ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (183 page)

“You need to get away from me,” I said. “Just let me try to figure this out.”

“Right,” her voice was suddenly cold, “well, you go take care of your problems. When you’re done and ready to face me again, I’ll be here, dealing with the fact that I’m pregnant and you’re having a temper tantrum.”

She was angry with me. She was taking this personally. She thought I was blaming her. She thought I was saying that it was her I didn’t want, when it was just her I didn’t want to hurt. Not again. How many times had we walked down this road?

“Just stand strong for me, okay?” I said and my voice was hoarse. “The pack needs that from you right now.”

“Yeah, right. Because the pack is so much more important than the fact that you’re pushing me away like I’m the enemy. I have to be strong for them so that you can catch a break? When do I ever get to catch a break, Reid? When does this ever end? You’re supposed to be the alpha, not me.

She misunderstood. She was upset, and the magic that crackled in the room around us pushed me over the edge. I shook my head and headed for the door. I couldn’t see where I was going anymore and I could feel the wolf inside me push its way out.

I found the door, and pulled. The handle broke off and I swore. I couldn’t get it open, and I had to get out. So I kicked it down. Three kicks and it splintered under my heel. The opening was a way out, hot afternoon air spilling into the house. I ran out. She didn’t call after me.

I ran blindly, finding the wood by natural instinct more than anything else, and barreled into the trees.

I’d never lost it like this. Not because of her, because of the power that came with her. This was new. Her power wasn’t supposed to be stronger than mine. And it wasn’t supposed to set me off like this, either. But she’d scared the hell out of me, telling me we were going to have a baby, and this rush of energy on top of it, it was just too much all at once.

I called the pack, sent out that wave of energy that I knew they could all feel. I needed them now, needed them to help me get myself back under control. I could borrow energy from them, and once I was okay again I could ask John what the hell I was supposed to do.

Because I really just didn’t know.

John was the first one to appear between the trees. I was on my hands and knees, growling and groaning, shaking my head. My whole body ached, it felt like I was being ripped limb from limb, and my skin felt like fire. I felt like I was burning.

John took one look and ran to me, dropping to his knees.

“Jesus, Reid,” he said, grabbing my wrists. I snapped my jaws at him. My face was already changing. I could feel it, like a hand pushing out form the inside. When John saw my face he let go and backed up again. “What did you do?”

I growled again, his words fueling the rage. Because, of course, for me to lose control it had to be something I did, right? What pissed me off the most was that he was right. It was always something I did.

“Allegra’s pregnant,” I said, and my voice was a growl so deep the words were almost indiscernible. “Her power is shattering me.” It was all I’d been able to get out before the change ripped through me. The wolf pushed out, and my skin split. The pain of the change shot through my body, and a sound between a scream and a howl ripped from my throat.

I suddenly sensed the others arriving. There were at least three, giving me there power, shoving it into my like they could hold it in their hands and push. I didn’t know who it was, but it helped.

I slowed down the change with the extra help, and finally managed to stop it when I was a bi-pedal animal. I sat on the ground, shaking my head, snapping my jaws.

The pack huddled around me, giving me their power, and after what felt like hours I finally managed to pull myself back out of it again. I gained enough control to push the wolf back, and to be the strong alpha again. I didn’t need to hold onto their power like a lifeline anymore.

“Well, I was just wondering what to do with my afternoon,” Sarelle quipped when I stood up. The clothes that had survived the change hung in ripped rags around my body. The others laughed nervously. I just glared at her.

“Thanks,” I said, and my voice was hoarse.

“You okay, man?” Harry asked. I nodded.

“I’m okay now. You can go if you want to.”

Most of them filtered back out through the trees until it was just me and John left.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “I don’t know how. You know how I feel. I can’t be a father. What if something like this happens with the baby around? This power from Allegra… I’ve never felt anything like this before. If I can’t hold it together when there’s children, I’m scared I’ll hurt him. Or her. I’m scared I’ll mess it up.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out again with a shudder.

“I’m a damn good alpha, John. What if I can’t be a good father?”

John’s face softened and he shook his head.

“I was worried about that, too. But Carla is family, she’s another person, like Charlene, that I protect now. And you don’t lose control on the people you need to protect.”

He said it with so much conviction. I swallowed, and guilt punched me in the stomach. It wasn’t true for me. I’d lost control with Allegra in the bed right next to me once and strangled her. And tonight I’d lost it in her company too. I’d run away because I knew what I was capable of. Apparently I didn’t have the same kind of control as John.

“I don’t know how to be the head of a family. I don’t want to be second in command, weaker than she is. And I was today. I don’t want to resent Allegra for it,” I said.

There was movement in the trees, and I saw the last of the wolves fade away. Sarelle was the last one to leave, her body swaying through the trees.

“I can be an alpha, but I can’t be a father. What if I have to choose between her, a family, and the pack? How can I do that?”

John nodded and looked into the trees.

“You need to talk to her. You can do this, but you’re going to need her help. You’re an alpha but you can’t always do it all alone. Trust me, lycanthropes need families when they’re human they same they need a pack when they’re wolves,” he said.

We sat together in silence for a long time, and finally he got up to leave as well. He was going back home, to the family he wanted. I was left alone in the trees, with darkness hanging between the trunks, feeling desperately alone.

Chapter 5

Allegra

I was freaking out. Reid had lost it all over the place, it was almost worse than the time our relationship nearly ended. His eyes were the bluest blue I’d ever seen, the color of a blowtorch. And he’d been talking like he didn’t know what was coming out of his mouth.

