was on her bed masturbating.”
Boyd grinned. “That must’ve been a sight.”
“He told me he’d kill me if I looked at her,” Clint said, leaning forward and patting Boyd on the shoulder. “All growl.”
Boyd’s brows went up, and he looked my way again.
“Why’s that, Alpha?” Clint prodded.
“Natalie Shefield’s my mate. I knew the second I breathed in her scent.”
Boyd honked the horn, once, then again, then whooped. “Fuck, yeah!”
I slapped my hand on the dash, glared at him. “This isn’t good news, Boyd. I can’t have her.”
He sobered, pulled up in front of the lodge, then turned off the truck. “She’s your mate. You’ve been waiting for her all this time. You can have her.”
I took off my seatbelt. Sighed and looked up at the building where the meeting would begin shortly. “She’s human. I’m pack alpha. Pack members are going to lose their shit if I claim her.”
Boyd looked at me with a serious expression, the first one I’d seen on him in a while. “You’re going to lose your shit if you don’t.”
4
ROB
Boyd and Clint didn’t say anything as we met up with the other guys. Levi, Johnny, Rand and Nash had been the first to arrive. They’d opened the wide doors to let the fresh air in, then we joined them cleaning—sweeping out the month’s worth of dust and setting up chairs. Within a few minutes other vehicles arrived, parking along the narrow dirt road or among the trees on either side. Some—especially those who lived up in the mountains—would arrive in wolf form, shifting and changing into clothes they stored here.
I stood in the doorway and formally greeted the adult pack members, shaking hands and reciting their names much like a human church elder would. The children ran off to play in the woods together, just as I had with Boyd, Colton, Clint and the others when we were young.
After my parents died, I used to dread these meetings. Being thrust into the role of alpha, the one my father had fulfilled in a way I never could, made me think I was less. It had taken me years to realize I was not him and couldn’t lead like him. Even so, some doubted. Sometimes I still did, about myself. Especially lately with the elders pressuring me to mark a female, even one who wasn’t my chosen mate, just to avoid moon madness. Of course, there wasn’t a lot of proof that it worked. I could be mated to a female who I didn’t have the urge to mark and still go mad, or so I’d heard.
And now I’d fucked it up even more, my wolf wanting a human for a mate. No one else had appealed to the wolf. Not one. One scent of Natalie Shefield, and I was fucked.
I wanted what my parents had shared. A connection. A deep bond. Chemistry. Love. I wanted my wolf happy. Hell, I wanted to wake up beside my true mate every morning. Content.
I had a responsibility to the pack to carry on the Wolf line, love or not. I held off, month after month. Year after year. For how much longer? My ranch hands and now Boyd always flanked me, showing they had my back like a king’s guard. They were all brothers to me. We grew up together. Learned to shift and hunt together. Went to school down in the valley together. Two of them knew the truth, the one thing that could strip me from control, could tear our pack apart.
Clint’s parents arrived and greeted me almost reverently. They’d been our guardians when my parents had died. It had been in their will that Tom and Janet take care of us if something happened. Which it had when I’d been only sixteen. For two years, Boyd, Colton and I were under their protection in the eyes of Montana law, but even so, I had been the alpha. Their leader. That had held more power than anything the state could dictate.
Janet carried a casserole dish that smelled delicious for the potluck.
“I sure hope that’s your meat lasagna,” I said, my mouth already salivating for her cooking. She’d had to feed five hungry teenagers… the three of us plus Clint and his younger brother, Rand. Not only did she know what got our butts into chairs around the dinner table every night, she had the calmness of a mother who’d seen it all.
“Of course, it is. Garlic bread, too. I know what you like, Alpha Wolf.” The short,