The Alpha’s Tempting Mate

I go still, and she stiffens, seeming to realize what slipped out. “I mean-”

“Shh. Don’t you dare take it back,” I warn. I cradle her face in my palm and turn it to look into her warm brown eyes.

“I love you.” I don’t say I love you, too, because I don’t want it to sound less serious than her admission. I utter it like a vow. I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to make things work with a human, especially if every full moon is like this, but I sure as hell have to try. I’m not giving her up for anything.

And that means I need to eliminate all the threats to my female.

“Kylie, I need to know what happened at the Louvre.”

She blinks in surprise and tries to pull away. I literally can see her emotional retreat before my eyes.

“Don’t run,” I command. “Look at me. I need to know.”

“Why?”

“You’ve been in hiding since then. And now you’ve been outed. Are you in danger?”

She shakes her head. “Not for the next seven to ten years.”

“Tell me.”

“It was my father’s partner in the heist. A double-cross. My father planned to return the painting to its rightful owners-relatives of the Jewish family it was stolen from during the war. As soon as they had the painting, he stabbed my dad and took the canvas. He didn’t know I’d come along. Never knew there was a witness. I stayed in hiding as a precaution. I figured if he knew where to find me, he’d want me dead. But, strangely enough, he became the victim of quite a few cyber attacks over the last few years, including one that stole enough evidence to send the FBI after him.” My brave little warrior smiles up at me. “So, I’m safe for now. Until he gets out of jail and comes looking for me.”

I growl. Not good enough. I vow to eliminate that threat completely. But at least I know, for now, she’s safe from that direction.

Kylie lifts her chin. “What about you? Anyone want you dead?”

I rub my forehead. “Maybe. If I returned home, I’d probably be challenged.”

“Why?”

My head suddenly aches. I lean my forehead against hers. “You don’t want to know, baby.”

“I told you mine. You tell me yours.” Her voice is firm, the challenge clear in her eyes. My female is alpha all the way.

“I killed my stepfather.” The only person I’ve ever told before is Sam, although Garrett might know if he’s done any research into my history.

To her credit, Kylie doesn’t flinch, doesn’t show any shock. She touches my face. “What happened?”

“He was the pack leader. Alpha. A first class asshole. Beat my mom regularly. Not like a spanking, the way wolves establish dominance. With his fists.”

Kylie pales but remains quiet.

“He put my mom in the hospital once. Shifters heal fast, so you have to know how bad it was.” The memories raced back to him. Seeing his mother bloodied and battered on that hospital bed. I’m not going back, Jackson, she told him. You don’t go back, either.

“She didn’t heal. I can only guess she didn’t want to. Or that he’d battered her mind so badly, too, that the ability to heal shut off.” I was only fourteen. Old enough to want to fight my stepfather, but too small to stop him. “She died three days later. I watched her just slip away. And I…” My throat works. I don’t want to tell her this part.

She strokes my arm, listening. Waiting.

“I killed him.”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“How?”

“Don’t ask me that, baby. I don’t want you to think of me-”

“You can tell me,” she murmurs. “It won’t change how I feel about you.”

Like hell it won’t.

“I ran home from the hospital. My fangs were probably down like they were tonight. I’d only just started shifting and had little control of the animal inside. He heard me snarling and came outside the house. Stood there like a son of a bitch with his hands on his hips. What? he sneered. Your mama send you after me, boy? Is she still pretending not to heal?

“It’s hard to kill a shifter. A bullet to the head usually does it. Or severing the head. There was an ax sitting there on the chopping block. I picked it up and came at him. I said something like, She’s dead, you miserable piece of shit and then I swung. I figured he’d stop me. Maybe kill me, too. I’d tried to fight him before and always ended up bloody.

“But he just stood there as I came at him. Probably the shock of hearing he’d really killed her. He shifted after the blow, but it was too late. He died just a few seconds later.”

Her breath hitches, but she keeps her face smooth. “Wow. That’s… intense. I’m sorry, Jackson. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” She blinks her big doe-eyes up at me, and they swim with sympathy.

Not horror.

Relief pours through me. Lightens the heaviness in my chest I’ve carried every day since my mother’s death. Sharing my terrible secret with Kylie eases the burden of it.

“So then what happened? You left? Do you have a buried identity like me? Are you wanted for murder somewhere?”

“Yeah, I left. I didn’t lose my identity. No one ever came after me. No police reports were filed, but I’m from the backwoods of North Carolina, where the entire town was made up of shifters, sheriff included. Shifter business is generally kept to shifters.”

“And you haven’t been back?”

I shake my head. “Never. I left a much younger stepbrother behind. I hate myself for that. But the whole town was made up of my stepfather’s extended family. He would’ve been well taken care of. I knew that much.”

“You took Sam in to make up for it.”

My eyebrows shoot up at her guess. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

She tucks her head under my chin and hums softly. I can’t believe I’m snuggling. With a human. And nothing has ever felt so right in my life.

I stroke her hair. “I won’t let anything happen to you, kitten.” Even if it means protecting her from myself.