Alpha's Mate: A Steamy PNR Shifter & Fantasy Romance Collection (Hot Shifters Book 3)

by Casey Morgan

  It’s Flint’s party thing. Anson really went through with it. A part of me thought that maybe he would reconsider given the current situation, but warring packs be damned, he was going to have his initiation ceremony tonight and then throw a raging party right after.

  Outside of the various members of the Mathis pack prowling around our border, this night isn’t fully horrible. It’s really just like any other party that’s been thrown. There’s lots of dancing and lots of drinking. A majority of the people here are extremely drunk. It’s just what happens at these types of things.

  These types of shindigs really aren’t my thing, so I stay off to the side. I mean, no one is asking me to dance either. It’s not like it’s hard for me to blend into the background. I hate to admit that that fact kind of hurts. I tell myself everything is fine. That it doesn’t matter that no one in the pack has ever expressed an interest in me, but in reality, I’m lonely. It’d be nice if someone thought I was worth getting to know like that. I’m just invisible to basically everyone, I guess.

  To keep my mind from getting too depressed, I focus on Tamir. He’s keeping to the edges of the party as well. He’s always been more of the serious type. I’ve never seen him let loose or anything like that. I can see the pain from his arm on his face. He’s doing so much to hold it back. If he’s just let himself ride the wave, maybe he wouldn’t be so cranky. He shouldn’t even be here. Rest is what I would recommend, but I know that Anson would tear him a new one if he missed out on the ceremony.

  I continue to watch him stand all the stoic on the edges of the dancing. Women keep going up to him, asking to dance, but all Tamir does is shake his head. It’s not like they aren’t super attractive women either. Everyone who approaches him is unbelievably pretty, but I guess his arm just isn’t up to snuff.

  But if I think about, I’ve actually never really seen Tamir with anyone. He just sticks to himself more or less. I know for him it’s a choice because any of the women in the pack would date him at the drop of a hat. Even with his grumpiness and bad attitude, everyone wants a piece of him.

  Expect for me, that is. I know better.

  I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to dance with him, though. He’d wrap his big strong hand around my body, pull me against his rock-hard chest. I’d place my palm flat against him, feeling the muscles underneath his clothes.

  Oh, dear God, what am I doing? I’m not about to start daydreaming about Tamir Stayman. Sure, he’s hot or whatever, but he’s a total snob. I could never actually see myself with him. Plus, he’d probably just say no to me too. Or worse, yell at me for even asking. Sucks to think about, but it’s whatever, I guess.

  It’s not too much time later before Tamir leaves the party. It’s obvious he’s going up to his room. He must be getting tired of all of the socialization and refusing the countless women coming to him. He leaves, and this feels like the perfect moment for me to go and get that laptop. Basically, everyone is sloshed at this point, and I know I won’t be missed.

  I sneak away from the party and get myself into the basement. I have my own key. They are a new thing. Ever since the whole saga with Pax and that Mini girl, Anson beefed up the security on things. Since I’m the medic, I was allowed free rein. Plus, they don’t see me as any kind of threat, so it wasn’t even a second thought for them. Also, because of the party, no one is watching the door, so I don’t need to find an excuse for being down there.

  I make my way down the steep steps and enter the door that has Pax’s computer. It’s the same room that houses all of my medical equipment. Which means, I know that the only organized part of the room is the part I organized with my stuff. This is going to suck.

  “Oh, boy,” I sigh.

  I know I can’t be down here for too long. Someone will come down eventually, and it’s not going to look super great if I’m rummaging through all of this stuff. I need to be as quick as possible. Since the party is going on, I should have at least an hour. I check my watch and get right to searching.

  I enter the room I know the stuff is in and start to go through the piles. I’m not surprised that this room is just teeming. The Stayman pack has been around for centuries, so it makes sense that they have so many things. It’s just a bit of an inconvenience for me in this very moment.

  “Too many things, too many things,” I mumble to myself.

