Page 7 of Cruel Alpha (Nightfire Islands Alphas #1)

The three of us froze. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Julia, but she shook her head. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

“Julia?” Nate’s voice was muffled by the wood of the door, but still immediately recognizable. “Liam said he saw Cal—I mean, he saw the Alpha come in here. Can you open up?”

I gave Julia a nod of approval, and she crossed to answer the door, ushering Nate in quickly. Nate looked around her living space, his gaze lingering on Alyssa and the kids before I snapped,

“What is it, Nate?”

He straightened immediately.

“Oh, uh—the Arbor Alpha is here,” he said, his gaze still flicking between me and Alyssa. “He wants to talk to you. He looks… pissed.”

Across from me, Alyssa squeaked in fear, pulling her children closer to her. They both squirmed and complained, completely unaware of the danger they were still in. I wanted to comfort her, to pull her soft body against mine, and promise that everything was going to be okay, but I couldn’t do that now. She wouldn’t let me, for one.

“He’s in the hall?” I asked, and Nate nodded.

“Wait for me outside, I’ll be right out.”

He didn’t hesitate to follow that order, as much as I could tell, he was hungry for gossip about Alyssa’s sudden return and about the twin toddlers she had spawned in her absence.

“Stay here, all of you,” I said as I rose. “I’ll send some guys—Dale and Harry, probably—to stand guard. They’ll let me know if they see anyone they don’t recognize within a hundred feet of the house.”

Julia nodded, but Alyssa was still frozen on the couch, holding the twins against her chest. I had to go, had to move, but I couldn’t just leave her like that. She was my mate, and she was afraid. She was afraid that I would fail her for the hundredth time. Dropping to my knees in front of her, I placed a hand lightly on her knee. She didn’t flinch, but she did look at me as though I’d taken leave of my senses.

“I’m going to fix this,” I said. “You’ll be safe. They’ll be safe. Trust me.”

She said nothing. Her lip trembled. I had to go.

“Lock the door after me,” I told Julia. “Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

Despite the anxiety that was thrumming in my veins as I took off towards the hall, I found myself almost excited to go up against the Arbor Alpha. I’d gotten Alyssa to safety, and that was what mattered, but I was sick of running. I was ready to look her enemies in the eye, to fight if I had to. I wanted to prove to her that she and her children were safe with me, that I would never let anyone hurt her again. If I had to fight the Arbor Alpha and all his hunters, as well as whatever mongrel knocked her up, then I would.

A bolt of fear flashed through me. What if the twins’ father was an Arbor wolf? It was more likely than not, the more I thought about it. If he was, then the Arbor Alpha could claim the kids as their Pack and their property. The maternal line hardly counted for any kids on the islands; if I wanted to keep them on Lapine, my only option was open war. Arbor and Lapine had been peaceful neighbors for the last century—Lapine hadn’t seen any conflict with any other Pack since my great grandfather’s falling out with the Opifex Alpha, and that breach was long since healed—but not even three years into my reign, it looked like that was about to change.

Was I really willing to do that for Alyssa? Yes. Of course I was. All this was my fault in the first place. I should have stayed away from her entirely. I should have claimed her proudly and openly. I should have done almost anything but what I did, giving us both a taste of what it could be like—what we could be—before dropping her back in the dirt. Sure, she shouldn’t have lied about the pregnancy, but what else was she supposed to do? There was nothing she could have said that would make me forget my pride and claim her as she deserved back then. I had caused this problem for both of us and now I was going to fix it, whatever it took.

“Alpha?” Nate panted next to me—he was having to jog to keep up with my determined strides—looking up with a frown. “You’re uh—you might want to get a handle on that growl before we go in.”

Shit. I hadn’t realized that there was a low but distinct rumble in my chest, angry and aggressive. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t burst into the hall ready to throw down.

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking a few deep breaths to smooth out my breathing.

By the time I had myself back under control, we were at the hall. I snapped an order at Dale and Harry, who were loitering outside as I’d expected, to go stand guard over Julia’s cottage before I pushed open the doors. My heart sank as I saw how many of Dad’s old Betas were lining the walls of the main room, ready to watch me face off with the Arbor Alpha. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Leo’s book and invest in a private meeting room for my Alpha business.

The Arbor Alpha definitely didn’t have a meeting room. He stood barefoot on the cold stone floor, shirtless, with a ratty pair of sweats clinging to his hips. Older than me by at least twenty years, he was an established leader and strong, but his ego was easily bruised: a fatal flaw in any Alpha.

He’d brought a couple of his Betas with him, likely as a show of strength, but I could use that against him if I needed to. To be embarrassed in another Alpha’s Pack was one thing, but to be embarrassed in front of one’s own Betas was unthinkable for a shifter like him.

“What can I do for you today, uh—” I hesitated as though I didn’t remember his name. “Remind me?” I said to Nate, low enough to seem polite but loud enough to reach every ear in the room.

“Connor Slade,” Nate whispered back to me, failing to repress a grin.

Connor Slade’s hands balled into fists at his sides, and he clicked his neck. Good.

“Connor,” I said, smiling wide and insincere. “What can I do for you?”

“You know damn well,” Slade growled. “I want that whore witch and her mongrel children.”

I could have ripped his throat out for that alone, but I had my wolf in a stranglehold. I wasn’t an animal. I was in control.

“Her name is Alyssa,” I said, infusing every syllable with the authority that had always been coiled inside me. “You will use it while you’re on my island.”

