Page 25 of The Alpha’s Promise (Alpha Doms #3)

Cody picked up Stone’s money from his bank. He’d felt like a bank robber, packing all that cash into a duffel bag that he stowed under the seat of his truck.

Afterward, he drove to Starbucks. He could hardly believe he was doing it, but Melissa had asked about coffee the first morning and he’d blown off her request every day since. She deserved it after putting up with his overbearing crap.

After the way she’d surrendered.

He’d been up the night before, staring at the text from his realtor, Brad Johnson, about her offer on the house.

On one hand, he wanted her to have it. He’d loved her perspective about there being a perfect buyer for a house.

Someone who would love it as much as he did.

Yes, he wanted Melissa living in one of his houses.

The trouble was, he wasn’t sure he wanted her in that house.

He’d been starting to picture her in a different house altogether. One he’d love remodeling just for her. And him.

The thought of keeping Melissa, marking her and making her his made his shifter blood sing.

The wolf wanted her. The wolf didn’t seem to care that she was only one quarter shifter.

That their children would probably never be able to shift.

That he’d lose his position as alpha because his mate was weak.

But beyond his intense physical need for her, there was more.

He’d begun to understand her better. His initial assessment of her as a diva may have been off.

She worked weekends as a bartender to get by—she was no stranger to hard work.

She’d put up with a loser boyfriend out of a fierce sense of loyalty.

He may think it was totally misplaced, but he admired the hell out of the sentiment. She bonded like a shifter.

She was sweet as honey when he wasn’t being an asshat and despite her frequent displays of defiance, had an innate response to dominance. Every time he’d won her surrender had been spectacular. Tender. Beautiful. He’d never felt so connected to another being—shifter or human—in his life.

So yeah, she deserved coffee this morning. And if he could wrap his mind around how to make it work mating her, a house.

He got out of his car to stand in line, staring at the board with the huge array of choices. Damn. He should’ve asked what kind of coffee drink she liked instead of trying to surprise her with it when she woke.

For the first time, ever, he really cared about making a female—his female—happy.

His phone rang and he frowned, glancing at a number he didn’t recognize.

“This is Steele.”

“I need your help.” He recognized the tight, desperate voice immediately. The new female shifter in town.

“What is it?” he asked sharply.

“Jayden—my son—he was hit by a car. The humans took him to a hospital in an ambulance.”

“And now you’ll be found by whomever you’re running from,” he finished.

Unless the car had crushed his skull, the boy would recover from the car accident in no time.

Far too quickly for doctors to understand.

What’s more, his mother would have to show identification and give his name or risk alerting Child Protective Services.

“Yes.”

“Where are you now?”

“St. Francis.”

“I’ll be right there.”

He abandoned the coffee shop and climbed in his truck. For a brief moment, he considered picking up Melissa, because she might be better at soothing the distraught mother, but then realized how dangerous it would be for her to get in the middle of a shifter war.

He texted her as he drove off, letting her know the situation and telling her to sit tight and contact him if she had an emergency.

As he drove to the hospital, he remembered the boy.

Jayden had had the look of a beaten street dog.

Signs of past abuse were in his wary eyes and gaunt face, but the way he watched Cody, responded to his offer of money showed he was smart and eager to please.

He needed to help these three. He’d be damned if he let whoever had them scared pick them up out of his territory.

He dialed the number Colleen—or whatever her real name was—had called him from when he arrived at St. Francis and found the terrified family in a small exam room in the children’s ward.

No doctors or nurses were around to see them, so he wasted no time and asked no questions.

He simply scooped the boy up, craned his neck to make sure the corridor was clear, and carried the boy out.

The boy’s mom and sister followed tight on his heels, on board with his silent departure.

“What happened, kid?” he asked as he jogged down the stairs, having decided the elevator was too public for their escape.

He scented fear on the boy, who must be around ten or eleven years old. “I got hit by a car,” he mumbled.

“What hurts?”

“My head. And my leg was broken.” He used the past tense because the leg would already be mostly healed, although the family seemed malnourished, which would affect his ability to regenerate. It explained why his mother’s missing teeth had only partially regrown.