  I keep going because I know I can’t give up. I told Tamir I would help, and there’s no way I’m about to disappoint. Plus, this is for Pax as well. I get to a smaller pile, but somewhere in the middle of it I find Pax’s laptop.

  “Thank god!” I sigh.

  I pick it up, giving the surface a quick look over. It doesn’t look like anything is wrong with it. I’m sure whichever pack member was in charge of storing this stuff didn’t take any care with it, but, thankfully, they didn’t destroy the thing.

  I’m going to need to hide it from sight. My bag is down here, but it would look really weird bringing it up with me. I don’t want to draw any attention to myself. I guess I can just carry it under my arm. Everyone is so drunk and euphoric off of the party atmosphere, they probably won’t pay me any mind. This might be one of the few times being invisible works out in my favor.

  I head back upstairs, taking care to be quiet. I emerge from the basement and am closing the door when Ivailo walks by. He’s stumbling a little bit, so I know he’s had a few things to drink. His eyes zero in on me, as much as a drunk person’s can, and he points.

  “What are you doing, Little lady?” he slurs.

  I stick the laptop under my shirt, so he doesn’t catch sight of it. Even though he is wasted, I’m sure he would notice a random piece of tech under my arm.

  “I was just putting away my medical supplies.”

  “Okay, sounds good,” he salutes me before sauntering off.

  He’s going to have a bad hangover in the morning. I wonder if he’ll need a medic. It’s not like there’s much I’d be able to help him with anyway.

  I let out the breath I was holding and head upstairs. I need to get this laptop off of me. It feels hot on my skin because I know if I get caught with it, I am beyond dead meat.

  I think Pax got off with exile because he was a bonafide Stayman. And by that, I mean he comes from the original line of alpha wolves for the pack. Since he was young, Pax was viewed as somewhat immature, he didn’t have as much pull with the more high-ranking members, yet he still was given a certain amount of respect.

  I, on the other hand, just showed up when I was a toddler, so I would not get the same treatment. I’m a lowly member of this pack, so who knows what would happen to me if I displeased our alpha.

  Chapter Four

  Kenzie

  I run up the stairs and into Tamir’s room. I’m in such a hurry, I don’t even knock. I grab the knob and jump inside, swiftly closing the door behind me.

  “You have no idea—” I stop short when I see that Tamir is in the middle of changing. He’s only in his underwear, and it is tight, leaving very little to the imagination. “Umm…” I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t expecting to see an almost nude man today, and I was definitely not expecting for that man to be Tamir.

  “Kenzie?”

  I’m so befuddled that I just lift my shirt and pull out the laptop. Tamir’s eyes go wide when I do that, and I realize I just flashed him.

  Jesus Christ, Kenzie! Get yourself together!

  “Let me just,” I trail off, turning around. Hugging Pax’s laptop to my body, I let Tamir finish putting on his pajamas. I really should have knocked. I would have been able to avoid being so flustered.

  God, he’s so fucking hot! Like I knew he was a good-looking guy, but seeing so much of him all at once really drove the point home in my head.

  I was turned on seeing all of that. Goddammit, I am turned on thinking about Tamir’s muscular body behind me. It’s taking so much of myself not to turn around and simply stare. I can’t even make words. It’s like the language function l
eft my brain. I’ve never been this shook by a man before. I hate to think about what that means. And for that man to be Tamir of all people!

  “I’m decent,” he grunts.

  I turn around, and he does have clothes on now. I let out a long breath, a minimal amount of the tension being released from my body.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s whatever,” he mumbles, brushing the whole situation off. “Give me the computer.”

  I hand over the laptop. Tamir sits on his bed, opening the thing up. I watch him fumble with turning it on. A lot of the wolves here have an aversion to technology. Pax was the only person pushing for it. I was happy that he was, though, because our medical equipment is in great need of an update, and I was sure if Pax got what he wanted, it would trickle down to me.

