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“Yeah, but she hasn’t considered that yet.” Alex lifted his shoulders. “Is there any harm is letting her believe she has all this under control?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Dominic. “It’s considerate, really.”
Alex nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”
Mila glared at them both. “It’s not considerate. It’s manipulative.”
“It’s wolverine-style dating,” Dominic pointed out. “Bree will handle it. She’s tough.”
Mila huffed. “True. Which I admire, because that girl’s been through a lot. I’m kind of surprised you left her side, Alex. Who’s with her?”
“Taryn.”
“As in my Alpha female, Taryn? Why is—wait, you snuck Bree onto our territory, didn’t you?”
Alex shrugged. “It was that or leave her behind.”
“You couldn’t have just driven through the gate like everyone else?”
“There would have been no fun in that.”
Mila flicked a hand. “I’m done here, go.”
“I’m not feeling loved right now.”
“And I’m not giving a hot shit.”
CHAPTER TEN
Tossing a mini pretzel into his mouth a few days later, Alex glanced at the wall clock. It was ten minutes before the store was due to close. There was only one customer left who was taking his sweet time, much to the annoyance of Bree and Elle, who’d joined forces to hurry him along.
Alex exchanged a frustrated glance with Greg and then took another long look out of the store window. He’d escorted Bree to and from work every day since the Frasier Banks incident.
The good news: There’d been no further trouble.
The bad news: There’d also been no success in Vinnie’s plan to track down the hyenas and deal with them personally. It quickly became apparent that there was little information out there on Dale Bray and his clan.
Some of Vinnie’s sources had given him “tips” on where their underground territory might be. Alex had accompanied the Alpha to check out each of those tips, but none had amounted to anything.
Alex knew it was grating on Bree that Vinnie turned down her request to join them on scouting potential locations for the hyena’s base; knew it was hard for her to stand back and watch others deal with the matter. But the Alpha was right—it was best that she stayed close to their pride mates. Why make it easy for the hyenas to grab her?
Nodding along to whatever the customer was saying, Bree nibbled on her lower lip. And Alex remembered how it felt to suckle on that lip. Remembered how it felt to let it slide between his teeth. Remembered how he’d bitten it hard enough to mark the previous night. The imprint of his teeth was gone now, but he could fix that later. Biting his woman had fast become one of his favorite things to do.
“You gonna keep on staring at her while you pretend to listen to me?” asked Greg.
Alex gave him a hard look and ate another pretzel.
“I heard that Mateo approached her in the deli last week and tried to talk to her. Heard she made it clear she had no wish to talk to him.”
Bree had told Alex all about it, though she hadn’t yet told him what the little bastard did that caused the rift between them. Alex could only conclude that Mateo had said something extremely hurtful to her in anger after she rejected him.
“It’s sad to see them so at odds with each other,” said Greg. “He’s probably heard that you and Bree are now together. He’ll be hurting, but he’ll be happy for you once he’s come to terms with it—Mateo’s a good guy. Have the Cages been a problem?”
Alex dipped his hand back into the bag of pretzels. “I thought they would be, but none of them have contacted me or Bree since it became common knowledge that we’re together.”
Just then, his mother came to stand in front of him, looking as elegant and imperious as always. “Why you scowl?” Valentina’s voice was low but all demand. “You have had that look on your face for days.”
Alex rolled back his shoulders. “I’ve got things on my mind.”
“Then you should go somewhere else to brood. You scare off customers.”
He felt his brows snap together. “I don’t brood.”
She rolled her eyes. “All dominant male shifters brood—they just like to pretend they don’t. You, my son, are champion brooder.”
“I’m just uneasy.” He ate his last pretzel and then scrunched up the small bag. “The hyenas want Bree badly, and they’re not going to drop it.”
Valentina sighed. “This I know. I also know you will protect her. Which is good, because Vinnie is useless.”
Alex let out a heavy breath. His uncle could demonstrate the ability to walk on water and Valentina would still call him useless purely because he didn’t work at her pace. “It isn’t his fault that we can’t find the hyenas—you know that.”
Catching movement in his peripheral vision, Alex looked to see the human push away from the counter. Fucking finally. Once the guy left, everyone readied the store to be locked up and grabbed their personal things from their lockers.