“You’ll feel better in a few hours.” He opened the passenger side door to his pickup truck and tilted the seat forward to let the mother and girl climb in the back. “What’s your name?”

“Jayden.”

“How about you?” he asked the girl.

“Angie.”

He dropped the boy on the front seat and shut the door. It didn’t appear anyone had noticed their hasty departure.

“How far would they be coming from?” he asked Colleen as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

“Kentucky.” Her voice cracked.

“How many?”

“The pack is huge—a hundred fifty members. If only the men came, it would be eighty or ninety.”

He gritted his teeth. His pack would be no match for them.

Ben’s could handle them, however. The question was, did he want this to be his return favor from the guy?

He didn’t relish releasing that debt quite so soon and for something that wasn’t really his deal.

But he wasn’t going to leave this woman unprotected, either.

“I’m going to take you back to my place until we figure out the best strategy. I might want to hide you up in Denver where there’s a bigger pack to protect you if there’s trouble.”

She shook her head. “Bigger pack means more wolves who might know… him. Or talk.”

“We’ll take that into consideration.” Irritation with the situation in general made his tone sharper than he meant.

In the rearview mirror, he saw her flinch and duck her head. “Sorry, Alpha.”

He blew out his breath in exasperation. He was trying to win her trust, not bully her into submission. “Forgiven,” he muttered.

He pulled up at his place and carried the boy inside, Colleen and Angie trailing behind.

Melissa met them at the door, brow furrowed with concern. She bustled around, offering food and beverage, and when they were refused, preparing a plate of pancakes, sliced apples, and a pile of strawberries, anyway. She dropped them on the coffee table with syrup, plates, and forks.

The kids immediately reached for the food, devouring everything in five minutes flat. Melissa picked it up and prepared a second plate, which she brought with glasses of orange juice.

He said little, working on finding a show on the television to occupy the kids so the adults could talk, watching Melissa with gratitude. Her cheery small talk filled the space, easing the tension and distracting the children.

Melissa noticed Cody wore that vaguely concerned look he’d worn during the pack meeting, like too much rode on his shoulders and he wanted to get it all right.

“Let’s talk out on the back porch—the kids are fine in here,” he said.

She stood up, then hesitated, not sure if he meant her, too, or if he wanted privacy talking to Colleen.

He caught her indecision and nodded. “You can come, too.” To Colleen, he said, “She’s a friend of the pack and under our protection. She can be trusted.”

Colleen didn’t quite meet her eye, but mumbled, “She’s part wolf.”

“How did you know?” she asked in surprise.

The female shrugged. “I can just tell.”

Cody gave a vague smile. “Your wolf instincts are better than mine; I didn’t guess it right away.”

“I’ve had to use them for survival on a daily basis.”

They sat down on the back steps, since Cody didn’t own any patio furniture.

He rested his forearms on his knees, hands caged loosely between them. “So what’s your story?”

The woman didn’t seem taken aback by his bluntness. Maybe it was a shifter thing. Her brother-in-law was pretty direct, too. She remembered Ashley calling her the day she met him and likening him to Batman with his brooding, monosyllabic authority.

Colleen smoothed her blonde hair, fidgeting with the ends.

She had blue-green eyes and a pretty, heart-shaped face.

Melissa had originally pegged her as older because of the strain around her mouth and eyes, but now that she observed, the woman seemed too young to have children half-grown.

She couldn’t be much older than Melissa.

“Our alpha wants us back. He’s my mate. Or at least, he thinks he is.” Something in the stony way she said the last sentence gave a glimpse of the steel that lay beneath that kicked dog vibe.

Melissa almost smiled.

“You left him.” Cody’s words sounded more like a statement than question.

Colleen nodded. “My sister helped us get away after he beat Jayden so badly he didn’t heal for school.”

She felt the blood drain from her face.

Cody’s eyes flicked to hers, and she remembered their quarrel from the day before. She’d been wrong. Cody was nothing like this woman’s husband, or mate—whatever she called him. Only a monster would beat a child like that.

“We’ve been on the run for a month. I haven’t been able to get much work, other than cleaning houses. I didn’t want to use my I.D. anywhere, in case he could trace it.” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know how these things work.”