The other Alpha did not flinch or bow his head at my words—he’d be no kind of Alpha if he did—but I knew I’d been understood. What I liked less was the collective intake of breath from the wolves in my own Pack. Plenty of them had been happy to see Alyssa banished, whether they agreed she deserved it or not. They weren’t going to like that she was back, and they weren’t going to like butting heads with Arbor, but they were going to have to live with it.

“What claim do you have to them?” I continued. “Alyssa is of Lapine Pack. She and her children belong to us.”

I braced myself for his counter, for him to claim the children as Arbor’s property, but no such claim materialized. Instead, he scowled back at me.

“The girl brat attacked one of ours. Her mother was living amongst us and hiding her true nature. Arbor does not abide a witch as other islands do.” He said “witch” as though the very word could curse him. It was superstitious bullshit.

“Did the girl do serious harm?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Your man who was attacked, does he live?”

Reluctantly, Slade said,

“Yes.”

I frowned as if confused.

“Did he bleed?”

This time, I could have sworn the other Alpha’s face colored with embarrassment.

“No,” he grumbled, barely audible.

“Then I fail to see the issue here,” I said, relaxing my posture to lean back against the table behind me. “There are scraps between members of different Packs regularly enough. We don’t seek retribution unless serious damage is done. But here you are in my hall asking me to hand over a female and her two young children for what? A couple of bruises?”

Slade’s face was definitely coloring, but the flushed red of embarrassment was moving swiftly to the mottled purple of rage.

“They’re unnatural!” he spat. “She flouted our laws and touched us all with her foul magic. If she were precious to you and to your Pack, she would not have been living on my island. Would you really offend your neighbors for her sake?”

Shit. That would hold weight with the men around me. They certainly weren’t prepared to go to war with Arbor, to endanger the entire Pack for the sake of a woman whom my own father had banished from the island not three years earlier. They didn’t know she was their future Alpha female; to them, she was just some half-breed that no one had ever cared for.

“She is a Lapine wolf.” I shrugged, as if this was all that needed to be said. “Her children will grow up to be Lapine wolves. Do you think I don’t know what you have planned for those children? You would really stoop to the murder of our young?”

I had hoped that would cow him, but Slade seemed utterly unconcerned with the horror he was willing to perform for the sake of a slight.

“The witch’s get are not our young. They are a blight on these islands, and they should be culled before they can do any more damage.”

“Enough,” I said, my voice ringing with Alpha authority. “Proud as Lapine are of our wolves, we do not allow them to rule us. We are not animals. I am disappointed to see that the same is not true of our Arbor neighbors.”

A deep growl rumbled in Slade’s chest, and for a moment, I thought he was about to shift; his canines lengthened, and the dirty nails of his hands grew sharp, but he mastered himself enough to snarl out,

“This isn’t over, Pup.”

I wasn’t afraid of him. He might be older and more experienced, but I was young and strong, and I had everything to fight for. I would take down every Alpha on the Nightfire archipelago if I had to, if that’s what would keep her safe.

“I think it is.” I stood back up to my full height so I could look down at him as I said, “My Betas will see you back over the bridge. Any Arbor wolf who sets a paw on my land without permission in the future will be treated as hostile and killed on sight. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yeah,” said Slade. He didn’t shake off his wolf as he made to leave, walking close enough to me that I could smell his woodsy, unwashed scent. “Yeah, we do.”

Then he and his Betas stalked from the room, leaving a hushed silence in their wake.

“Nate,” I barked. “Get three guys and trail them back to the bridge. Make sure they’re off this island in the next hour. Then, I want sentries posted at each bridge around the clock. A pair on every bridge. Swap out every six hours.”

Nate nodded and sprinted from the room. He was a good kid. He was not the brightest or the strongest in the bunch, but he could be counted on to follow orders fast. The older wolves—my father’s Betas, mostly, and a few of the aging hunters—began to grumble as they returned to whatever they’d been wasting their time with before Arbor interrupted. I could sense their unease, and I didn’t want to let it fester. I raised my voice.

“Does anyone have a problem with how that was handled?”

There was a general rumbling and shaking of heads; none of them had the guts to stand up to me on it. They’d bitch and moan among themselves, no doubt, but they weren’t going to question me to my face.

I left them to it, wanting to be back at Julia’s, wanting to make sure that Alyssa was safe. Liam, my first Beta, caught up to me as I left.

“They didn’t like that,” he said. “Leonard Pearce looks ready to mutiny.”

Leonard Pearce was my Dad’s old Beta and way too big for his boots since I’d taken over. He was a traditionalist in every sense, believing that females should be utterly subservient, and that witches had no place in shifter society. I’d been trying to push back against both views—slowly, subtly—in the years since my father’s passing, and while I’d seen some success, I’d never been able to convince Leonard. He and his lackeys were already deep in hushed conversation, and while I didn’t want to waste resources keeping tabs on my own shifters, I would if I had to.

“No shit,” I said. “He’s gonna have to live with it.”

Liam hummed in agreement. He’d been on the receiving end of more than enough of Leonard’s “advice” himself since I’d taken command, and he knew the kind of male we were dealing with. Leonard wouldn’t say anything to my face unless it was a fight he knew he could win.

“You think Arbor will be back?” Liam asked as we stepped out of the hall and back into the harsh winter sunlight.

A man could hope, I supposed. I could hope that Slade would return to his backwater island with his tail between his legs. I could hope he’d stay there, knowing that this wasn’t worth an inter-Pack conflict. I could hope that pigs might fly.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “They’ll be back.”