Page 11 of The Alpha King's Mate

I snorted but did as he asked. His eyes never left my form as I stripped down. My lion burst from me, eager to see his mate up close and personal. I padded toward Ryan slowly, forcing my will on my beast.

The anger, the rage, the bloodthirsty craving for violence—none of it came to the surface once he saw his mate.

“Oh, you are a King in all ways, aren’t you? Majestic. Strong. Powerful. I knew you would be.” My beast shuddered as our mate ran his fingers through my mane and then down the length of my spine.

My lion lay on his side and bared his belly.

He didn’t bare his underside to anyone, ever.

“My turn.” Ryan shifted. His bear was black with tinges of cinnamon. As stunning as his human side. We ran for hours. This run was about strengthening our bond. Thickening the tether between us.

Eventually, we shifted back to human and I stood, dumbfounded. Every pissed-off part of me was gone. It would resurface once I got wind of another abuse house but, for now, the rage was quiet, and Ryan had done that for me.

He reached out a hand. “Can you come in? Stay with me tonight?”

My lion lunged at the prospect. “I can’t. I have to go on a mission. I…I’m so damned sorry.”

“Yeah. Always on missions, right? Bad guys to take down.”

I reached around his waist and pulled him to me. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay. I have tons to do. I’ll see you when you get back, though, right?”

“Yes. You will.”

He nodded and his chin quivered.

It killed me to leave him, but I had a job to do.

Chapter Nine

Ryan

We had decided to take it slow, both of us still trying to figure this all out—not because we questioned what was happening but because jumping straight in felt overwhelming. There was so much to digest about everything that had happened. But now that he was gone and at work, I was starting to second-guess the taking-it-slow thing. I longed to be with him, and part of me wondered if it would hurt less if we’d marked each other.

Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, but in either case, the longing to be by his side was powerful.

King had left me with his shirt, the one he’d been wearing moments before we parted ways. At the time, I hadn’t realized how valuable a gift it was. I wore it, scenting him with every breath. It calmed my beast, and I suppose it calmed me as well. But it wasn’t enough. I longed for him to be by my side, to feel his hand in mine, to brush my lips against his.

One thing was for sure, before we mated, we needed to tell the kids what was going on, but I couldn’t really do that until I understood it myself. King and I hadn’t discussed the children—not in a real way. I refused to abandon them, to be less for them than what I already was. But that was a lot to ask of someone: to take on six children who were not only not theirs but not their mate’s as well.

I didn’t foresee that as being a big problem, not really. King loved children and was amazing with them, but even so, it was one more thing that nagged at me. It was as if everything happened all at once, yet nothing had happened, and we were standing in the same spot as before. Although, not completely,because we had at least acknowledged who we were to each other.

And my beast? He’d simmered down. He wasn’t happy about not wearing the alpha’s mark, but he was no longer spiraling—just being grumpy about it. I’d take a grumpy bear any day over what I’d been experiencing.

“Ry-Ry.” Ruthie ran up to me with a cupcake in her hand, her face covered in frosting. “I made this for you at cooking time.”

I looked down at the cupcake. There was no way she hadn’t used her fingers to apply that frosting. None. And the sprinkles? There had to be five servings smooshed into the sugary goodness.

“I see that. Are they good?”

She smiled brightly. “Of course they are. We made them.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that those two things wouldn’t always go together, and I also didn’t have the heart not to eat it when she asked me to. I tried not to think about what went into making it as I pulled the paper off the cupcake, tore it in half, put it back together like a sandwich cookie with the frosting and sprinkles in the middle, and took a big bite.

It was fine. Sure, it probably had a lot of germs and dirt in it, but that made our immune systems stronger, right? And the smile on her face as I told her how wonderful it was made it worth it. By the third bite, I did find myself swallowing part of an eggshell, but so be it. There were far worse things than that.

“Thank you, sweetie. That was delicious.”

---