Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe she would be great at it. Hell, she probably would. She was a good woman, and everything about her was brilliant. She would be able to adapt to motherhood just like she’d adapted to the pack. I’d been hiding behind her though.
I knew very well that all the excuses I’d made was about her because I couldn’t admit that I was terrified of even the idea of being a father. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want kids, and that was as simple as that. But I couldn’t tell the pack that. I was their alpha, I should have been able to handle anything.
Parenthood? That was the smallest thing compared to what we dealt with. And I couldn’t do it. I shrugged and carried on eating, and the men started talking about other things, moving about from the subject. I was relieved. I was tired of hedging all the time. Only John knew, and he glanced up at me. I looked away before I had a chance to feel stupid, guilty about what I was thinking and feeling.
Homecoming day was finally there, and we got on the bus that took us back to base. Allegra would be there. She was always there when I arrived, without exception. I couldn’t wait to see her.
Since she’d become the alpha mate, the second in our pack, seeing her was that much more intense. Especially after we’d been apart for so long. The power rippled through us every time and it made me feel like my strength was channeled, rerouted and then brought back to me, more powerful than when it had left me.
Having Allegra as part of the pack was the best thing I could ever ask for.
I wanted her to come with us into the woods during the next full moon. She could handle it, I knew she could. The way she moved through the trees now was like she could feel the forest the way we could. She stood in our circle of power when the moon called our wolves out, and it was like she could almost hear its song.
And I wanted to share it all with her, wanted her to feel the rush of the night when we ran through the trees, when we were animals all the way through, and the human disappeared completely.
I shook my head. I had to remember that being human was all she had. She couldn’t let it go the way we did, because she didn’t have anything else.
The bus stopped in the drop-off zone, and soldiers peeled out everywhere. The square was filled with uniformed officers and rangers, looking for their significant others.
I felt her before I saw her. Her presence crept over my body in a rush of prickles, and when I turned around her dark eyes met mine and drew me in. She smiled, and her eyes were drowning deep. When I walked up to her I dropped my bag and wrapped my arms around her, folding her against me.
The power surged through me and into her, and she gasped against me. It came back at me in a wave that was much stronger, and filled me to the brim until I was squirming with its intensity. When she pulled away her cheeks were glowing.
“I still have to get used to that,” she said in a breathy voice. I smiled. I wasn’t going to admit that I had to get used to it too. She laced her fingers through mine and I picked up my bag with my free hand. We walked to the car together.
“Did John tell you about Charlene?” she asked. I took a deep breath and forced a smile, nodding.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Charlene is so happy.”
“He showed me the photo,” I said. In all honesty I didn’t really want to talk about John and Charlene another time, but Allegra was beaming. She was beautiful when she was excited, and I let her ramble on.
“You should have seen her, hardly any labor and I swear she didn’t even feel pain once that baby was in her arms.”
“You were there?” I asked. She nodded and smiled. “Someone had to take John’s place, and I’m your second after all.” She looked happy about being able to step. And the idea that she took her role in the pack so seriously made me happy. But I was uncomfortable with all this baby talk. And I had a feeling I was going to get a lot more of it before I went back on duty.
Chapter 3
Allegra
Homecoming used to be a time when Reid was physically home, but he was usually on the battle field with his mind and it was like a shell sitting at the table with me. I always tried to be encouraging and supportive. I’d known what it meant to be a military wife before we’d gotten married, I’d known what I was letting myself in for.
Since we’d fixed everything between us, and after the horrible uncomfortable time when I’d refused to accept my role as the alpha’s mate, things were perfect. More than perfect. When he came home was really home. Yes, there were times when he struggled, I could see the war behind his eyes, see the haunted shadows cross his face when we had conversations about mundane things.
Sometimes he woke me up with his nightmares. But he was really home despite that. And this time was no different. We were hardly in the front door when he dropped his bag and kicked the door closed with his foot. He had his body against mine in the blink of an eye and I melted into his arms. The power surged around us, the dominance of the alpha claiming his mate, and shivers marched down my spine.
He kissed me like he meant it, mashing his lips against mine and I opened my mouth, letting him slip inside of me, taste me, explore. I ran my hands up his pecks, over his muscular shoulders and around his neck. A sigh shuddered through my body.
His body was strong and muscular. His arms held me in place, locked around me but gentle at the same time. Everything about him was trim and toned, screaming with strength and sex appeal.
He moved his head to my neck, his lips kissed a trail of fire down to my collar bone and I made a small whimpering sound. Sounds affected Reid. It was an animalistic thing. Werewolves responded to sounds, a whimper, a growl, a scream, a cry of ecstasy. He was so strong he could break me, and when I whimpered and made small moaning sounds that he drew from me with his sex, it was like it fueled him more.
He groaned and it reverberated through his body almost like a growl. He ground his hips against me, and I could feel him hard and hungry through his pants, straining at his buckle.
