Beaufort Creek Shifters (10 book series)
The Alpha’s Pregnant Bride Chapter 3

Troy

I set the mail on my desk. "I can't trust her."

"You just said you trusted her last night," Wendell called from the kitchen. How much coffee was he brewing? And for how many people? It was just us this morning. "Elias said that-" "Elias will say anything to get a rise out of you."

Wendell poked his head around the corner, peering at me over his round spectacles, doing that thing he always did when he was particularly vexed-allowing the wire frames to slide down his nose. Gray eyes enhanced the gold of his glasses that he rarely wore around anyone else, and never in public.

He wrinkled up his nose. "Boss, with all due respect-"

I held up a hand. "Be kind to my cousin. He's a joker."

"And I'm a very formidable wolf."

"Who's softer than fur," I added.

"Don't tell anyone." He tapped his frames as though adding them to the list of Do Not Tell Anyone. "Are you sure you can't trust her?"

"That depends on what you've brought me."

He shrugged and then disappeared behind the corner to retrieve our coffee mugs. He set mine in front of me and relaxed into the couch, tipping the cushions slightly in his favor. Wendell was short for a wolf, and he couldn't help his bulky weight. He often broke any chair in which he sat. My poor friend rarely sat down if he could help it unless he was in my home. The chairs and furniture I ordered were more than sturdy enough to contain his mass.

Wendell grabbed a folder from the coffee table and handed it to me. It was thin. There wasn't much. This woman wasn't impressive in the least. How was she fit to be an alpha's mate when she didn't even have a record?

Or did that make her more impressive?

I sighed while thumbing through the sparsely filled folder. "Is this really all you could dig up, Wendy?"

"Cross my heart, boss. That was everything on your dear Skye Jervis. No parents. No idea what happened to them. Older brother is Emmett, 41. He fought in the wars."

"Which wars?"

Wendell sipped his coffee. "Vampire-wolf wars and the most recent." "Ah, so he's a decorated foot soldier."

"That's the extent of his duties to the pack other than being a mechanic."

I studied the pages Wendell had gathered. There were a few abnormal blood samples taken a couple of years ago, but that had ended up getting cleared by Dr. Windsor, the resident doctor for the Beaufort Creek pack. She wasn't concerned, so I wasn't concerned. But I was concerned how a woman of Skye's age could speed through so much vet school with only night classes under her belt. Something was up with her. Either she was a genius, or she was cheating.

I hated to make myself a liar, but swaying her in my favor meant she would keep herself unguarded. I needed that to determine her authenticity.

The next page granted me pause. Betwixt my fingers sat a report done by Emmett Jervis, captain of the squad that had taken the east side of the ranch when the Gilberts had invaded. He created a list of those who were locked in the bunkers-and among them was my supposed mate.

I set the file aside. "She hid during the war."

"Was she important to the alpha or something?"

I scratched the side of my neck. "I don't believe so. Emmett would have documented such a note. He seemed to be obsessed with details."

"Was she ill?"

"By all accounts, she should have been in the fight."

Wendell frowned. "She must have a good reason for sitting aside and doing nothing."

"Unless she was running radios or coordinates." Another peek at the page indicated the others in the bunker were older women and a handful of children-those who wouldn't have been able to defend themselves in battle. "Perhaps she was protecting the group." "She has no fighting skills, no training, no weapon preference..." Wendell poked the file. "And when asked about the war, she's on the record as having been against it." "Against which side?"

Wendell shrugged. "All of it. She said it was a waste of resources and shifters."

"I'm not impressed."

"That seems to be the impression you've given me during this meeting."

Brotherly affection hovered between us as I gave him my best impartial expression. Though Wendell knew me well enough to understand that such a joke was permissible in private. If he had chosen to speak to me like this in front of anyone else, I might have said something-a tap on the wrist, a pat to the shoulder, a glance. My pack knew my gestures.

Or what was left of them.

Wendell rested his hand on my shoulder. "I know, Alpha. I miss them every day."

"We move forward," I stated confidently as I shook his hand away. I stood up from the couch and carried my mug to the kitchen. As I rooted around in the cabinet for a to-go container, I turned my right ear toward Wendell. "Give me a full report later. I'm going to visit my mate."

"At work?"

I nodded. That was where she least expected me to turn up. The best way to determine her character would be to catch her when her guard wasn't up at all.

***

The sun climbed the roof of the stables as I wandered past towering stalks of corn and gentle bristling of leaves. Workers wandered the aisles and collected produce and checked the soil. Since Skye had taken up post as the field manager, she seemed eager to attend her duties, disappearing earlier each morning to go in and work on the schedule.

I knew because Wendell had reported it to me. A wolf such as himself was quiet despite his density, and his task since we'd arrived was to watch the shifters in all their activities-those that were visible. I wasn't a pervert. Nor were my pack members.

Part of my responsibility to my pack-and to Blake's-was to be prepared. After Blake's mother had revealed herself to be a mole, it only made sense for security to amplify their presence. Such things could be undetectable at first. But over time, habits and routines would be established properly and we could pinpoint any suspicious activity.

Paranoia had never been my style. Yet it was worth considering after the four of us got locked up in a basement with a madman doctor committed to exploiting shifter DNA.

I shuddered to think of what had been done to Isaiah or Elias without my knowledge.

