Page 52 of Cruel Alpha

I frowned, not understanding.

“The knot,” he clarified, and I huffed a little giggle, pressing a kiss to his chest.

“I started drinking witch tea after last time,” I told him, resting my chin on his chest so I could look at him properly. His eyes were wide with shock, but there was a little smile curling at the edge of his mouth.

“Planning on a repeat performance?” he asked, and I shrugged.

“I knew you’d come through for us in the end,” I said. “You’re my mate.” That was what I’d told myself when I’d asked Julia if she knew where I could get ahold of some, anyway. I was so indescribably, incandescently glad that I’d been right.

“But twin toddlers are enough for now?” he asked, and I smiled. I knew he’d understand.

“For now,” I agreed.

It was all too easy, then, to drift off to sleep. I was warm and safe, held in my mate’s arms.

Epilogue - Caleb

Three Months Later

The windows of the Alpha’s residence glowed with warm light as I approached, and I hoped that I never grew completely used to it. I’d become so accustomed to returning after a long day to find it cold and empty and too big for only me; knowing that I would open the door to noise and activity and my mate’s warm embrace was a blessing I never wanted to take for granted.

“Daddy!”

Twin voices shrieked with excitement as I closed the door behind me, and I was never going to takethatfor granted, either. It hadn’t been easy to explain to Jack and Emmy that I was their father—they’d had a lot of innocent questions that didn’t have innocent answers—but in the last month or so, they’d embraced our new family dynamic, and my heart filled with pride every time their little voices called out to me.

Emmy was the first to appear, barreling down the hallway as fast as her little legs would carry her and smashing into my left leg, wrapping her arms tight around it. Her face was covered in brown splotches, and when Jack appeared, his face was similarly decorated.

“What you got on your face, squirt?” I asked, scooping him up with one arm and securing Emmy on my leg with the other. She’d quickly discovered that standing on Daddy’s foot while he walked around was her favorite game, and I was happy to indulge her.

“Choccat pudding!” Jack announced proudly. We could only get chocolate from the mainland, so they didn’t have it often, but when they did, it was carnage.

“Yummy,” I said. “Is there any left for me?”

“Nuh-uh,” yelled Emmy, her denial morphing into a squeal of delight as I picked up my foot and took a step forward. She clung to my leg, smearing leftover pudding all over my pants. These ones needed a wash anyway.

In the kitchen, Alyssa was busy gathering plates and cups off the table, wiping down the sticky mess that the twins’ dinner had left in its wake. She smiled at me—wide and sunny and beautiful—as she dumped the dishes in the sink and picked up a clean, damp cloth.

Standing on her tiptoes to press a long, soft kiss against my lips, she slipped the cloth into my free hand.

“Since you interrupted clean-up,” she said, “you can get the pudding off their faces.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The rest of the evening routine was like clockwork. As much as the island needed me in the wake of the Arbor attack, I wasn’t above using Liam, Nate, and my other Betas to ensure that anything that needed doing after sunset was someone else’s problem. After two years of absence, I needed to be with my family.

Maybe it was short-sighted to think I’d never get bored of bubble baths and bedtime stories, but for now, I cherished every one. Sure, some were easier to cherish than others, and I quickly learned that when Emmy didn’t want to go to bed, she was willing to set things on fire to avoid it, but even the hardships of family life felt sacred to me.

Equally as sacred was the time after the twins went to bed, when Alyssa would prepare our evening meal while I built a fire in the fireplace. It wouldn’t be long before spring was in full bloom, and the fire was no longer necessary, but there was still enough of a chill in the evening air to warrant it, and I had grown attached to this little routine of ours. There had never been softness in this house, but Alyssa had somehow managed to turn the dark and empty mausoleum of my childhood into a warm and cozy home that I could hardly wait to return to at the end of the day.

“How are the girls getting on?” Alyssa asked, placing a steaming bowl of shepherd’s pie in front of me. It was the twins’ favorite, and mine too.

“Better than I expected,” I admitted. My mate and my sister had launched a coordinated attack in order to convince me that I could use some of the stronger females in the Pack to take over the jobs of dead or injured males, and I’d agreed with the expectation that the whole endeavor would fail. To my surprise, however, the females turned up on the first day ready for work, and despite the blisters on their soft hands and the aches in their muscles, they continued to push through, impressing me with their dedication.

The main problem had been the males. If there were females working the quarry, they argued, how would lower-ranking males prove their worth? How would they show themselves to be a good and worthy mate? I was still working on that: I didn’t think Alyssa was wrong when she said that kindness and respect were often more important to a female than how strong her mate was, but it was going to take work for that kind of thinking to sink in with the men of Lapine.

Perhaps once the quarry workers saw the success that the males who had moved into elder care were having with the females, they might be more convinced. Only a few of our males were injured in such a way that meant they could never return to work at the quarry, but those who had were now relegated to “female work”. Most hadn’t been pleased about it, but those who had taken to their tasks well had suddenly found themselves surrounded by admiring females.

“See,” Alyssa told me, smug. “I’m always right.”

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