Page 18 of Wild Alpha (Cold-Blooded Alpha #12)

F isher is silent on the walk back to our cabin.

His hand is clenched around mine, holding me close. As if he senses Vaden is here to take me away.

I thought he was good at reading me before. This is more proof that I don’t need.

He thinks he’s losing me and is holding on because he doesn’t want to.

If this conversation involved anything other than my big brother, someone I thought was dead all this time, I’d tell him he has nothing to worry about—that I’m not going anywhere.

But that would be a lie, and Fisher has been completely honest with me.

I couldn’t turn around and lie to him about this.

“I’ve never been jealous before,” he says once we’ve settled on the couch.

He asked me if I wanted to watch TV, but I shook my head no. I wasn’t ready for bed, and I’m not interested in watching anything on TV. My entire worldview has shifted from believing I had lost everyone I loved to having almost all of them back again.

I can’t see them yet, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to go home, but I feel like I’m stuck in the most surreal bubble with no idea when I’ll emerge from it.

Fisher is sitting close beside me on the couch, one hand cradling the back of my hair. His brown gaze is as intense as it’s ever been.

I curl my feet up beneath me, snuggling under the blanket he tucked around my shoulders the moment I sat down. When I was a wolf, all I wanted was to protect him. As a human, all he does is take care of me. Somehow, we’ve fallen into this perfect pattern of give and take. “When were you jealous?”

“Seeing you hug your brother,” he admits, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I wanted to punch him in the face.”

I raise my eyebrow. “You realize my brother can shift into a wolf, right?”

He releases a slow sigh. “I do. He’d have snapped me in half, but I’d be proving an important point.”

“And that point is?” I tilt my head up when he leans close.

He brushes his lips across mine in a sweet caress. “You’re mine, Averie Rowe, and I’m not ready or willing to let you go.”

My heart aches at his sweet words, and I smile. “You don’t seem like the punching someone in the face kind of guy,” I say, leaning into his touch so he will leave his hand where it is.

He shakes his head. “I’m not. Your brother came to take you away, didn’t he? That’s what you were talking about.”

I nod.

He didn’t need a shifter’s ability to hear across long distances. All he had to do was read my responses to my brother, and he read me just as well as he always has.

“Back to your old pack?”

I rub a hand over my face, tired, confused, and unsure what will happen now. “Probably not. Our pack is too close to Xavier’s. He was the one I was running from.”

“Your brother seemed pretty… fixed in what he wanted to do.”

His word choice draws a smile. “That’s a kind way to describe someone as stubborn as a goat. 'Fixed' is very diplomatic of you. I’ll remember to use it.”

“Part of me thinks I should say nothing and reassure myself with the idea that what is meant to be will be. That trying to convince you to stay wouldn’t be fair to you when he’s family. And maybe you’ll be safer with him than you would be here with me.”

“ Will you convince me to stay?”

He studies me for a second, then takes my hand and squeezes it. “What do you want to do?”

“About?”

“Your brother. Will you leave Hardin and go with him?”

It’s a good question. It’s also one I don’t know how to answer.

For years, I believed I was on my own. I thought everyone I knew was dead. Now I know they’re not, and I want to see them again, but going back comes with pretty significant risks that I’m not sure it’s safe to take. Not just for me, but for Vaden, and even my pack.

If Xavier found me there, he would take out his anger on them. Xavier could wipe out my pack trying to get to me. I can’t do that to them.

“I’d like to, but it isn’t safe,” I eventually say. “But I miss them so much.”

He draws my feet into his lap, resting his hands over them on the blanket. Through the soft wool, I feel the heat of his touch. “I wish I could take you. Maybe just for a fleeting visit so you could see your family again.”

I smile at him, loving how easy it is to be with him. “I grew up in the middle of nowhere. You’d be bored out of your mind.”

“You have seen where I’m from, right?” He grins. Lifting his feet to rest them on the coffee table, he says, “Tell me about them.”

“My pack ?”

He nods.

I shrug. “There’s not much to tell.”

Looking back, it’s not so much Oklahoma I miss most. It’s the people. It’s the memories we've made there that make my eyes tear up. That’s what I miss. Bowing my head, I play with the corner of the blanket until I gain better control of my tears.

He tugs at my hair, and I lift my head, scowling at him. “What was that for?”

“You were sad and trying to hide it from me. Now you’re annoyed I pulled your hair.” He kisses me. “Annoyed is fine. Sad is not.”