I reciprocated, answering his urge with my own, pressing my body against his. My body ached for him. It had been months since I’d had him so close, and even though I hadn’t struggled without him, I was dying to have him inside me, all over me, right now.
He broke away from me, looking into my eyes. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling, and his eyes were the blue flame that they turned to when his wolf was rising to the surface. The beast slid behind his eyes, begging to break free. It came out in moments of passion, rage, sorrow. Any strong emotion set it off. And I’d come to love it, because it was always accompanied with a surge of power, and me feeling like I was right there with him, even though I didn’t have my own animal that could crawl out of me.
Reid wrapped an arm around my waist and all but carried me to the bedroom. In the room he turned me to him and kissed me again, pushing his hands under my t-shirt and pulling it over my head. He kissed me as soon as his could, his large hands trailing over my stomach, my ribs, and finally cupping my breasts. He covered my chest completely with his hands. I always felt small when he was with me, but he always treated me like I was delicate.
And I felt like I was when I was with him. These were the times when I felt the most beautiful.
His hands slipped around my back and he unclipped my bra. I shrugged it off my shoulders and it dripped to the floor. His hands were on my bare skin now, and his fingers traced me, finding the spots that drove me wild.
I undid the buttons on his shirt one by one and peeled it off his shoulders. I could feel the dips in between each muscle, feel him flex against my hands when he moved, the muscles rippling underneath his skin. I pushed up the vest that he wore underneath, exposing his washboard abs, and I bent down and kissed them. His skin tasted clean and male, and he smelled like Reid, oozing power and sex.
I undid his buckle and he climbed out of his pants, kicking off his shoes with it. His hands went for my pants and he pulled them off me. He picked me up and laid me on the bed, crawling over
me. He was completely naked and so was I, and it was right, the way it should have been.
He looked me in the eyes, and I could see his wolf hiding behind his irises. The wolf was here too, and everything was how it had to be. Making love to Reid wouldn’t have been the same without his wolf. It was a part of him as much as it had become a part of me.
His hands trailed down my body, over my breasts, then my ribs and stomach, down the side of my body falling into the dip where my waist narrowed and the out with my hips. He traced the V and cupped me where it came together in the middle. His hand was hot and I squirmed in his grasp.
His fingers worked magic, he pushed his fingers down and into me, and I gasped. A trickle of magic poured into me with his touch and I gasped. I worked his fingers against my body and built something hot and wanting inside of me. When I thought I wasn’t going to be able to hold it anymore, he stopped.
This was what I loved the most. When he was back, and he was paying so much attention to me, to pleasing me and being in charge and in control, that he was completely present.
My body screamed for him. My breathing was shallow and erratic. I put my hands on his shoulders and tried to pull his body toward me. He was stronger than I could ever be and if he decided no it wouldn’t have mattered what I did. But he rolled his body over me, pressing up on his arms, and positioned himself at my entrance.
He was hard and big, I knew him as well as I knew my own body, and I whimpered in anticipation. It was all he needed. He pushed into me, and my body curled around his. My walls stretched and yielded, making space for him, and I gasped.
When he was in all the way he kissed me, long and sensual, before he pulled out again. He pushed in again, and my body responded. Goosebumps covered my body like a sheet. Reid moved his hips against mine, building a rhythm, and then his body took over. His hips bucked against mine and I was rendered useless under his body. His face was in my neck again and he licked small circled up and down, taking my earlobe between his teeth now and then.
An orgasm started to build inside of me, starting between my legs and spreading through the rest of my body. Everything felt warm, and then hot. It was like he was filling me with light, and at some point it would be too much for me and tear me apart.
That moment came. I felt him building inside of me, getting harder and bigger. He pumped into me, panting in my ear and his chest pressing against mine forced my breathing in the same rhythm.
He was the first to lose it inside of me. I felt him pumping, and he filled me up, reaching every corner, claiming me as his mate. The first time this had happened the whole pack had felt it. The bond had been forged. Since then we’d had our privacy, thank god, but the power was still the same. It surged through me like a tidal wave and I cried out, almost drowning in the strength of it.
It pushed me over the edge and my own orgasm rocked through my body. I wrapped my arms and legs around his body, my body bucking against his. He growled low in his throat, a sound that a human shouldn’t have been able to make.
We were melded to each other and stayed like that until the magic finale retreated. Reid collapsed on top of me and I struggled to breathe. He rolled off me, slipping out of me, and we lay gasping on the bed.
“I still have to get used to that,” he said, echoing my words from earlier and I smiled.
After we’d gotten dressed I started on supper. We carried on with business as usual, but there was an electric hum between us that stayed there even when we didn’t touch each other. It was like a current that had started when we’d slept together, and hadn’t faded again.
We sat down together and ate.
