AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter1
CAIT
The perfect Christmas. I’m not sure if such a thing exists, but it’s been a goal of mine for years now. Especially since it seems the people I consider family have been growing apart for some time. Well, outside of Roman and Dawsyn. It isn’t that I think those closest to us don’t care. I know how life can be, but I haven’t seen my best friends all together in…holy hell.
Three years.
Three unacceptable years.
I’m going to fix that, even if it pisses off my mate.
This is my and Roman’s last Christmas as the pack alphas. In the coming months, the torch will pass to Dawsyn. She’s ready, but I don’t know if I am.
Not that I don’t believe in her. It’s just that I want to go out with a bang. I want all the memories before I’m made to feel like an old hag who has been retired from her post.
Seriously, did I really just think that? Am I going to be anold hag?
Growing up really freaking sucks.
Still, the perfect Christmas. It’s going to happen.
Cait, Roman’s voice sounds in my head, and I duck behind the boxes of decorations I’ve been poking through in the basement as if he’s standing next to me.Where is my mate?
The grumble in his voice doesn’t bode well for me. He knows damned well where I am and he’s not going to like it, but I don’t care. I’m asking for forgiveness instead of permission—the cardinal rule of all happy and thriving mateships.
The door to the basement opens calmly, but this time my name is said out loud.
“Cait.” Roman’s footsteps get closer. “What do you think you’re doing?”
My head peeks up from behind some of the boxes I’ve been pushing together. “Nothing much.”
His blue eyes narrow at me. “Lies. I thought we said we weren’t going all out for Christmas this year. That we would just have a quiet one with our daughter to remember as our last year in the pack house.”
I scrape my teeth over my lip as my pouty eyes come out. “I mean…that’s whatyousaid. I might have seemed like I agreed, but…”
He sighs heavily. “But what my mate wants, she gets.”
There’s a smile playing on Roman’s lips as he stalks closer to me, grabs me around the waist, and lifts me from the ground.
Even more than three decades later, I still can’t get enough of this man, and my heart still races from his touch. I wrap my legs around his waist, and a rumble echoes softly from my chest. “Are you here to stop me, my alpha?”
His lips press against my neck, moving up to my ear where he nips at my skin. “I should be.”
The grin on my face grows, but I hold back my joy. “It will just be a small gathering of our friends that are more family than anything else,” I say, kissing his face lightly between my words. “Plus, Dawsyn needs a reminder of her support system. She won’t be alone in running this pack, just like we weren’t.”
Roman might have technically been the alpha of East Texas for the last thirty-plus years, but I’ve been his alpha female for nearly that entire time and showed the world early on that I wasn’t to be messed with.
Wearen’t to be messed with, Adira, my wolf, corrects with pure confidence.
I wasn’t born with her like most wolf shifters. I was human for the first twenty-one years of my life, but after so much time with Adira, I can’t remember anything before her with clarity.
She’s my person. Though, we don’t tell Roman that.
I’m also the only shifter I know who calls her inner wolf by name. We’re special like that.
Roman’s tightening grip around my hips has my attention moving fully back to him as he says, “Our friends don’t equal a small gathering unless you’re only inviting one of the families.”
“Oh, don’t be such an old man.” My fingers brush through his brown hair, revealing the silver strands he wishes he could hide. “Just because you’re greying doesn’t mean you need to get all cranky.”