  It’s kind of painful watching Tamir just press all kinds of buttons, so I just do it for him. He looks surprised when I do it.

  “How?”

  “Pax showed me. Like I said, we were friends.”

  I don’t know as much as technology as Pax does, but he showed me a few things. He was going to keep teaching me, but then all that drama happened. Hopefully, with whatever Tamir and I are doing, we’ll be able to bring him back.

  “That’s nice,” he comments. Tamir is so weird. He’s not much of a talker, and sometimes when he does talk, it’s unbelievably awkward. I have a feeling he doesn’t really know how to deal with me.

  The computer boots up, and it’s on the username screen. Tamir looks confused. I know Pax doesn’t have a password, but I’m guessing Tamir doesn’t know anything about any of this.

  “You just click on it. With the pointer.” I point to the icon. Tamir still looks confused, so I show him how to use the mouse. “When you move your fingers on the rectangular pad, it’ll move that pointer around. To click on something, you place the pointer on the thing you want to click and press this side down. You’ll feel a kind of clicking. Try it.”

  I motion for Tamir to give it a try. He’s a little hesitant, but he gets it done, clicking on the icon on the screen. Since there’s no password, it logs on immediately.

  “I saw Pax do this part. I can do it,” Tamir mumbles.

  That sounds like a sign for me to step back. I do not doubt that Pax did show Tamir, but Tamir said that his brother made this account for him years ago. I’m sure he hasn’t used a computer since then. But I’ll let him have this moment. It seems like he really needs it.

  The laptop is already connected to the internet, which is a godsend. I don’t want to think about the hell it would be showing Tamir how to connect to wi-fi. I don’t think I could handle it. Not with all that man-pride he has.

  The second is actually able to get to the internet, but it is a slow and laborious task. The laptop is also rather slow, but Tamir doesn’t seem to mind. It’s probably at the perfect pace for him.

  The web browser opens, and that is where he loses his flow. He stares at the screen for a couple of moments before his eyes dart to mine. I can tell that is his way of asking for help.

  “I’m guessing your brother made you a Gmail account. It’s the most popular site used, so you can go to gmail.com.”

  “Gmail.com?”

  “Yeah,” I nod. “Just type it in that white space at the top. You can click inside that,” I point to it because I’m having trouble describing it using non-computer words, “and type in g-m-a-i-l and then a period c-o-m. Gmail.com.”

  Tamir moves the pointer to where I pointed and clicks. He starts to type in what I just told him. He uses one finger to do each letter as slowly as possible. Since this is probably only his second time using a keyboard, and it’s been years since his first, it’s a slow process. But I give him the time he needs to type those letters. He finishes typing out gmail.com but leaves it at that.

  “Oh, you need to press the button that says enter.”

  “Right, right,” he mumbles. He gets to the website. “Pax made my email my name, tamirstayman.”

  “So, yeah, just type that into the email part, press enter, and then you’ll need your password and then press enter again.” Tamir does as I say, putting in his email address. After getting to the next web page where he needs to put in his password, he stalls. “Do you remember your password?”

  Tamir takes a second to think.

  “Yeah, I do,” he grumbles. Typing it in, he gets it right on the first try. I wonder what he was so grumbly about. While the page loads, I decide to ask.

  “What was your password?” He doesn’t really have to tell me, but I truly hope he does.

  “It’s something stupid my brother made up. He thought it would be funny or something.” He pauses for a second, and I think he’s not about to tell me, but then he takes a deep breath. “It’s paxisthebest.”

  I smile because that is such a Pax thing to do. I’m sure he knew that his older brother would never be able to change the password without any help. He always liked to play around with Tamir, even when they were kids. Tamir always kept that stone-cold face of his, preferring to ‘rise above it’ as he liked to put it.

  “Yeah, that’s stupid,” I say, simply agreeing with him to push things along. The web page finishes loading, and there’s a new email. “Hey, look, there’s a new email.”