“I think we need to stop in at John and Charlene’s tomorrow and see the new baby,” I said. Reid nodded, not looking up at me. He was suddenly switched off, like something was on his mind, but I knew better than to ask. He would tell me if he needed to. Or he would sort through it himself and get back to me when he was ready.
When we knocked on their door the next morning John opened the door, already smiling.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said.
“How is Charlene?” I asked. She’d been discharged from the hospital the day of homecoming.
“She’s just great. It’s a bit hard adjusting to the new baby, I feel like I don’t know what to do. But she’s so good at it, it’s like she’s always done this.”
Reid didn’t say anything. I gave John a hug.
“Congratulations to you both,” I said and we walked into the house. John brought us to the nursery. Charlene sat in an armchair next to a crib, the baby in her arms. She looked comfortable, natural.
I walked to her, crouched next to her.
“We’ve just done feeding. Nap time soon,” she beamed down at little Carla. The baby looked a lot better than when I’d seen her last. She wasn’t so squashed anymore. Her face had puffed out and she was adorable. My heart constricted. I wanted a baby too. Since I’d been at Carla’s birth I’ve been broody.
“Come look, Reid,” I said, looking up at him. He was standing in the door, as far away as he possible could be from Charlene and the baby. He gave me a tightlipped smile and walked closer to us like he was scared, like if he were a wolf he’d have his tail tucked between his legs.
I watched him, and realized that he was completely uncomfortable. Who would have known that the strong, wild alpha had a weak point?
“She’s cute,” Reid said, and the way he said it made me think that was the last thing he believed. If Charlene picked up on his tone of the voice she didn’t show it.
She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. John was in the room too, and he smiled like only a proud new parent could. I looked at Reid, and he looked like he wanted to run away.
I looked at the baby again, and wondered how he could be so threatened by something so small.
Chapter 4
Reid
At first I thought that the new addition to John’s family was going to throw everything out of balance. I was nervous that he wouldn’t be able to keep his place in the pack. He may not have been my second anymore, since Allegra had stepped into place as my mate, but John was still number three and quite high up in pack hierarchy.
But everything turned out to be okay. Within days everything was back to normal. John came to pack gatherings and he came out hunting with us like nothing had changed. I knew he spent time at home a lot more, but it didn’t affect the pack.
And it didn’t affect me.
Everything that had gotten to me with the whole baby business around homecoming was forgotten. Four weeks later and creeping up to full moon I was in the lounge trying to focus on a television talk show. It was so much easier to have the damn thing off, but I tried to resemble being normal now and then.
Not having the television on and just staring at the screen sometimes unnerved Allegra. I knew she didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t expect her to.
She came in and sat down next to me, body half turned so that she was facing me and not the television.
“Baby, can we talk?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. She took the remote from my hand and muted the sound. That made me sit up and take notice. When I looked at her, her face was serious. She had her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and it made her look young. Somehow the uncertainty in her eyes added to how young she looked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. She took a deep breath, and hesitated. “Babe?” I asked when she still didn’t speak.
“I’m late,” she said.
“Late for what?”
She shook her head. “No, I mean I’m late. That time of the month. My period hasn’t started.”
I frowned at her. I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about, but her intensity scared me. She looked up at me and her eyes were almost black. She took a deep breath and blew it out in a shudder.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, and she held my stare. I looked at her and tried to make sense of the words that had come out of her m
outh. Pregnant? Late, as in she missed something vital. I opened my mouth, and closed it again, ran my hands over my face and then into my hair.
“Reid?” she asked.
“Are you sure?” I asked. She nodded.
“I’m almost three weeks late. I got a pregnancy test for the shops yesterday. Three of them. They’re all positive.
My ears started ringing. It felt like the room was closing down on me, and I struggled to breathe. My wolf squirmed like it was leashed when it didn’t want me to be. And I couldn’t break away from this.
“We can’t have a baby,” I said. My voice was hard, and she flinched away from it.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
I shook my head. This was too much, too soon. I didn’t want to do this. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t John. I couldn’t be happy about a family the way he was. “I can’t do this, Allegra. I’m not ready.” My chest hurt, like someone had stabbed me.
She came to sit next to me, put her arm over my shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay. I know this is unexpected… it’s not like either of us planned this. But we’re going to be okay. Surely with all our power we can manage to deal with something as normal as a baby?”
She smiled at me, and I forced a smile. All of this bothered me. I’d been talking about how I never wanted this since John’s baby was born, and now it was happening to me. Here I was, big bad werewolf alpha and I was having a panic attack about something regular men dealt with every day.
She put her hand on my leg, and the power suddenly surged. It was stronger than usual. The heat flowed from her like she was a source of power. I looked down at my hand, and frowned.
“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked. She moved her hand away, and the current stopped. It was like it cut off, like someone had flipped a switch.
BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) Page 119