That was the worst response to pregnancy news I’d ever heard of. And I couldn’t phone Charlene about it, because she didn’t understand pack matters. Not because it was too complicate, but because she just didn’t want to know about it.

She wouldn’t understand what Reid was on about anyway, because John was so happy about Carla being born. He was the model father, the real deal.

I understood that having children wasn’t something Reid and I had planned. It was a surprise even to me. But losing control over his wolf? It was like something else was up. And I needed to talk to someone.

The only two women that I knew that knew anything about the werewolf world were the two female werewolves in our pack. Sarelle was ever hostile. After we’d come face to face and Reid had had to dominate her to stand down she’d accepted my authority as Reid’s second. But she still didn’t like me, and that was very clear. There was no way I was going to turn to her for anything if I could help it.

Maria was the only other option. She was a timid woman that almost didn’t even have enough dominance to her to take up the last position in the pack. Other than that I really didn’t know her at all.

I was about to.

I picked up the phone, and used Reid’s book with pack emergency numbers to call her up. She was home. I’d thought they would all be out with Reid, calming him down or hunting or something. But then again, he hadn’t been home in almost a full day. I didn’t know where he was anymore.

She was surprised to hear from me. I suppose the only that wouldn’t have been surprised to hear from me was John. I didn’t reach out to the rest of the pack at all. I might have been accepted into the pack, and I’ve accepted the role, but I never really reached out to them individually.

Men were intimidating. Men that turned into wolves? Even more so.

Maria lived almost on the other side of the base. She was also on duty, but she worked in the offices as a communications expert, relaying encrypted messages of some kind. Sarelle was the only female that would go into the field, and her assertiveness had a lot to do with it.

Maria’s house looked just like her, a neat double story house with a black front door and window frames and perennials in the front garden that were beautifully in bloom. When she walked out of the house she wore a yellow sundress that brought out the gold in her hair and she smiled. She looked like she belonged in a fairy tale.

“Thank you for seeing me,” I said. She hugged me and I hugged her back awkwardly. Of all the wolves in our pack hers I could sense the least. It was almost as if it was that shy.

“I’ll get us some tea,” she said when we walked into the house. She had a formal sitting room with wait armchairs and a black coffee table with lilies in a vase. I sat down on one of the armchairs. She came in with a tray with cups and a teapot a few moments later.

“What can I help you with?” she asked. “As you can imagine it’s quite a surprise that the alpha’s wife has come to see me.” She smiled sweetly.

“Just call me Allegra, please,” I said and rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand.

“Well… I’m just going to cut right to the chase because I don’t know how to paint a picture around this one.”

She nodded. I took a deep breath.

“I’m pregnant. I—“

She squealed and hugged me, cutting me off. I chuckled and some of the tension bled out of me.

“The thing is when I told Reid about it he lost it. He told me that he doesn’t want children because we live in a world filled with magic, but he lost control. Like, completely. He was two seconds away from changing on me.”

She frowned, nodding, encouraging me to keep going.

“The thing is, as long as he was going on, it felt like it wasn’t really what he wanted to say. I mean, I knew that he wasn’t very happy about this, but it was like something else was getting to him, you know?”

Maria nodded. “He called us all when he hit the forest yesterday. I didn’t know what it was about but it was a bad one. I was drained after that, it took a lot to get him back in control.”

I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to make me feel better.

“Do you know what that could be about? Why he lost it like that? I know it’s not the news of the pregnancy that got to him. It was different. It was like there was something extra, setting him off.”

“Look, I’m not going to lie to you, you power is insane. Whatever it is you have, you have a lot of it. The first time Reid introduced us it was hard. Your power is enough to knock someone over if you do it right.”

“But it can’t be that that set it off, can it? We’ve been like this now for a while, and it’s never gotten to him before.”

“Unless it’s the baby,” Maria said. I frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you have power, he has power…” she pulled up her shoulders in a half-shrug. “Usually when two werewolves have a baby there’s power there. It’s like the baby is a little furnace and it just radiates power because it has two sources. You know?”

“But I’m not a werewolf,” I said.

“You could have fooled me,” Maria said and she looked at me. I was suddenly cold even though it was a hot day. My fingers were tingling.

“Look, you’re not a werewolf in the true sense of the word. There’s a lot about you that’s human, and we can all feel it. But the way you and Reid are together? That’s enough to make it seem like you’re pure wolf. I’ve never felt a human female take the place of an alpha’s mate so completely. You manage to channel is power and feed it back to him, or feed it to us. That’s not nothing. Maybe the baby is a source of power all by itself and that’s what’s setting Reid off.”

I opened my mouth to respond, and closed it again without saying anything. This was crazy.

Maria suddenly looked up in the direction of the front yard and tipped her head slightly. She was listening for something.

“Someone’s here,” she said and got up. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

She looked out the window.

“It’s Sarelle,” she said. Dread filled me. I really didn’t want to see Sarelle. I’d come to Maria because I’d wanted to avoid Sarelle. I stifled a groan.

I couldn’t run now. I was higher up in the pack hierarchy than Sarelle was. Running away would just make me look like a coward, and it would look like I was acknowledging her dominance. But I wanted to. I really wanted to just get out of that house.

Maria opened the door and Sarelle walked into the room Her presence spilled in after her and crept into the corners of the room until it was like it was swirling around my feet. Maria didn’t feel like that at all. I’d barely been aware of her power.