  “Yeah, do I click on it?”

  “Double-click. So, do that clicking thing I showed you, but twice, one after the other pretty fast.”

  “Okay.” Tamir does it, and the email opens. The email address is Pax’s name, so it must be from him. I’m sure no one else has this forgotten address of Tamir’s. I watch as Tamir reads it. Usually, I’m a lot nosier than this, but I don’t want to read over his shoulder. This is a message from his exiled brother, so I’m sure that there are some sensitive things in there.

  He gets to the bottom of the note and rubs his eyes. Whatever is in there must be a bombshell.

  “What does it say?”

  Tamir runs his fingers through his hair, taking the loose tendrils away from his eyes. I start thinking about running my own fingers through his dark hair but quickly throw that thought out of my mind. I shouldn’t be so stupid. Having thoughts like that isn’t going to lead anywhere good, so I may as well stop having them.

  “Pax says that Flint is working with the Mathis clan. That he isn’t here to buy unused orchard land like he claimed. He overheard Flint talking to one of their pack members. Fuck!” Tamir is starting to get angry. His other major emotion. I can understand why he’s so upset. If what Pax is saying is true, then we are in a very bad spot. Anson just let that man into our pack.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Pax asked to meet up. I think that’s what needs to happen. I have to talk with my brother face-to-face.”

  “Yeah, okay, let’s email him back. Press the reply button, and you can type up whatever you want to say to him.”

  Tamir looks at the screen but doesn’t go for the keyboard. “You do it. You’ll probably be faster.” He hands me the laptop.

  I sit down beside him, so I can rest the computer on my lap. Tamir turns so he can look over my shoulder. This isn’t the first time I’ve been close to him, but it’s the first time since seeing him almost naked. I don’t want him to see the sheepishness on my face, so I keep my gaze squarely on the screen.

  “What do you want to say?”

  “Tell Pax I want to meet up as soon as possible. I thought maybe I’d tell him some of the things that have happened since he left, but that might be better to say to his face. Too much has happened to whittle down to a simple letter.”

  “Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Do you want to propose a place to meet up?”

  He tilts his head, holding his fist against his mouth. “There’s this place in the orchard where Pax and I used to play when we were kids, tell him we can meet there whenever he is ready. But emphasize that I want it to be soon.”

  “I can do that.”

  While I type up the message for Tamir, I think
about him playing as a child. It’s a hard sight to see. We’re pretty close in age, but he never really gave off a child's vibe. He was always so serious. But I guess everyone is multi-faceted.

  When I finish the letter, I read it to him. He nods as I go through it, signaling his approval.

  “You can send it.”

  I press send. I’m not sure if Pax is going to see it right away. It might take hours, days. I’m not sure what kind of access he has to technology. It’s probably more than he did while he was here, though.

  As I’m contemplating, the laptop dings, and I see that Pax actually responded immediately.

  “He wrote back,” I point. Tamir is looking over my shoulder again.

  “What did he say?”

  “Um, let’s see.” I double-click on the new message, opening it up. “It says he’ll be there tonight.”

  Tamir nods. “Okay, then. I better get ready.” He gets off the bed and starts to remove his shirt. My eyes go wide. I was not expecting that. I can’t tear my gaze away from his abs. They’re just so defined. Oh my god! How many sit-ups must he do?

  He grabs the shirt he had been wearing before, pulling it over his head. That snaps me out of whatever weird stupor I was in, bringing me back to my senses.

  “I want to go and meet Pax, too,” I declare.

  “What do you mean?” He turns around to talk to me, pulling his pants down.

  Good God! Is he just going to strip in front of me? I need to keep my cool if I want Tamir to take me seriously. I keep my eyes on his to avoid any more snafus.

  “I want to come to your meeting with Pax. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  Tamir starts shaking his head.

  “Why not?”

  “This is too much. I don’t know what my brother wants to tell me, but I don’t think you need to be there to hear it.”