I try so damn hard to stifle my smile. It sneaks out anyway. “Don’t do it again.”

Holding my gaze, he tugs at the end of my hair.

I growl. He laughs.

“What was it like growing up in a pack?” he asks, still smiling.

Sensing I’ve lost a battle I don’t mind losing, I reflect on how to describe what it was like living in a pack. I chew my lip as I think. “Like having a million brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles. Someone’s always around, absolutely no privacy. Loud. Obnoxious.”

“Miss it, huh?” his mouth quirks in a half-smile.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” My heart hurts with how much I miss them.

A yawn sneaks up on me, and he straightens. “Bed?”

“Yeah.” It’s too early for it, but lately, all I want to do is find the nearest soft surface and snuggle. Preferably with Fisher.

He refuses to use the bathroom until I’ve used it first. A growl gets me nowhere because this man refuses to be scared of my fiercest growls. My wolf is half-annoyed, half-impressed.

We brush our teeth side-by-side in the bathroom, taking turns spitting in the sink. Part of me finds it strange. A bigger part of me enjoys how it feels to do something so ordinary, and I want to do even more ordinary things with him.

Like going grocery shopping together, curling up on the couch to watch a movie, and making breakfast together. Boring. Totally ordinary. But I want it like you wouldn’t believe.

Teeth brushed, faces washed, and dressed in PJs, we crawl into bed after Fisher switches out the lights.

It feels so good when he pulls me into his arms, and I rest my head against his chest. It’s like I’ve always been with him like this, and I always will be.

“I liked your dad,” I admit quietly.

“He liked you.” He kisses the top of my head, and I sigh, content.

“Was there a reason it sounded like he was trying to drive you out of town?” I ask.

Fisher laughs. “Ah, caught that, did you?”

“I did.”

“He doesn’t think I have much of a life outside of work.”

“Do you?”

“Not particularly,” he admits, slowly combing his fingers through my hair. “But he’s all I have in the world, and if he needs me, I don’t want to let him down.”

A man like Fisher would be very easy to love. Every time he opens his mouth, it makes it a little harder to imagine what my days would look like without him in them.

“You’d make a good wolf,” I tell him, and he laughs.

“Thanks. I think.”

Laughing, I explain. “I meant the part of you looking out for your dad. Pack is… well, pack is everything to a shifter. You, your dad, and Jett are a pack of three.”

He smiles. “I like the sound of that.”

We study each other for a beat.

I was yawning on the couch. He was yawning as we brushed our teeth in the bathroom. Now we’re both in bed, the lights off, all except for the small lamp on the nightstand, and neither of us are making any moves to close our eyes and do the thing we came here to do.

We’re just looking at each other.

His fingers are still in my hair, and I can barely feel the pads brushing the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.

“I don’t think I can let you go,” he says quietly.

My eyes drift to his mouth as his dart to mine, and I swallow. “Because you think I’m beautiful?”

“You are beautiful. I’ve never seen someone so beautiful,” he says, carding his fingers through my hair and drawing me an inch closer with the motion. “But that’s not it.”

“Because you were lonely?”

He studies me for so long that I start to worry. For a moment, I wondered if that’s why I was so sure he was mine. I was lonely and tired of being alone, so I would have attached myself to the first person who was kind to me.

But that isn’t true.

I’ve run into a few nice people here and there. Not many, but a few, and I’ve never felt like this before.

“Because you fill all the empty parts inside of me,” he says, his voice thoughtful.

This isn’t a man who'll rush into saying the first thing that comes to mind. He’s carefully sorted through his feelings and is sharing something from his heart. I feel the sincerity in his words as clearly as I see it in his warm brown gaze.

“And meeting you made me realize how empty my life was.” He smiles slightly. “Maybe it’s selfish of me to want to keep you for myself when I should let you go back to the family you miss.”

“Will you let me go?” I ask quietly, curious.

His hand cradles the nape of my neck, and he looks so sad my eyes prick with tears. “If that’s what you need to be happy, then yes. Yes, I will.”

And that’s when I think this man might love me.

I kiss him.

I pour out every ounce of the want and need and everything else filling my heart.

And I pour it into him. Let him feel it, taste it, know it as deeply as I do.

He pulls me close with a hungry growl. It's rough and fast, our bodies pressed tight together. Suddenly, we're locked in a race to tear each other's clothes off, our teeth clashing as we roll across the bed.

There’s no laughter like there was before when we almost fell off the mattress.

There’s too much need and want for that.

