid on my emotions the way I thought I was.

“All clear?” Leo asked, the note of teasing clear in his voice.

I nodded, grunting in the affirmative.

“What a shock,” he said. “You want some bacon?”

Another grunt. I didn’t trust myself to speak in that moment: no matter what I did, my voice would come out gravelly and aggressive.

“Say please!” The little voice took me by surprise, and I turned to look at the girl—Emmy. She was sitting up straight in her chair, on top of three cushions so she could see over the table, yogurt decorating her cheeks and chin, one soggy piece of toast clutched in a chubby hand. Somehow, I still felt chastised. I cleared my throat.

“Uh—please,” I mumbled, and Leo nodded.

“Coming up, buddy.” I could tell he was desperately trying to keep a straight face, and when I glanced over at Alyssa, she was the same. For a moment, our gazes met; her eyes were sparkling with mirth, warm and liquid, and a shiver of pleasure zipped down my spine. It was over in a second: she looked back down at her plate almost instantly, and the loss of something I’d had so briefly hit me like a truck. I’d fix this mess when we were back on Lapine; I’d do whatever it took to keep the mate I didn’t deserve.

The rest of breakfast was as quiet as it could be with two toddlers present, and the morning was still relatively young when another Jeep was brought around for us.

“Bring it back whenever,” Leo said with a shrug. “There’s a radio in there if you want to let Liam know you’re on your way, or I can do it from base here.” It irked me sometimes how casual he was about resources that other Packs would kill for: most Packs had one or two cars between them, and they certainly didn’t have comms radios in them. Being so far removed from the mainland, the Nightfire archipelago didn’t receive their telephone signal, and we relied on comms radios to communicate between islands: most Packs had one large ham radio and a few walkie-talkies for emergencies, but not Argent, not Leo. I shouldn’t begrudge him those things, though, not when he was so generous with them.

“Pick it up when you come by next week,” I said as Alyssa strapped the twins into the backseat. “I want everyone on Lapine to strategize.”

“You think Arbor isn't gonna let it go?”

There was always the chance that they might just forget about it, not wanting to risk hostilities with a neighboring Pack. I knew the Arbor Alpha, though. He’d always been proud, always chafed at being stuck between three strong Packs and considered the lesser of his neighbors.

“Can’t take any chances,” I said, and Leo nodded.

“I’ll call around,” he said.

“Thanks. For everything.” I put a hand on his shoulder, and he pulled me into a quick hug, slapping my back before he released me

“Any time,” he said, his smile—as always—warm and easy.

The atmosphere in the car was distinctly frostier. The twins were babbling away happily to each other in the back, but Alyssa’s body was turned in her seat so that she was facing the window, giving me as much of her back as was physically possible. I sighed as I slipped into the driver’s seat, taking a moment to orient myself in an unfamiliar car. I didn’t drive often—it felt redundant when I could run almost as fast in my wolf form—but I knew enough to get around on the islands. It wasn’t as if we had freeways or intersections like the humans.

It was a route I knew well: off Argent East and across the bridge to Ferris. It was a longer route than if we turned back and went over Arbor, but I wasn’t going to risk that. Ferris was friendly land; on a normal day, I’d stop and check in with Ethan on my way home, but I was too anxious to get Alyssa back on Lapine.

As familiar as I was with the road, I always found myself surprised by how long it took to get out of Argent town and onto the woodland road. They had a larger population than us, sure, but that didn’t account for a lot of the buildings I drove past. When I’d first toured the island almost four years previously, Leo had shown me their theatre, their gym, their covered market, and a whole host of other buildings that we’d never even thought to have on Lapine. We did well enough with our sturdy cottages and a central hall that could be almost anything we needed it to be.

Was that enough for Alyssa, though? She’d told me that night, the night I cherished and regretted in equal measure, that she’d always wanted to travel, to leave Lapine behind for new islands and new Packs. Would she be happier somewhere like Argent? Somewhere witches were not just tolerated, but accepted? I shook the thought away. Alyssa was my mate, she belonged on Lapine. She belonged with me. I just needed to convince her of that.

“You’ll be staying with my sister until we find you something more permanent,” I said, cutting through the twins’ babble. I hadn’t told Julia that yet, but she didn’t really have a choice in the matter. After begging to be allowed her own cottage rather than continue living with me when she turned eighteen the year before last, the least she could do to thank me for my benevolence was play host for a few weeks. Besides, my little sister could never say no to someone who needed her help; where she’d gotten that particular trait was a mystery, but I loved her fiercely for it. While our father liked to pretend she didn’t exist, I’d always thought she was the strongest of us.