I reached the stable doors and swung one side open, thinking it was slightly strange that the doors had been closed at all, seeing as the breeze today was quite lovely. The moment I crossed the threshold, I dove into action-for at the end of the stables was my alleged mate, trapped between a rickety back door and a disturbed horse.

She held up her arms in an X shape and shouted, "Whoa!"

Impulse took over when the horse stood on its back legs. It squealed and kicked its hooves at Skye, sending me into protection mode. I swept Skye out of the way just as the horse came down and stomped the ground where she would have been standing-where her skull would have likely cracked open like a fresh egg on the straw-strewn ground.

Another squeal warned that the horse was frightened by the sudden movement. It kicked back into a stall, bracing its neck as its eyes widened. I rolled Skye away from the danger and yanked her toward the exit, to the doors that weren't shut.

I held her upper arm tightly. "Strange for a barn to have all the doors shut."

"Snow has been extra nervous," she explained, without even sounding winded. She ran gracefully beside me. "She just needs extra love and-" She gasped as she skidded to a halt at the sound of wood snapping. She flipped around, racing back to the danger, disproving the documents I had just read about her personality. "Snow!"

What good was saving her if she was just going to throw herself back at what was going to harm her? Perhaps Wendell had grabbed the wrong information. That couldn't have been her file, could it?

"Skye," I boomed, "stand down-I said, get back!"

Her feet planted firmly into the ground ten feet from the stall where the horse named Snow was going haywire. Hesitance dripped from her stance, yet her body twitched simultaneously as though she was fighting two opposing forces internally. Run toward danger or obey an alpha-which was she about to choose?

Snow screeched and whacked the stall door. Splintered wood littered the ground, the commotion disturbing the horse in the stall across the way. While that one was certainly scared, it was muting its reaction, possibly from good training or to keep the other horse from freaking out even more. Animals weren't my forte and I wouldn't dare pretend to know much about their nature.

A studying vet tech like Skye should have been on top of the situation.

So perhaps the file was correct in some ways. It was hard to tell.

Skye cast a questioning glance at me. Every inch of my body protested what I did next, the response I had as a gut reaction to a woman I didn't know other than what was listed in her light-as-hell file. I nodded.

She stepped toward Snow with her arms raised up and said, "Whoa." This time, her voice was steady. Snow snorted and staggered back, setting her hooves on the ground. She tapped shakily a few times. "Skye," I whispered, "are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Don't move a muscle."

Agitation made its way like a cold wave through my body. Nobody gave me orders. Nobody dared slap a command in my direction. Yet Skye had managed not only to do that, but to get me to chill out by her word alone.

Something was up with this chick. I wanted to know more.

Without so much as twitching, I whispered, "Are you sure you know what you're doing right now?"

"Don't you trust me?"

I had said that. Last night at dinner while we had held each other by vision alone, I'd expressed my trust in her-purely because of my trust in Blake.

She was calling me out on my word.

My fingers curled tightly into my palms. "Yes," I managed, through clenched teeth.

She shuffled forward with her hands up, radiating calm energy like a soothing balm. Snow nickered and retreated back into her stall. She kicked some wooden boards aside and ultimately remained level to the ground. If she stood on her back legs again, I would have to race over there halfway shifted.

I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to cause the horse more stress than she'd already experienced. While it wasn't in my nature to defer to animals who were prey to my wolf, I also wasn't in the habit of terrifying creatures just because I was capable of doing it. That was the work of evil men.

And despite the fact that I had lost my pack to an army, I wasn't evil. I was simply lost.

Maybe Skye could help with that.

I scooted forward as unimposingly as possible. Skye managed to smooth her hands over the horse's snout, inspiring Snow to nod slightly. Once she got Snow under control, Skye led the horse to another stall and locked her inside. She sighed with relief and collapsed against a nearby column.

Now that Snow was safely locked up, I could fast-forward my movements and grab Skye by the hips. Golden brown highlighted her blonde hair that rested wildly around her ears from tousling with a horse. Taupe eyes exploded with dark orange around the irises, reminding me of furious volcanoes erupting magnificent lava and soot. Her round face was more youthful than anticipated, and her thick body curved in all the right places, drawing my hands to wander, prompting me to take liberties with touch that I might not have done with anyone else.

She stared up at me with her mouth hanging open, lips painted slightly from her licking her lips and drawing me into a trance. She was doing something to me that no one else could have managed. Even the most attractive women weren't capable of holding my attention. She wasn't wearing anything spectacular, just a t-shirt and leggings like she had last night.

Skye wasn't an impressive woman. So why, with all the capabilities of the gods, were they forcing me to be compelled by her? "What?" she asked, her voice cracking on the last letter so it hardly existed at all. "Did I do something?" "You're a nut."

Her brows turned toward each other. "You listen here, you sack of proud alpha meat. I don't know what you're up to, but I'm perfectly equipped to handle an animal getting out of hand. You don't have to swoop in like a bodyguard and-" "Gods, would you just shut up already?"

I stole her mouth then and there. I swallowed the noises of rejection, pressing into her so hard that I had to back her into a wall just to keep her from hitting the ground. Plush and warm, pliable and sweet-she made it difficult to resist. Her heat wrapped around my thighs intensified what I'd felt earlier.

That I should protect her. That I should keep her.

If not forever, then for a temporary time as I reigned over the rebirth of my pack.

The time didn't matter as long as I could convince her to stay.