Clothes scattered across the floor. Bodies writhing against each other. Lips locked together, Fisher drives into me, pushing himself so deep, I wish he could live inside me.

We cling together. He threads his fingers through mine, pressing them over both our heads, and drives deep again. I stop caring about breathing, kissing him like I never want it to end.

Each thrust finds the perfect place inside of me. Each deep groan he releases vibrates against my chest.

And when he falls, it’s with my name on his lips and my nails clinging to his back.

My eyes are heavy as I lift my head, taking in my surroundings. Then I frown at the cabin door and the bird chirping loudly outside.

I barely slept, and neither did Fisher. I couldn’t seem to leave him alone, and he seemed to be having the same problem as I was. Birds chirped and light filtered through the kitchen window by the time he pulled a sheet over us both, and we finally fell asleep.

I know what woke me, and it wasn’t the annoying bird just outside.

Fisher is still sleeping, so I leave him as I hunt for my shirt, find it on the floor, and tug it over my head on my way to the door.

Glancing back to confirm he’s still asleep, I quietly open the door and slip out.

Vaden is sitting with his back against the wall near the door, his legs stretched out in front of him and a bulging zipped bag beside him. He looks at me. When his nostrils flare, he can probably guess what Fisher and I were up to last night.

I pull the door closed behind me and join my brother on the floor, wrapping my arms around my legs as I stare into the forest.

For several seconds, we sit side by side, our shoulders brushing. An annoying bird chirps in the distance, and there’s silence from the Blackshaw house. They’re still asleep, and I can’t blame them. I caught a glimpse of a wall clock when I stepped outside, and I made a face when I saw the time.

6 a.m aka stupid o’clock.

The last time I was up this early was on the morning my dad told me I would have to mate with Xavier.

“You want to stay here, don’t you?” Vaden eventually asks, not looking at me.

“Yeah.”

“He’s human.”

“I know, but… it’s a long story. Basically, he knows what I am, and he's okay with it.”

“Tell me.”

I figure, why not? We’re the only ones awake, so I take my time and I tell him everything.

My brother is prone to growling, so when he doesn’t and instead wraps his arm around my shoulder, I’m more than a bit taken aback. “You’re not mad at me?” I ask, looking up at him.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“For shifting in front of a human.”

“You were always the better choice for enforcer,” he says, his gaze fixed in the distance. “Protecting comes naturally to you.”

“Why are you telling me that?” I ask, confused.

He looks down at me, not smiling. “Because you’re always trying to put someone else first, whether it’s me, Dad, the rest of the pack…

this human you decided you needed to save.

As soon as someone needs something from you, you drop whatever you’re doing, forget about what makes you happy, and do it. You don’t argue or growl like I do.”

“So?”

He gives me a squeeze. “You saying you need this human is a big deal. I’m glad you found someone who makes you happy.” He looks away. “I’m deliberately ignoring the smells coming from that cabin, so please don’t tell me how happy he’s making?—”

I elbow him in the side with a grin. “Shut up.”

From his profile, he’s smiling as he leans back against the side of the cabin, and I do the same. “I’m glad you’re happy, sis.”

For Vaden to say that about a human is a big deal. It’s a bigger admission than I expected he would ever make. To him, humans are lacking in almost every way that a shifter excels. He probably thinks I can do better.

“It’s okay if you want to tell me you think humans are useless. I know you’re probably thinking it.”

He snorts. “Nope, you don’t want me to say it, sis.”

I watch the sun rising in the distance, saying, “I was so alone before him.” I think about the feeling I’ve had since I saw Fisher loading someone’s truck outside the grocery store. “He feels like mine.”

“Then I’m glad you found him, and I’m glad I didn’t tell you that I think humans are useless. Because they kind of are.”

Smiling, I rest my head on his shoulder.

“I will deny it if you ever tell anyone this,” he says quietly, several minutes later, “but I’ve felt lost as well. It won’t be with a human, but maybe I can find my way as well. And maybe I can stay here for a bit, just as long as that psycho alpha keeps his distance.”

I’m glad he’s not rushing back to Oklahoma.

“I hope so.” I grin up at him. “And I hope it is with a human, if only for someone to humble you.”

“Yeah, right,” he mutters as I yawn.

It’s quiet, and I’m still tired, so I let my eyelids flutter closed, wanting to rest my eyes for a little while.

Vaden yells and scrambles to his feet.

My back hits the ground as an unfamiliar snarl shocks me awake.