“I think the two of you will get along,” I added.

“Great,” said Alyssa, not moving an inch from where she was curled up against the car door, staring out of the window. She didn’t sound enthusiastic about the prospect, but she’d change her mind once we arrived. Julia was a couple of years younger than me, a year or so younger than Alyssa, and while that didn’t usually prevent Lapine kids from knowing each other—we weren’t a large Pack, everyone knew everyone else’s business—my father had kept Julia on a short leash, wanting to keep the “embarrassment” of having her out in public to a minimum. I imagined that she and Alyssa would have a lot to talk about.

Alyssa and I, on the other hand, had nothing to say to one another. Or at least, there was nothing we could say in a car with two little kids in the backseat. I wanted to make an attempt, though.

“Let me know what you lost in the wreck yesterday,” I said. “I’ll see about getting a collection going for replacements.” All property was considered communal within a Pack; if one member was wanting, it was expected for others to give up anything unnecessary to make sure everyone was comfortable. For Alyssa, I might get some pushback—my father had declared that she was no longer a member of the pack, after all—but I could get it done. Alyssa seemed to disagree.

“Sure,” she replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm. She pulled her feet up onto the seat, looping her arms around her shins so she was curled up in a little ball. I’d never understood why the other girls on Lapine always called her big, loading the word with implication. I knew they meant that there was roundness to her belly, that her boobs stretched out her jerseys and her thighs jiggled when she walked, but she’d always seemed so small to me. She barely came up to my pecs, and her large hazel eyes put me in mind of a startled fawn ready to bolt.

“You’ll be safe on Lapine,” I blurted. “I promise.”

This, she didn’t even dignify with a response. Silence descended, heavy and oppressive, over the car.

“Baby Shark?” came a voice from the backseat. In the rearview mirror, I could see that the kids didn’t look quite as happy as they had done when we left Argent. It was a long car ride, and we didn’t have anything to keep them from getting bored.

“No Baby Shark, Jackie, sorry,” Alyssa said, her voice heavy and tired.

“Baby Shark?” he repeated, more insistently.

I couldn’t see Alyssa’s face, but her distress was palpable in the air. I glanced up at my rearview again; the twins were definitely getting antsy now, and their mom was in no condition to deal with it. It hurt to look at them: every movement and every sound was a reminder that Alyssa had let some other man touch her, and it sent anger coursing through me. If I could, I would have paid them no attention at all, but that wasn’t an option; if I wanted to keep Alyssa happy, that meant keeping them happy.

“What’s Baby Shark, Jack?” I asked. He looked shocked that I had spoken to him at all, retreating into his car seat, suddenly shy. His sister answered for him,

“Issa song!” she said, beginning to clap her hands together in a clumsy rhythm, singing, “Do do, do do do do!”

I glanced over at Alyssa, still looking miserable next to me. Her eyes were screwed shut like she was bracing for something, and I tried changing tack.

“What other songs do you know?” I asked, unable to hold back a smile as the question was met with an onslaught of enthusiastic answers. Jack had perked up a little and was yelling his own answers. Half of the names were indistinguishable to me, but there were a few I recognized in there.

“Old Macdonald?” I said, feigning ignorance. “What’s that song? Can you teach it to me?”

The twins were only too happy to comply, launching into a tuneless rendition of Old Macdonald, complete with little actions to indicate which animal was which. It was… kind of adorable, actually. They both looked so like Alyssa, with wide hazel eyes and matching mops of curly hair; theirs was darker than their mom’s, closer to black than to her rich mahogany, but it did nothing to lessen the similarity. I tried to concentrate on the features that reminded me of her, choosing not to linger on anything that might draw me a picture of their father. That particular bogeyman was better off staying formless and shadowed in my mind.

I risked a glance over at Alyssa as the twins launched into a third verse; having informed us that Old Macdonald had pigs and chickens on his farm, they had now moved on to cows. She was still sitting curled up in the seat, her eyes closed, but the furrow between her eyebrows had smoothed out, and the sharp tang of distress had faded from the air. With her head resting on the window, she might have been asleep, though I knew she couldn’t be with the amount of noise coming from the backseat. If I hadn’t been driving, I might have taken the opportunity to look my fill, but my eyes had to stay on the road: we were approaching the Ferris bridge.