Page 8 of Fated to the Alpha

Shane quickly assessed how much he should tell, how much he should reveal, how much was incriminating to himself and his pack, and how much might injure Kimberly’s standing within Tolstone. Would her past make her seem like a liability in Tolstone? It was her father’s transgression against Isaac, but some alphas were picky about family reputations … Then again, maybe it was just Shane’s father who was picky. If spending time with these alphas taught him anything already, it was that there were plenty of other alpha styles that were not only effective, but probably healthier.

“We ran into each other yesterday,” Shane replied. “We have a history.”

Cole arrived in the circle with his cup of coffee and gave Shane a serious look. “What kind of history?”

Shane suddenly felt as if he were on trial. “We knew each other as kids.”

Finally, Gage spoke up. “You’re from Warrington?”

“Yeah.”

His leafy green eyes narrowed, and Shane saw the rim of the foam coffee cup bend a little. “And you took over the pack from your dad, didn’t you?”

Bits of his story weren’t a secret in this circle, so Shane wasn’t surprised to hear that Gage knew that much about him. “Yeah.”

Gage gave a knowing nod, and his demeanor took on a hardness that Shane recognized well. Distrust.

“Ah … Gotcha.” Then he took another sip and looked away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” It came out before Shane could even check himself.

Gage snapped a combative look his way. “That I heard you.”

Shane’s wolf snapped at the snark in this alpha’s tone, but the human side of him had just enough sense to pull back. Getting into a fight with another shifter was not recommended. The safety and protection of his pack were more important. If he couldn’t play nice with others, especially in front of the Prime Alpha, their stay in Tolstone could be cut way too short.

Almost as sure as that fact was the fact Gage had officially formed an opinion of Shane with that single admittance. And it wasn’t a good one. Shane knew how someone said something was often more valuable than what was being said. For shifters, and especially alphas, it was all about the subtext and what wasn’t spoken. Gage knew something, or at least thought he knew something, and Shane had a feeling that something was directly related to how Kimberly colored the memory of him and what happened in Warrington.

The antique shop doorbell sounded downstairs and drew everyone’s attention. Shane looked to each of the men, confused about who they were missing. Quick footsteps hurried up the stairs, accompanied by the cheesy, meaty aroma of pizza. A woman soon entered. He’d only met her once but knew she belonged to Dominic. As soon as she came into the room, their mating bond blinked into his wolf’s awareness. The woman, whom he remembered was named Erica, was now the only human in the building.

So unnatural. Shifters belong with shifters.

Shane gave himself a mental shake. He did not need his father’s toxic ideologies invading his thoughts. His father’s old rules would not carry over into how he ran his pack or his life. Some laws were far too archaic to retain. Being around humans was a reality. They couldn’t avoid it. Mating with a human used to be taboo. Shane saw nothing wrong with a shifter mating with a human, though it did seem an odd choice for a Prime Alpha.

It wasn’t the logical pick. He needed a mate that could match him, not just in strength and supernatural abilities, but in dominance, too. That was what he had always been led to believe—that alpha males should try to find their alpha females. It solidified their authority over the pack, not just to maintain order but to prove the pack was strong and unbreakable. How would it look to have a mate who was, by comparison, weak and vulnerable? Far be it from him to question Dominic’s choices, but there had to be something else at play here.

There certainly had been something else at play for him and Kimberly when they made secret plans as teenagers to escape their fathers and leave Warrington to start their own pack. Shane had bloomed into his alpha dominance from the very start. Kimberly, as they all discovered, had no dominance. Isaac would never have given his blessing for Shane and Kimberly to mate. Of course, none of that mattered to Shane. He still wanted Kimberly, even before they became wolf shifters, and at the time, he thought nothing would have changed his mind. Not dominance, not their families, not their pack rankings, nothing … except when they were thrown into the crucible for the first time, it seemed that all of those things really did matter in the end. They didn’t matter so much anymore.

With a stack of warm pizza boxes balanced in one arm and the other hand smoothing back a flyaway hair from her ponytail, Erica rushed to the kitchenette counter and set down the food. Dominic instantly stood and went to his mate.

“Sorry I’m late,” she panted. “Marco’s was pretty busy and—”

Dominic snatched her up around the waist and captured the last of her sentence with his mouth in a kiss that made Shane uncomfortable. He wasn’t the only one.

“Hey! Can you put off kissing my daughter until after the meeting?”

Shane’s brows shot up at Cole’s mocking reprimand. Taking a closer look, he finally noticed the resemblance. But if Erica was a human, that meant Cole was once mated to a human as well. It was an inevitability that a pure shifter couple would also have shifter children. When the couples mixed, it was less certain. Another alpha mating with a human. Apparently, it was more common and accepted than Isaac led Shane to believe.

Dominic released his mate and gave his fellow alpha an apologetic look.

A deep blush rose into Erica’s cheeks. “I got two meat lovers and an everything pizza. What does everyone want?”

At first, she turned away to retrieve a stack of paper plates from the counter to start filling requests. But then, Dominic carefully guided Erica away from the pizzas and toward the circle. “We’ll eat when business is done. Shouldn’t take long.”

Erica’s hazel eyes darted around the alpha circle, but Shane didn’t sense any fear in her, only a touch of confusion about the order of business over food. With a pleasant smile, she and Dominic sat together, the assembly now complete. Once more, the voice of Shane’s father pounded in his skull.

A woman shouldn’t be here. This is men’s work. She doesn’t belong.

No. That wasn’t right. This was Dominic’s town. This was his meeting. He could bring in whomever he wanted. Dominic clearly had a reason for allowing her to stay.