ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (18 page)

Most werewolf packs have an inner circle – it consists of eight wolves that are the strongest besides the alpha. They are like advisors and bodyguards. They help the alpha to control the pack, and they take charge when they need to.

The men have numbers in the pack hierarchy. The Alpha is number one, needless to say. The inner circle have numbers two through nine. When a werewolf takes a mate she falls under him automatically and takes the next number. She doesn’t have much power, but she can’t be challenged, it falls to her mate, and she’s seen as a valid member of the inner circle.

Candra was number six. Number four was also a female but Sabeline hated me with gusto. I wasn’t going to try turn to her for help. I dialed the home number that was listed under Candra and Roy, but I hung up before it started to ring. Over the phone it would be easier for them to turn me down. And then where would I go? The rest of the inner circle either didn’t like me, or they were men, and none of the other wolves would be strong enough to deal with the alpha. His wolf was stronger than the rest of the pack’s wolves, and I couldn’t risk losing complete control.

I wasn’t going to stick around the second time. It was either sort this out, or leave for good. And I really didn’t just want to leave Argos. As much as living with him was hard, and his alcohol was a problem, I loved him.

I put on a coat and scarf, and left the house. The cool night air was crisp, but it was warmer than it had been inside our house while Argos had been upset, and I’d overdressed. I left the scarf in the car after I pulled up in front of the house, and got out.

It was a big house, with a large garden that stretched behind it, and a wrap-around porch. The door opened before I’d slammed the car door. I recognized Roy’s broad shoulders and almost-silver hair reflecting in the dim light that bled through the front door.

“Rachel,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed to see me or not.

I walked up the steps and stood in front of Roy, fighting the urge to turn my eyes down. I was his superior, technically. I didn’t have to cower from him. But the urge was strong. He had power that poured out of him – nothing like Argos’s, but strong enough for me to want to squirm.

“Is Candra home?” I asked, looking at Roy in the eye for three full seconds before I glanced over his shoulder into the house. A full eye-contact stare for longer than that would have been a challenge. Werewolf dynamics is darn complicated.

Roy nodded once.

“Would you mind if I spoke to her?” I asked, and then kicked myself for how I’d structured it. I should have demanded to see her.

“Come in,” he said in a voice that was hard and clipped, and made me feel completely unwelcome.

Candra stood just inside the front door. She’d heard the conversation. Her eyes were an electric blue and she had pitch black hair. Her skin was milky white, which was strange for a werewolf. They were naturally tan. But she was beautiful. An ice queen, and just as deadly as any predator.

I nodded at her, and she nodded back.

“We can talk in the office,” she said curtly and stepped to the side so I could walk first. It would have been wrong – dangerous – for her to turn her back on the alpha’s mate. But what could I have done? She didn’t look happy about the pecking order, but I walked first, very aware of the fact that I was alone with two wolves.

I found my way to the office, guessing most of the way. When we were inside, Candra closed the door and I wished she hadn’t. The office was small, with salmon walls and dark wood furniture. I didn’t want to be trapped in a small room with a wolf whose presence was larger than life. She waited for me to sit down first, and then she sat down too.

I took a deep breath, looking around the room.

“I need your help,” I confessed. She pulled up her eyebrows, but I ignored it. I wasn’t good at the whole hierarchy protocol. I just needed her to help me get my husband back.

“You’re nervous,” she said. I bet she could have smelled my fear before I’d even gotten out of my car. “Don’t be. You’re the alpha’s mate. We look up to you.”

How did I explain to her how damn hard it was? Not just being her superior, being a human in the pack, a woman in a monster world, but having a husband that made everything infinitely worse by being a screw up. I shuddered at the thought – I’d called him a screw up, just silently, just to myself. But it had still happened.

“It isn’t wrong to ask for help,” Candra said softly, like she knew what I’d been thinking. When I looked at her she sat leaning forward, with her elbows on her knees and her hair spilling over her shoulders. I didn’t know if it was on purpose, but she was lower than me. And it helped.

I took a deep breath.

“Argos is drinking again.”

I could see the shock on her face. A lump rose in my throat, and she swallowed like she could feel it too.

“Wolfgrimm,” she whispered and the last of the tension rained out of the room, leaving two women behind who could be friends. I looked at my hands.

“I don’t know if it’s that bad. He’s lying to me. But I found bottles in the house and when I confronted him he lost control and changed. He’s out there now—“

I choked on my words, my throat swelling shut with the onslaught of tears. I wouldn’t cry in front of Candra. I couldn’t.

She reached out tentatively, slowly, aiming for my hand. When I didn’t pull away, she put her hand on mine. Her skin was warm and reassuring, and it pushed me over the edge. Tears spilled onto my cheeks.

“There is no shame,” Candra said softly. “I will talk to Roy, and we will tell the pack. I felt something was wrong. When he drinks the bond is fuzzy. But it’s been so long…”

I nodded. She wouldn’t have been able to tell. Argos was strong. He could hide things from his pack, too. It ate him up inside when he did, the power it took threatened to consume him. But he could.

“Go home, wait for your husband. Make it right with him so the pack has its strength, and we will deal with it when the time comes.”

I nodded. I understood. The pack needed us to be strong, our relationship had to be good, or they wouldn’t be able to help. In a werewolf pack the alpha’s relationship with his mate directly reflects the strength and unity of the pack.

It was my job to keep things together so that we could do something about it as a unit. When I got up Candra stood too, and she hugged me. The gesture was so unexpected – I’d been rejected for so long – it caused me to cry more. The warmth that came from her was soothing, and for the first time I understood how the wolves could help each other through their bonds. They weren’t just a pack, they were a family.

“You are one of us,” Candra said finally when she let me go. “We will make this work.”

I left feeling like it was going to be alright. The problem was still big, but for the first time there was someone that didn’t think I was wrong or crazy. And instead of the pack turning to me for help, the savior of the wolves, I turned to them, and they hadn’t killed me.

The house was dark when I walked in. When I flipped the light switch, Argos sat on the couch with his head in his hands. I jumped, startled.

“I didn’t expect you to be home,” I said. Usually he stayed in wolf form for a lot longer, especially if the change was alcohol induced. When he looked up at me he looked like he’d aged ten years over night. His eyes were their normal black again, but the whites were blood shot and he looked like he hadn’t slept. He had dark circles under his eyes.

“I uh… yeah.” He rubbed his hands over his face like he was trying to erase emotions, and stood up. He looked lost. I’d never seen him like this, and something inside me cracked. Through the anger and the hurt there was love for him, and the man that stood in front of me wasn’t a drunken tyrant. He was broken.

“I had to go out and feed to come back,” he said and his voice sounded distant. My back was up right away.

“Feed?”

In the beginning, when his ugly side, Wolfgrimm, had run free, feeding meant people. He’d never gone that far, but it was what he’d wanted. If that was what happened now swear to go I would have left. I could deal with a werewolf. I could face alcoholism. But I couldn’t do murder.

He shook his head, feeling how I drew away.

“It was a deer,” he said. “I killed it.”

He looked like it bothered him, really got to him, that he’d killed. They killed animals every full moon. The blood helped them stay in control. It was part of who they were – I didn’t understand why that bothered him so much.

“It didn’t deserve to die, just because I have problems,” he said. “The wolf thing…” he breathed out with a shudder. “I can’t help who I am. But I should be able to help what I do.”

It was eating him up inside. I could see it. My resolve buckled and my anger melted away. He felt it, and the barrier between us was suddenly gone. He took the four steps to close the distance between us, and I wrapped my arms around him. He buried his face in my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

I took his face in my hands, and kissed him. He kissed me back, with so much urgency that it hurt. Not physically, but emotionally. Suddenly fire consumed us, raging through both of us. He pulled me into him, scooping me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He held my up with one arm like I weighed nothing, and with the other hand he wormed into my coat. He peeled it off one shoulder, and dragged his hand across my body, leaving a trail of fire behind.

His hand found my breast and he pushed me against the wall, fondling me, touching me like he was relearning who I was. His power washed over me and sucked me in, and I clawed at his back, raking my nails over his shirt. He growled in his throat, and pulled me shirt open. The buttons popped and shot away.

His mouth was on my skin and he took small bits of skin, nibbling on it. His lust encircled us, and it coursed through me, fueling my own hunger. He let go of me and I dropped to my feet. He pushed his body against mine, hard and taut, and I felt him straining against his pants, pushing into my hips. I leaned against him so I had space for my hands and fiddled with his belt buckle, trying to undo it. He took over, pulling it once and I heard the metal clink as it broke. He pulled it out and dropped it, and I worked his pants down.

When I touched him he was hot and hard in my hands, and he groaned, kissing me again. He pulled my pants down, and picked me up again, pulling my hands off him and pushing me back against the wall.

I was ready for him, I ached for him, and my lust only fueled his own. The room filled with his scent, a musk laced with spices, the scent that came out when he bonded with me. Claimed me. It was the scent that other males smelled first when they saw me, the smell that warned them I belonged to the alpha.

He pushed into me, and I cried out. He slid into me all the way, and pinned me against the wall, holding me there until I adjusted to him. Then he started moving against me, holding me up, pulling out and pushing in again. The friction drove me wild, and my nails dug into his back again. He was still wearing his shirt. I pushed my hands into his collar so I could feel his bare skin, and it only occurred to me that he must have found fresh clothes after coming home, the other clothes must still be ripped on the kitchen floor.

It was angry sex. It was rough sex. It was the kind of sex where we told each other that no matter what happened, we would always have each other. This didn’t mean that I was going to let it slide. It didn’t mean that I was wrong. But it meant that I was willing to stay and try again.

One more time.

He built up in orgasm inside of me, something hot and heavy that threatened to peel away everything until only the most raw side of me was left. It was like a furnace inside of me, and with every thrust it got bigger and bigger.

I moaned, my eyes closed and my head tipped back, getting lost in what he was doing to me. My body burned, my nerve endings were raw and every fiber in my body quivered with anticipation. And then pushed me over the edge and I fell into the abyss, riding the orgasm. My body clenched and curled around him, I grabbed handfuls of his shirt and pushed my face into his shoulder. The orgasm flooded through me, starting at my belly and fanning out to my extremities before it bled out of me. When I opened my eyes again and looked at him his eyes were amber, the wolf behind them looking out at me.

But it wasn’t in a threatening way. This was the other part of Argos, the other half of him was laying claim to me too. I looked him straight in the eye. Argos moved inside of me, picking up pace again and building a new rhythm. Hi hips bucked against mine. A low growl rumbled in his throat, long and deep, and he kept going. I felt his power, so thick in the air it was like fog. I took a deep breath and felt it run through me.

He lengthened inside of me, growing harder. His hips took over, the primitive side of him sexed me, and then he jerked against me and a spasm rippled through him. I felt him release inside of me, claiming his right as alpha, my place as his mate.

The scent that streamed out of him clung to my skin and it was overpowering. A shockwave blasted through both of us, and into the bond, and I knew that the rest of the back would feel it too. They would feel our strength and one. Whatever was happening to Argos, whatever was going wrong in his life, losing his position and power as alpha wasn’t going to be one of them.